Brâncuși vs. the United States

The current Constantin Brâncuși exhibition at the Pompidou Centre reminded me to return briefly to Len Lye’s 1925 marble sculpture Unit (also known early on as Two-in-One). Unit (above right) is explicitly a homage to Brâncuși’s The Kiss (above left) with its two lovers locked tight in an embrace but with a vorticist influence. In New Zealand, during the early 1920s, Lye had encountered Henri Gaudier-Brezeska’s work in books and magazines before turning his hand to sculpture in Syndey in 1925 under the tutelage of Rayner Hoff.

Arriving in London at the end of 1926, Lye’s entrance into the British avant-garde was possible with such a work under his arm. The sculpture was exhibited just a few months after Lye’s arrival in London, included in the 7th Seven and Five Society exhibition (1927) with the title Stone Carving. Curiously, a comment in the diary of fellow sculptor Kanty Cooper suggests Lye may have been still working on Unit following his arrival in London: “He was working in Eric Kennington’s yard on a stone shape”. No other stone sculptures are documented in Lye’s oeuvre. The photograph above is the earliest documentation of Unit. Although undated, the photograph was, in my opinion, made in the UK and likely indicates Lye was still working on Unit after leaving Sydney (perhaps removing the foot seen in the image).

Another curious detail about Unit came from Lye himself. The following comments were made by Lye in an interview with Wystan Curnow in the late 1970s. Lye outlines his journey from Sydney to London and the passage of Unit through customs.

L.L.: Well, after I'd been in London, I grabbed a little room to rent in Chelsea. I smuggled my carvings, which I did in Auckland - marble and terra cotta - I did some terra cotta and so on in Sydney, you see. I went from Sydney. I got the ship's papers off a fellow named Tom Harris. You paid 5 pounds and bought his papers from him. He was going to jump ship, and didn't want them anyhow. But you can sell those things, so he sold them to me. And I got his job. He was a trimmer on the liner Euripedes. That's a White Star Liner, 22,000 tons. So I got this job. I took aboard with me a wooden case, that had my sculptures, my belongings and everything. Because I had heard about Brancusi wasn't allowed in the US. . .

W.C.: So you knew about Brancusi in Sydney. . .

L.L.: Oh, yeah. I tell you, I got it right from the library. I knew about the Futurists, I knew about the Fauves, I knew about everything that was going. That's why libraries are an absolute cinch for kids. You've just got to have them if you want social evolution. How the hell are you going to get it evolving? So you start where the other guy left off, in evolution. So. I smuggled in my stuff. I waited till all the other people - we got paid off, I didn't jump ship in London. I fulfilled what's his name's, Harris's, assignment by getting back to London.

W.C.: So you knew about Brancusi in Sydney. . .

L.L.: Yeah. I went out and found the guy with the horse and cart. There was a van, kind of covered in canvas, van. Just the usual four wheels. Short little van. And I made a bargain with him for five bob: would he take me through the gate with my crate. He said, sure. So, you go back, get your crate, get another guy to help you down with this crate, and this guy waiting with the horse and stuff, and you put it into his van, pull the van canvas over it, and the cop tells you to - what you got in there? It's something to do with an assignment of something. So the van man is really my cover man and he smuggled this stuff through. There was no need to smuggle it after all. But I was playing safe. You go up and you say: Well, I'll make it extra if you'll take me down to Chelsea. So, it is a helluva long way. So, then, I get him to wait on the corner of the street while I go around and look for a room to rent, you see? So I find a little room, and he helps me into the room with this bloody great crate.

Lye’s comment about Brâncuși references the seizure of the artist’s L’Oiseau dans l’espace sculpture by customs authorities while on its way into the United States for an exhibition at New York’s Brummer Gallery organised by Marcel Duchamp. Works of art were free to enter the United States without a tariff. Challenging the traditional understanding of sculpture, Brâncuși’s abstract work was classified as a utilitarian object and received a 40% tariff. Brâncuși successfully challenged the decision in a landmark court case centred on the question of “what is art?”.

While Lye possibly encountered Brâncuși in Sydney via a copy of This Quarter (Issue 1, 1925) which featured a considerable photographic survey of the artist’s sculpture, he is incorrect about the chronology of Brâncuși’s troubles with US customs. Lye left Sydney in late September 1926 and arrived in London at the end of November. Brâncuși’s work was seized in October and the artist advised in February 1927. The trial took place in 1928. It’s definitely a case of Lye conflating facts known at a later date into his biography.