On the occasion of the first retrospective dedicated to James Lee Byars by an Italian museum, Pirelli HangarBicocca presents the conceptual artist to the public with a wide selection of emblematic works that harmoniously blend geometric and minimal shapes with unusual and refined materials such as marble, velvet, gold leaf, precious woods. The American artist, one of the most recognized from the 1960s to today, has given life, in his thirty-year career, to a singular language that combines symbols and motifs from oriental cultures, such as elements of Noh Theater and Zen Buddhism, with his deep knowledge of Western art and philosophy. The use of different media, from sculpture to installation, from performance to drawing, has allowed the artist to explore the boundaries between body and spirit and to reflect on the concepts of community and mysticism through large-scale interventions that directly involve the public.
