No Trouble

This exhibition charts the early years of Lye’s career, observing his childhood in Aotearoa New Zealand and first steps as an artist in Wellington before an offshore departure that took the artist to Australia, Samoa and on to the United Kingdom.

The title of the exhibition is shared with Lye’s first published piece of writing, a collection of letters penned by Lye and published in London in 1929. No Trouble marked the emergence of Lye as an artist with a broad practice, more than that of the master filmmaker of the 1930s or the kinetic sculptor of the 1960s recognized so well today. These earlier years saw the artist engaged with a practice that ranged across poetry, painting, photography and philosophy.