This article is a brief portrait of the woman behind the scenes of history's greatest American spectacles during the Chicago Art Movement in the 1970's and 1980's. Her new work "Timing of the Birds" is on sale here.
Color photographs of small birds decorated the wall in a grid behind Eleftheria Lialios, a veteran professor and intellectual who has been photographing America, and the world, since the 1960’s. Eleftheria immigrated to America from war-torn Albania with her Greek family in the 1940’s, escaped her religiously orthodox family in search for Western culture, and eventually led a liberated life of intellectualism, fine arts, photography, and teaching at the Arts Institute of Chicago. At an experienced age, Eleftheria continues the same noble journey that she embarked on when she first got a hold of a camera in the 1960’s, to know herself. These days she focuses on organizing her prolific portfolio and completing 75 laps at her local community swimming pool every morning. It was clear that when I started asking about what it was like being the Public Relations Photographer for the Art Institute of Chicago, which would have involved a lot of experience with famous people and intellectuals in the 1970's and 1980's, that the cult of celebrity and materialism was something of low importance. As she centred herself on her webcam, it was clear that the veteran feminist of Chicago's famous 1970's art movements would have a lot to say about the America she has seen grow in front of her.
Eleftheria stopped to drink her tea as she remembered studying baboons in Detroit in 1978. I wanted to begin the interview with a career origin story. Eleftheria spent half her time working with Vietnam war veterans for the mayor and the other half photographing the baboons for a researcher. "It was stressful", she said — she was referring to working with the mayor not the baboons. " I was paid a lot of money too", she followed up, "in retrospect I should have finished the position, but got interested in photography." The researcher wanted her to take pictures of the baboons so there could be further analysis done on their behaviour and the camera excited her.
From 1985 - 1992, Eleftheria was the public relations photographer for the Art Institute of Chicago. I asked her if she had any eye opening experiences being able to frequent such various and intense social spheres. "Well, I had already worked in hospitals being I was interested in breaking barriers." She wanted to see who she was with the camera. "It became dangerous when I would go to dangerous parts of Detroit as well. I wanted to photograph certain areas that were dangerous." The centre of Detroit at the time was a hotspot for prostitution, drugs, and crime. Danger was not unique, given that around the same time her work with the National Public Radio (NPR) would attract homegrown terrorists. Eleftheria's radio program called All Together Now focused on women’s issues. Beginning with the Beatles song of the same name, the show would discuss how women could empower themselves medically, professionally, and psychologically. "Some guy called in once and said he planted a bomb in the building and they have to evacuate", she said. The guy had said "if they don't get this bitch off the air, [I will detonate]. Eleftheria refused, "I told them I'm not getting off [the show]". Time had passed and he called again. He had apparently planted a second bomb. They eventually had to leave. "Talk about terrorism", Eleftheria told me, "it 's always been around". Once I saw Eleftheria was a woman that had defied a lot of expectations of her as an immigrant woman in America, there was a sense of admiration that needed to be addressed concerning the freedom with which Eleftheria defied forces that meant to imprison her. I needed to know what was behind a personality which would complete more than 300 exhibits, defy misogynistic terrorists on her NPR show, photograph Andy Warhol, and continue to create conceptual art — all while keeping up with those 75 laps in the swimming pool. At the heart of her experiences was a recurring word, freedom. She told me her parents escaped Albania in 1945 during the civil war after the second world war there had ended. The maternal side of the families came out when most of the women helped with the escape from shooting fire in the mountains. Constant struggle and the need to adapt kept Eleftheria's family alive. Once she was born and her father had the chance to go to America, the mother named their daughter the Greek word for "freedom" — Eleftheria.
I finally asked Eleftheria what she was going to name the collection of photographs behind her. She turned around and laughed, "Well I can't called it Hitchcock's Birds". After a few chuckles I had asked again in a different way. "If you had to choose title now, what would it be". "Great question, thank for asking that", she said, "It would have to be the timing of the birds...I like that I'm gonna write that down." "Industry, People, Religion, Nature dominate your work, would you agree?", I asked, "what inspired the Timing of the Birds?". She answered immediately, "The whole thing about timing, photographing them in a moment that can't be repeated again, knowing it won't occur again. A moment that is gone is then in my control, I select what is included." She would later tell me that she photoshops out the feeder, so she can see the birds in their bare form. "[These days] art is made on a commodity basis so that inspiration has become a commodity as opposed to inspiration becoming form.", she said. In an age of blatant populism and art made for profit, Eleftheria stands as one of the few artists who has been able to participate in the highest social, intellectual, and artistic social spheres in history without fetishizing them. Her rich existence stood as a million-ton gem in a classic Chicago neighbourhood by the park, a shining light against the darkness of a flashy and distracted age. I asked her what her next project will be for such a prolific person. Away from all the noise of politics and academia, her next sights are set on creating stylized transparent birdhouses which create silhouettes of the birds that enter them. Her refusal to join narcissistic artists, vapid populism, and materialistic pop-culture, has led to life of freedom, like her name
( I met Eleftheria through the love of my life and partner, who is her daughter, when I visited her home in Chicago, Winter 2017. The interview was done through video-call, Fall 2018. )