Industrial Landscapes

1971

56 x 78cm

5 silkscreen prints from newspaper clippings and photographs taken by Liliane Lijn. Printed by Chris Battamba at Advanced Graphics.

Produced by Bernard Jacobsen in an edition of 75.

Private and Public Collections

Fascinated by the processes and images of industry and in particular the network of industry which creates and distributes electricity, the energy upon which our society is based, Liliane Lijn created this series of silkscreen prints. Lijn feels that the forms of the energy industry, ie cooling towers, oil refineries, electrical transformers, are symbols related to our inner landscape.

Machines for transformation and production are seen simply as a means to an end, split off from any deeper meaning or connection with the inner lives of men and women. Our only feelings for these steel and concrete behemoths are fear and loathing as they threaten to pollute and destroy our natural environment.

These landscapes of Cooling Towers and Power Stations are surreal in that the shapes of these functional structures seem alien to our familiar cityscapes.

We are harnessing invisible forces often without knowing exactly what they are or how they work. We know how to make them work for us and that, like symptomatic medicine, seems good for the moment.

Photographs by Stephen Weiss