Liliane Lijn believes that a female artist “is a filter, a mirror, a prism, an energy coil. She is subject and object, active and passive. She finds herself the meeting point of opposites”. According to her, this duality reflects the role women play in society, even if a chauvinistic mentality cannot – or does not want to – recognise it. Liliane Lijn. Arise Alive, a retrospective in Vienna, pays homage to the artist and marks the most comprehensive institutional solo presentation of her to date. As such, on display until May 4, 2025, the exhibition offers a comprehensive look at her work, assembling a selection of artworks ranging over six decades – from her early drawings to kinetic pieces and artworks that engage with language and poetry.
Although a pioneer of computer art and light painting, born in New York in 1939, Lijn did not attend an art academy, but she always had a strong sense of purpose. In 1958, she moved to Paris to study archaeology at the Sorbonne University and art history at the École du Louvre. During this time, she started drawing and painting while attending the Surrealist group meetings, where she met French writer, poet, and theorist André Breton. This encounter proved dazzling for Lijn, revealing how artists could completely change the rules of the game – something she had always aspired to do. Lijn likens the artist to Prometheus, “who stole fire from the gods to bring it to mankind”. “Fire [is] our most important tool. For me, the artist is someone who makes tools”, she explains. This idea became central to her practice, leading Lijn to reject the concept of the “instrument” in its strictly scientific sense. Instead, she chose to work at the intersection of visual art, poetry and science for over six decades.
Her early artworks, developed in the late 1950s, emerged within kinetic art and experiments with light, energy, and movement, bridging art and science with the use of technology. These works demonstrate Lijn’s life-long interest in innovative materials, technologies, and the latest scientific discoveries. This research gave rise to a formally diverse artistic practice, unified by her enduring fascination with fundamental questions – how can the invisible be rendered visible? How does the cosmos function? How do cultures emerge?
Time and again, Lijn’s work reveals a search for origins. Yet, instead of singular beginnings, she finds opposites and polarities between which movement emerges, and relationships take root.
Time and again, Lijn’s work reveals a search for origins. Yet, instead of singular beginnings, she finds opposites and polarities between which movement emerges, and relationships take root. For Lijn, these relationships are completely new, perceived as energy equations in which a constant tension between opposite poles creates dynamic, transformative connections.
Technology and poetry
The 1950s and 1960s, particularly in North and South America, marked a period of poetic revival. This resurgence is owed largely to Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari – founder of the Noigandres poetic movement in Brazil – as well as the Beat Generation in the USA. Lijn was deeply influenced by these avant-gardes, particularly the experimental approaches to language and text developed by Beat Generation writers Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs. Gysin, a close friend of Lijn’s, and Burroughs, whom she greatly admired, were known for their use of the cut-up technique – a method of rearranging text to disrupt traditional narrative structures. Inspired by their radical rethinking of language, Lijn combined these literary innovations with the kinetic art she had already been exploring. The result was her Poem Machines series, a collection of works featuring Letraset lettering transferred to a spinning metal cylinder powered by a motor – an early example of the interdisciplinary nature of her practice and her appreciation for the functionality and aesthetics of machines. “When I made Poem Machines, my intention was to explode both prose and poetry, remembering their origin in vibration”, she declared in 2014.
In her dynamic and visual treatment of language, Lijn’s Poem Machines stands at the intersection of two key artistic movements of the mid-twentieth century – kinetic art and concrete poetry. By combining the movement and energy of kinetic structures with the fragmented, visual nature of concrete poetry, Lijn transformed language into a physical and performative experience. Poem Machines attempts to make visible some of the theoretical principles circulating in Parisian intellectual circles at the time, particularly the post-structuralist deconstruction of the relationship between sign (or word) and meaning (the content of the word). In doing so, Lijn challenges the notion of fixed interpretation, embracing the idea that every text possesses a vast range of meanings.
Feminism
When Lijn arrived in Paris in the late 1950s, she encountered an art scene where female artists were rarely visible and seldom taken seriously. Reacting to this exclusionary environment, Lijn began exploring ways to represent the feminine in art.
Starting in 1965, she developed the Koans series. The term koan, derived from Zen Buddhism, refers to a perplexing or paradoxical statement that serves as a tool for meditation and achieving spiritual enlightenment. The series consisted of cone-shaped artworks conceived as metaphors for the dematerialised body and evolved over several decades. In works such as Act As Atom (1966–67), E=mc3 (1968) and Poemkon=D=4=Open=Apollinaire (1968), Lijn adapted the cone shape for her Poem Machines, calling these works Poemcons. Mounted on motorised turntables, these cones feature signs and letters that dissolve as they turn, embodying her fascination with energy, language, and movement.
“When the koans oscillate, the more you look at them, the less you see the body. And that’s what interested me because I was very interested in dematerialisation – in the idea of losing the body”, Lijn explains. “And that was related in a way to being a woman”.
Later examples, including Mars Koan and Three Line Koan (both 2008), consist of opaque white surfaces intersected by fluorescent Perspex elliptical lines. As the cones spin, transparent sections appear to rise and fall, creating shifting curved lines that reference planetary orbital paths. “When the koans oscillate, the more you look at them, the less you see the body. And that’s what interested me because I was very interested in dematerialisation – in the idea of losing the body”, Lijn explains. “And that was related in a way to being a woman”.
The series serves both as a critique of chauvinistic society and mentality, as well as a tribute to the divine perfection of the female body. Originating from the triangle, the cone’s form symbolises harmony, proportion, and dynamic balance. Its dynamic quality derives from its pointed shape – pointing upwards suggests spiritual aspiration; downwards, it represents material manifestation.
In the 1970s, Lijn shifted her focus to sculptures whose forms echoed the female body but were constructed from industrial materials such as aluminium or steel – ones traditionally associated with masculinity. However, she also softened these structures with delicate textures, such as the feathers in Feathered Lady (1979) or the synthetic fibres of a brush in Heshe (1980).
The Female Figures series, begun in 1971, represents a turning point in Liliane Lijn’s practice. Where her previous works featured abstract forms, these almost life-sized sculptures present more explicit representations of the human body. Positioned directly on the ground without plinths, these figures inhabit the same space as the viewer, as equals, as if one could enter into a dialogue with them. They invite the viewer to reflect upon contemporary conceptions of humanity and the gendered associations embedded within them.
Exploring female identity
“Images were like habits – you needed to break them. I was interested in Buddhism and physics – two areas that unite in the questions they evaluate: ‘What is reality and who am I?’ Being a woman was part of that. So I asked myself: ‘Why is a woman different from a man? Why are they mentally apart?’”.
Over the years, Lijn began to understand that equality does not mean similarity, stating that “Diversity is what makes us more equal”. The 1980s were marked by the rise of glamour, fashion, appearance, and stereotypes surrounding the female body. This era saw the reduction of women to mere “sexual dolls” or “background objects”. In reaction to this, Lijn created multimedia sculptures exploring the human body and alternative conceptions of femininity. These works combined the cosmic with the personal and mythology with technology, giving contemporary form to female archetypes. One such work from the late 1980s is Good Mother Bad Mother (1989) in the series Fierce Archetypes – a neo-expressionist painting that explores the duality of the maternal archetype through a metaphor of Nature, expressing both its capacity to care and nurture and its destructive potential.
Through works such as Flower Bride (1987) and Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1987), Lijn worked further to deconstruct the idea of the woman as a passive model, even on her wedding day. Created in the same context, the triptych Transformation of the Bride Into the Medusa (1987) tells the story of a virginal figure who, rejecting the male counterpart, transforms into an autonomous, powerful entity. In this work, the simple pastel forms of the first panel gradually evolve into a complex tangle of threads, symbolising the bride’s transition into a powerful figure. This transformation evokes Bob Dylan’s lyrics: “I heard her say over my shoulder // “We’ll meet again someday on the avenue” // Tangled up in blue”.
Electric Bride (1989), made from materials including aluminium, steel, and blown glass, expresses Lijn’s own empowerment. In it, with the voice of Japanese singer Shirai Takako, the bride whispers a poem in which Lijn references the legend of the Sumerian goddess Inanna and her descent into the underworld, offering a reflection on life, death, and rebirth. This work exemplifies Lijn’s continued exploration of material properties and her ability to combine them in bold, thought-provoking ways.
Lijn’s work, drawing from poetry, the deconstruction of language, and the concept of the koan, promotes free thought and critical judgement, advocating for gender equality.
New paths
Throughout her career, Lijn developed a subtle critique of the industrial-military complex, which, through mass technology use, threatens to manipulate and control individual consciences. This complex doubles as an instrument of patriarchal oppression, against which radical feminism in the 1970s was ultimately insufficient. Lijn’s work, drawing from poetry, the deconstruction of language, and the concept of the koan, promotes free thought and critical judgement, advocating for gender equality. By combining these ideas with technology, she creates “carousels” of light and sound that celebrate the female body and imagine societies that respect individuality, imagination, and the fluidity of identity.
All these works, paths, and ideas are thoroughly and comprehensively explored at the Liliane Lijn. Arise Alive retrospective in Vienna, jointly organised by Mumok (Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) with the Haus der Kunst München, in collaboration with Tate St Ives.
