The Sky is not the Limit
De Morgen
Brussels, 23 December 2013
“For both angels and astronauts, the sky is the limit. Mir effortlessly blends the two, backed by a quote from Galileo Galilei, who stated that he had learned more from divine grace than from telescopes in his discoveries”
By Jozefien Van Beek
Madonna and child flanked by ascending rockets, Jesus on the moon next to the American flag. These are collages by Aleksandra Mir. She humorously resolves the contradiction between science and religion.
The Swedish-American artist Aleksandra Mir has been fascinated by space travel since the beginning of her career. Museum M brings together a number of works in the small but fascinating exhibition The Space Age.
In her collage series The Dream and the Promise, she mixes Catholic iconography with images from NASA. For both angels and astronauts, the sky is the limit. Mir effortlessly blends the two, backed by a quote from Galileo Galilei, who stated that he had learned more from divine grace than from telescopes in his discoveries.
A collage shows three shepherd children. In a meadow with sheep, they sit devoutly on their knees, hands in prayer, as if a divine apparition had descended. But their idol is a rocket taking off with a lot of smoke. These beautiful and funny collages raise serious questions: Do we now worship science instead of God? Do we blindly follow researchers as we did religion in the past?
The same mix of humour and seriousness is presented in the 1999 video First Woman on the Moon, as a feminist response to Neil Armstrong. Following President Kennedy's call to send a man to the moon before the end of the 1960s, Mir begins her mission to get a woman on the moon before the end of the millennium. She stages a moon landing on a beach in the Netherlands. With the help of a team of volunteers, she recreates a lunar landscape, complete with craters and mountains of sand. This allows her to be the first woman to set foot on the moon and plant an American flag, with the legendary words “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” recorded on the tape. After the performance, we see children playing in the lunar landscape. It is this playful shield that gives Mir's work its great appeal.
This is also the case in the video Gravity, in which the artist builds a 22-meter-high rocket out of waste material. The film starts with the unmistakable words: “In the 20th century, men dreamed about spaceflight. Today, some women still do.”
Phallus, right?
But she does not deny that she needs the help of men to do this: To the tune of What a Feeling from the film Flashdance, she puts male technicians and engineers to work. Theatrical lighting, smoke machines, slow-motion images, and the eighties soundtrack create a heroic atmosphere. A man pulls on metal chains with his shirt off. Other men work with heavy machinery. Slightly slowed-down images show three men walking side by side through a gigantic warehouse, like astronauts on a mission. The men are reluctant to flex their super-masculine muscles. And Mir plays that male-female opposition to the full. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees a phallic symbol in the slowly growing rocket.
The film's corny aesthetic and eighties soundtrack testify to a healthy dose of irony. The impressive rocket, constructed from steel, fiberglass, large tractor tires, and industrial fans, testifies – just like another film, in which she stacks large tires on top of each other until the tower collapses – to a thorough form of playfulness. In case you haven't understood yet: Aleksandra Mir is a woman after our own hearts.
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The Madonna dressed in richly coloured robes is holding her Child with the face of the planet Saturn. This tender Fine Art Print reproduces an original hand-cut paper collage by the artist Aleksandra Mir.
The restraint of the intervention — one perfectly placed astronomical image doing all the work — shows a very assured artistic hand. The halos that would traditionally crown both mother and child in a Madonna and Child composition have been replaced with a single image of Saturn and its rings, positioned so the planet rings encircle both their heads simultaneously like a shared crown.
The new artwork combines source materials from antique religious and modern scientific imagery into a new physical and fantastical reality that is deeply moving. The rings of Saturn — one of the most awe-inspiring sights in astronomy — become an emblem of the bond between mother and child. The infinite and the intimate held in the same frame. The worn, cracked paper grounds it in time and mortality, while Saturn speaks of cosmic permanence.
Giclée pigment ink on Hahnemühle German Etching paper achieves a superior quality print with exceptional detail, vibrant color accuracy, and long-term durability. The fresh print reproduces an aged authentic patina and the imprint of the artist’s hand-crafted marks.
· Archival Museum Quality ·
· Limited Edition. 100 ·
· Certificate of Authenticity ·
· Hand & Human-Made without AI ·
· 100% Carbon Neutral ·
· Free Worldwide Shipping ·
A cluster of cherubs — putti, the chubby winged angels drawn from Renaissance and Baroque painting — surround an outer space rocket. Together they are launched into the blue heavens or perhaps all the way to outer space. This joyful Fine Art Print reproduces an original hand-cut paper collage by the artist Aleksandra Mir.
The new artwork combines source materials from antique religious and modern scientific imagery into a new physical and fantastical reality.
The cherubs, traditionally symbols of the divine and heavenly aspiration, have transferred their devotion from the sacred to the technological. The rocket becomes the new object of veneration — humanity's collective dream made metal. The old world meets the new in an incongruous but tender embrace.
Giclée pigment ink on Hahnemühle German Etching paper achieves a superior quality print with exceptional detail, vibrant color accuracy, and long-term durability. The fresh print reproduces an aged authentic patina and the imprint of the artist’s hand-crafted marks.
· Archival Museum Quality ·
· Limited Edition. 100 ·
· Certificate of Authenticity ·
· Hand & Human-Made without AI ·
· 100% Carbon Neutral ·
· Free Worldwide Shipping ·
Jesus Christ surrounded by a spectacular burst of rockets radiating outward like a halo of human striving — a Fine Art Print of an original hand-cut paper collage by Aleksandra Mir.
The new artwork combines source materials from antique religious and modern scientific imagery into a new fantastical reality. The source is a large format 19th century French devotional lithograph with the text AIMEZ-VOUS LES UNS LES AUTRES (Love one another).
Into this devotional image Aleksandra Mir has collaged an explosion of rockets — many different types from different eras and nations, recognisably including Saturn among them Saturn V, Indian PSLV, and various missiles — launching, soaring, and careening through clouds of fire and exhaust. Christ holds a rocket in one raised hand, imbuing the artwork with extraordinary compositional energy.
Giclée pigment ink on Hahnemühle German Etching paper achieves a superior quality print with exceptional detail, vibrant color accuracy, and long-term durability. The fresh print reproduces an aged authentic patina and the imprint of the artist’s hand-crafted marks.
· Archival Museum Quality ·
· Limited Edition. 100 ·
· Certificate of Authenticity ·
· Hand & Human-Made without AI ·
· 100% Carbon Neutral ·
· Free Worldwide Shipping ·
Frequently Asked Questions
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Aleksandra Prints are museum-quality reproductions of original hand-cut antique paper collages by artist Aleksandra Mir, created in her Palermo, Sicily studio in 2007–2009 and exhibited internationally for two decades.
Aleksandra Prints started on the initiative of an audience member who discovered the original artworks in an exhibition and asked for affordable reproductions.
What is a collage?
A collage combines elements from different sources into a new image and physical reality.
The materials for these collages were sourced from antique dealers and second-hand bookshops. As such, the fresh print reproduces a patina with authentic wear and tear.
Furthermore, in creating the collages, the artist sliced and tore through the source materials leaving the imprint of her hand-crafted marks.100% human-made. No AI was used in the creation of these artworks.
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Giclée print on Hahnemühle German Etching paper
Giclée (pronounced "g-clay") comes from the French gicler — "to spray." The process uses high-resolution inkjet printing, pigment-based inks and acid free papers to deliver a superior quality print with exceptional detail, vibrant colour accuracy, and lasting durability.
Hahnemühle German Etching is a traditional mould-made copperplate paper. Crafted from 100% alpha cellulose, it has a distinctively velvety feel and fine felt texture that brings images to life with a striking three-dimensional depth. Acid- and lignin-free, it meets the highest standards of age resistance.
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Aleksandra Prints come in three standard formats, Small, Medium and Large:
A4 (S) – 21 x 30cm / 8.3 x 11.7"
A3 (M) – 30 x 42cm / 11.7 x 16.5"
A2 (L) – 42 x 59cm / 16.5 x 23.4"Please note that each original collage was created in a unique format and the image areas within the prints therefore slightly vary. The image areas are surrounded by white space to create the uniform print formats: A2, A3 or A4.
You can keep the white space, extend it with a mat or crop it out when framing.
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Aleksandra Prints are only available from this website, www.aleksandraprints.com
Each print comes with a signed and numbered Certificate of Authenticity that holds a 3D embossing.
We are able to confirm the first sale provenance of every print.
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Aleksandra Prints does not offer framing because shipping artwork behind glass is both risky and expensive. It is much better to have your print framed closer to home.
We recommend these three style options:
Minimalist – A ‘frameless’ clip frame in glass or acrylic in standard A4, A3 or A2 formats that match the prints sizes exactly. These type of frames are easily available in shops and can be ordered online.
Mediumalist – Adding a larger white or colored mat to extend the white space around the image area up to any preferred size. This framing method protects the print by allowing some air between print and glass. Select any custom-sized frame and profile from a framer of your choice.
Maximalist - New or antique Gold, Bronze or Silver custom made frames with a different profile for each print. Visit a local framer to explore their profiles or source frames from markets and antique shops.
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Aleksandra Prints offers FREE shipping worldwide.
Our prints are produced in and shipped from the United Kingdom by Royal Mail.
Production & Delivery:
(UK) 7 days
(EU/USA) 14 days
(Rest of the World) Pending Location.
Tracking: All orders are dispatched within 48 hours. As soon as a print is shipped you will receive an email with tracking details for your order.Customs Fees & Taxes:
UK orders: No VAT.
USA orders: No sales tax or tariffs.EU orders may be subject to local import VAT and a small customs handling fee payable on delivery. These charges are set by your country’s customs/courier and are not collected by us. The commodity code 4911 91 00 refers to pictures under the category of printed matter with a charge that can vary between ~7–27% of the order value. Please refer to your local customs office for the exact rate.
Some countries — including Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, South Africa, Chile, Mexico, and others — may charge import duties, VAT, or customs clearance fees. These are not included in your payment and must be paid by the recipient upon delivery.
Contact us
Here to help and to answer your questions! -
Return Policy
All sales are final. Each print is made to order and numbered exclusively for you, so we are unable to accept returns. But if anything arrives damaged, we will make it right.We offer replacement prints if the product arrives damaged or is significantly delayed (postage delays which could be considered normal, or delays due to items being held up in customs will not be refunded).
Significant Delays
Although most orders arrive without any issue, some can be delayed. We will do our best to help find out what the issue is, but only after these times have passed can we make a claim with Royal Mail for loss and offer a replacement:
UK: 10 days
Europe: 25 days
Rest of the World: 32 daysDamaged prints
In the unlikely event the print arrives to you damaged, we will send a replacement free of charge. To arrange this please contact us within max 2 days with photos of the damaged print and its packaging.
We value your custom and thank you for your understanding and cooperation!
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Aleksandra Prints are produced in the UK by a small 100% carbon neutral print facility, which means they minimise energy usage, use renewables, and offset the remaining emissions by investing in renewable energy projects.
Our paper manufacturer only use resources from sustainable forest management areas. This programme ensures the preservation and protection of biodiversity, the renewal of the forests habitats and decreasing of the impacts of exploitation of forest areas for future generations.
All the packaging used for our customer orders are a mixture of sustainably sourced, recyclable or biodegradable materials.