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Liliane Lijn is known for her kinetic (moving) sculptures and early incorporation of new technologies and materials into artmaking from the 1960s. Lijn studied Archaeology at the Sorbonne and Art History at the École du Louvre in Paris (1958), followed by an artist residency at a plastics factory in New York where she experimented with fire and acids as artistic material. Lijn exhibited her first kinetic light work whilst living in Paris (1963–4). She settled in London in 1966, where she continues to work across a variety of media including collage, film, performance, and sculpture. In her artistic practice, Lijn seeks to uncover the essence of reality through an exploration of the poetic relation between art, science, technology, Eastern philosophy, and feminine mythology. About her career, Lijn explains: ‘It was around 1980 when I realised that [feminist mythology] was what really interested me… I want to find a new way of looking at the feminine and to bring into that everything: plants, animals, humans and machines.’ (2014) Openness to change is another important component of her artistic exploration — the idea that change is not destruction, nor is creation keeping things the same. 

Selected Collections

Bradford Art Galleries and Museums

Castle Museum, Nottingham

The British Museum

Further Reading

Lijn, Liliane, “Imagine the Goddess! A Rebirth of The Female Archetype in Sculpture,” Leonardo 20, no. 2 (April 1987): 123-130.

Moloney, Ciara,  “Liliane Lijn: Reinventing the Archetype,” Flash Art 332 (Autumn 2020).

Sweeney, Grainne, Liliane Lijn, and Richard Wilding (eds.). Liliane Lijn: Cosmic Dramas. Middlesbrough: Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, 2012.