Liliane Lijn
| Liliane Lijn | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 22, 1939 New York, United States |
| Residence | London |
| Alma mater | Sorbonne and Ecole du Louvre |
| Occupation | Artist |
Liliane Lijn (born 22 December 1939), is an American-born artist who was the first woman artist to work with kinetic text (Poem Machines), exploring both light and text as early as 1962. She has lived in London since 1966.
Utilising highly original combinations of industrial materials and artistic processes, Lijn is recognised for pioneering the interaction of art, science, technology, eastern philosophy and female mythology. Lijn is particularly known for her timeless, cone-shaped Koan series. In conversation with Fluxus artist and writer, Charles Dreyfus, Lijn stated that she primarily chose to ‘see the world in terms of light and energy’. Lijn describes her work as ‘A constant dialogue between opposites, my sculptures use light and motion to transform themselves from solid to void, opaque to transparent, formal to organic.’
Lijn was born in New York City, four months after her mother and grandmother had arrived by boat from Antwerp. Both Lijn’s parents, Helena Nuischa Kustanovich and Herman Segall (cousin of Zvi Segall and an active Revisionist Zionism), were from Russian Jewish families, and the family lived at 697 West End Ave. Manhattan with her younger brother Dennis Leroy Segall (who is the founder of CRYS, Coalition for the Reform of Youth Services, and currently resides in Tampa, Florida). At the age of 9, her parents separated and Lijn was sent to a progressive boarding school, Hickory Ridge (which was subsequently burnt down), before attending a more conventional school in Pennsylvania. During Lijn’s sophomore year, her father moved to Geneva and took Lijn and her brother with him. Lijn’s mother decided to move to Lugano to be near her children. Lijn lived with her mother and went to school in Lugano, becoming fluent in French and Italian. She left school a year and a half before graduating, precipitated by a life-changing encounter with Nina Thoeren, her former classmate, whose mother was a Surrealist painter.
In 1958 Lijn studied archaeology at the Sorbonne and Art History at the Ecole du Louvre, in Paris. At the same time Lijn began to draw and paint, (although she didn’t attend art school), whilst taking part in meetings of the Surrealist group, where she met the French writer, poet and theorist André Breton.
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