James Lee Byars

James Lee Byars

(Detroit, Michigan, 1932 – Cairo, Egypt, 1997)

Starting from his interest in Eastern philosophies, cultures and religions, artist James Lee Byars has developed a personal visual language that is based on simple shapes with deep symbolic value, such as the geometric figures of circle and sphere, cylinder and pyramid. Materials and colors are also relevant on a symbolic level, such as marble, velvet or black and gold. In a special way, gold is a cosmic symbol: in Byzantine and Gothic painting it uniformly determines the background of the compositions and refers to infinity and divinity.

The work The Wand, 1989, is an almost 17-meter-long pole, covered in gold, that spans the height of the entire staircase of the Castello di Rivoli. Straight towards the sky, pointing beyond the actual and physical space of the building, it is meant to bring the visitor’s attention to infinite space.