Allegory of the Akropolis, printed marble, 2019, 100 x 40 cm
At the base of the Akropolis stands a marble statue of Melina Mercourie, singer and minister for culture, responsible for building the new museum and starting the campaign for the return of the Parthenon marbles. She is depicted with a statue depicting the allegorical figure of the Akropolis with a castellated crown and chained feet.
Athena blowing up the Louvre
Print on sheered marble slab, 100 x 40 cm, 2018
Photographed at the Louvre in Paris this indomitable image of the Goddess Athena is poised for destruction.
De-Stress Flare
160 x 130cm, mixed media on Hahnemühle paper, 2018
This work is part of Liane Lang's series of images using female allegorical and symbolic statues. The title is a play on words, incorporating both possibilities: total relaxation and extreme distress. The work is 160 x 125cm, an overpainted photograph on Hahnemühle paper.
The work shows the Women’s Fountain. Situated in a suburb of Madrid, the fountain occupies an inauspicious traffic island, surrounded by high rise housing and shopping centres. The bronze figures show women of all ages employed in various stages of reproduction, from the caring elder sister to the exuberance of achieving fertility, to the lover, mother and grandmother.
In typical tradition of figurative sculpture it is somewhat literal and moralistic, giving it an aspect of involuntary comedy. Lang’s interventions play up the surreal and ridiculous, a flare of coloured pigment emanates from the nubile youth in the centre, perhaps a distress flare or celebratory firework. In the foreground is a lady taking to the waters, perhaps the unmarried sister. Not far beneath the levity of this image lurk its darker connotations. The fountain retains some sinister relevance in its simple and reductive symbolism, as none of its clichés are yet quite dead.
Please get in touch via the contact page for seeing further works in any of the series.