Accession Code: wu0545 Title: Black Koan Date completed: 1990 Medium: Prints Material: Etching Height (mm): 1010 Width (mm): 770 Depth (mm): n/a Inscription: Signed, inscribed with title, Artist's proof Location Name: Picture Store Location Description: Location Floor: 0

Liliane Lijn came to prominence as an artist in Paris in 1959. She experimented with the new materials of the age such a plastics and with the emerging technologies of the period. She gave alternative meanings to the sculpture of the period with her playful and ecstatic Koans, conical sculptures - some more than eight metres high - enriched by neon, text and movement.

Their imagery is a nexus of a number of sources: the Greek goddess of the hearth, Hestia, who is represented by a cone of white ash, and Mount Meru, a sacred mountain in Hindu and Buddhist mythology which is considered to be the centre of the universe and the home of Brahma. A koan is a story, question, or statement in the teachings of Zen Buddhism, generally containing ideas that are inaccessible to rational comprehension, yet which may be intuitively understood; for example, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

The artist presented these etchings to the University to raise funds for the restoration of her White Koan which stands outside Warwick Arts Centre.