From Beyond

Lies Maculan

In her work the Austrian artist Lies Maculan transcends temporal boundaries by taking a traditional look at Europe’s legacy and letting it unfurl its effects in the here and now. Her large-scale photographs mounted on aluminium – and with the background excised so as to achieve a three-dimensional effect – confront the viewer with nostalgic images. The exhibition title ‘From Beyond’ is captivating in its paradoxical dichotomy between tradition and future – the latter, for its part, shaped by cultural heritage and simultaneously removed from it.

Maculan’s images of baroque gardens seem to glorify the past. The safe is reminiscent of how life before the Internet and online banking was geographically restricted and thus regionally defined. We stand before the Berlin Wall and before the door to the Admont Abbey Library and ask ourselves critical questions about the effects these changes have had on our identity.