SYLVIA KOUVALI PRESENTS “THE PAESTUM COLLAGES” BY LILIANE LIJN

It is with great joy to announce the gallery’s fourth exhibition with Liliane Lijn. In the works on paper on view, titled The Paestum Collages that date from 2011 to 2012, Lijn explores the replacement of the sacred by the industrial.

With astonishment, while visiting Athens forty years after living there in the early ‘60s, Lijn discovered the development that had taken place on the Sacred Way, the road that connected the Temple of Athena with the site of ancient Eleusis.

The chimneys and the pollution now dominated what was once an idyllic landscape full of eucalyptus trees, lakes and endless beaches, the ideal beauty of a site connecting two sacred holy places, both dedicated to female goddesses. Wisdom and fertility had been taken over by machines, lights, flames, roaring sounds of trucks and infected lungs of working men. The artist got access to two major industrial complexes in the area (a refinery and a steel manufacturer) and generated a series of photos and videos there.