What a pleasure to discover the artist Len Lye through the brilliant exhibition installed in your Los Angeles store. When and where did you first come across his work?
Dries Van Noten: The enormity of the cloud that is COVID-19 was new and dark in our lives when we began to conceive of this collection. We were all in lockdown at home; working by Zoom. Our collective instinct was that our work needed to be very simple, fresh, and optimistic. I was seeking inspiration from a beauty devoid of nostalgia, an energetic and optimistic beauty. We looked at a lot of works, lights, colours, and movement.
At first, I did not know much about Len Lye’s work. When I was researching related ideas online, Len’s name came up often and so we looked deeper into his work and found it was exactly the mood we wanted to express and share.
The use of colour and patterns is such a leitmotif in your work.
Were you first drawn to the idea of incorporating the colour palette and motifs of the films of Len Lye into a collection? And how did you apply them? Was it complementing previous ideas for the show or was it the basis itself?
Dries Van Noten: Well the two approaches convene and clearly propel each other. We really tried to capture the powerful essence of his work. We contacted the Len Lye foundation in New Zealand, and they were very open to working together. It really was about embracing the full breadth of Len’s vision. The craft of how he created prints directly on the celluloid, the scratching, the stencilling, and painting on the film. I was also fascinated by his essays on the art that moves. We were allowed to make different colour combinations, whilst still respecting his atmosphere and signature in combining colours. The Foundation provided us with great support, trust and flexibility, which was of huge value.
Reading about Len Lye I got such a sense of his joyous bohemian sensibility and rich enjoyment of life. It reminded me of what I know of the personality of Verner Panton, who you also honoured with a recent menswear collection.
Both of them are pioneering modernists! Are your collaborations also a celebration of the personality of the artist as well as the art?
Dries Van Noten: I like to pay homage to pioneering artists and their influential work. The work is the powerful expression of their vision and that is often sufficient. Though I am certainly interested in the life of the artist it is not always easy to get a full grasp of their character through work, especially posthumously. Len Lye knew so many different people and lived in so many different cities and yet at the end, he and his work was not so well known. He dedicated his career to affect people physically and emotionally and I think that is something we have tried to perpetuate and share. Assuring the transfer of the power of artwork on fabric is also an important consideration in respecting an artist’s character and vision.
The catalogue and postcards featuring the photographs of Viviane Sassen associated with the collection are so well designed and beautifully produced. Am I correct in thinking that the use of the spot varnish throughout is in homage to the medium of celluloid film that Len Lye worked directly with to produce his experimental films?
Dries Van Noten: Yes, indeed! Light reflected and refracted expressed in a close and tangible way in the book through the use of the varnish, as well as a play on darkness, colour and brightness, was a reference to celluloid and projection. It imparts thé impression of movement on paper. We sought to engage these contrasts. The book provided a valuable opportunity to allow our collection to pay homage to both Len Lye and Viviane Sassen’s influential work both individually and together.
Len Lye and Viviane Sassen is on show at Dries Van Noten LA until June 20, 2021
Films below courtesy of the Len Lye Foundation
driesvannoten-la.com