Black Koan
Black Koan (1990) is part of a series of cone-shaped artworks by Liliane Lijn. They engage with her long-standing interest in kinetic art forms, with the sculptural iterations designed to spin. The motion of spinning makes the horizontal sections appear to rise and form and thereby lose form. The falling arcs etched on the surface of Black Koan allude to such movement.
‘Kōan’ is a Japanese word derived from Zen Buddhism to describe a paradox to be meditated upon. In the case of Lijn’s work, koans are a means to focus the mind in order to invite new perspectives, specifically upon female identity. Lijn , ‘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 dematerialization — in the idea of losing the body. And that was related in a way to being a woman.’