Len Lye Centre

Len Lye was born in Christchurch in 1901, spent most of his working life in London and New York, and made two things almost nobody else was making: direct film, painted and scratched straight onto the celluloid without a camera, and kinetic sculpture - motorised steel forms that whip, ring and thrash. He left his work and archive to New Zealand, and the Govett-Brewster in New Plymouth holds it. The Len Lye Centre, opened in 2015 alongside it, was built specifically for that collection: a facade of curved stainless steel mirror that distorts the street back at you, and inside, spaces engineered to let the kinetic works run - some are loud, some need a room to themselves, and they operate on scheduled cycles rather than continuously. That scheduling is the practical point: check the times for the sculpture programme, because arriving between cycles means seeing still metal.

History

The gallery began with a gift of £50,000 from the New Plymouth resident Monica Brewster in 1962, and its first director, the 24-year-old Australian John Maynard, arrived in 1967 to build a gallery of contemporary art. It opened on 22 February 1970 in the converted Regent cinema with Leon Narbey's exhibition Real Time (Wikipedia, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery).

The main sights

• The mirror facade - curved stainless steel distorting the street.
• The kinetic sculptures - motorised steel that moves, on scheduled cycles.
• The direct films - scratched and painted onto celluloid without a camera.
• The Govett-Brewster - the contemporary gallery it adjoins.

When to go

Any season - it is indoors. Check the kinetic programme times; the works run on a schedule and are still between cycles. Closed some weekdays.

Things to know

Ticketed. The sculptures do not run continuously - miss the cycle and you see static objects. Some works are genuinely loud. It is a contemporary art gallery and the programme is demanding.

Nearby

Puke Ariki and the Coastal Walkway are minutes away; Pukekura Park is uphill.

Key facts