Nadia Lichtig (born 1973) is an artist currently living in the South of France. In her multilayered work, voice is transposed into various media including painting, print, sculpture, photography, performance, soundscape and song. A monograph on Lichtig's work, Pictures of Nothing, was published by Kerber Verlag in 2014.
Early life and education Lichtig was born in 1973 in Munich, Germany; her parents were of Czech and Serb descent. Lichtig studied at the University of the Arts Paris. Having grown up between several countries and languages, Lichtig studied linguistics at LMU Munich in Germany, and sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris, France with Jean-Luc Vilmouth, where she graduated with honours in 2001, before assisting Mike Kelley in Los Angeles the same year.
Work In her works, each medium approached not as a field to be mastered, but as a source of possibilities to question our ability to decipher the present. Visual and aural aspects entangle in her performances. Lichtig taught at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India as a visiting professor in 2006, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of the Valence in 2007, and since 2009, is professor of Fine Arts at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-arts of Montpellier, France. She has collaborated with musicians who are also visual artists, such as Bertrand Georges (audible), Christian Bouviou (Popopfalse), Nicole (La Chatte), Nina Canal (Ut) and Michael Moorley (the dead C). Lichtig worked and works under several group names and pseudonyms including: EchoparK, Falseparklocation, Skrietch, Ghosttrap and Nanana.
Lichtig's collaborative work in Drift: Art and Dark Matter, was reviewed in the publication, Symmetry magazine.
Publications
Pictures of Nothing, Editions Voix/Richard Meier, France, 2023 Post-Specimen, Intellect Books, Bristol, Great Britain, ed. by Ed Juler and Alistair Robinson, 2021
Grammaires fantômes / Phantomgrammatiken, ed. by Maison de Heidelberg / Goetheinstitut, France, 2020
Bunkern, Privater Bunkerbau an Zellen, im Kalter Krieg und in Prepper-Fanatsien by Mona Schieren in "Re-Bunkern" ed. by Kathrin von Malzahn and Mona Schieren in collaboration with Franciska Zolyorn, Argobooks, Berlin, Germany, 2019
Phototropia, 2019, ed. by Maison de Heidelberg / Goetheinstitut, France, 2019
Monograph: Pictures of Nothing, Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany, 2018
Collections
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, Delmenhorst, Germany Musée d'art Contemporain, Sérignan, France URDLA, Lyon, France Terra Art Foundation, Paris/Chicago Collection of the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris Fuhlbrügge & Müller collection, Germany Abay Maskara collection, India Merkel Collection, Germany
Exhibitions 2022: Reflecting Nature Part I, Kunsthalle Erfurt, Germany 2022: Histoires de Silences, Galerie Anne +, Paris (France) 2022: Drift: Art and Dark Matter, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Canada 2021: Drift: Art and Dark Matter, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Canada 2021: Drift: Art and Dark Matter, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada 2021: Muj Utek, Zamek, Posnan, Poland 2019: Blank Spots, Schwankhalle, Bremen, Germany 2019: Memory Gardens, Hanse-Wissenschafts-Kolleg, Delmenhorst, Germany 2018: Catching the Light, cur. by Ludwig Seyfarth, Kai 10 / Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany 2018: Nachtstücke (three person solo), cur. by Dr. Heidi Brunnschweiler, Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, Freiburg, Germany 2017: Ghosttrap, cur. by Susanne Prinz, Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin, Germany
Awards and public space projects
2021: Residency Goethe Institut Bucharest, Romania 2020: Residency, Center of Astrophysics, Queen's University, Canada 2020: Residency, Goethe Institut, Marseille, France 2018-19: Residency / Fellow of the Hanse-WIssenschafts-Kolleg / Institute for Advanced Research, Germany 2013: Institut Francais, London, French Embassy, UK 2012: Collection Musée d'art contemporain de Sérignan 2011, 1% artistique, Public Art Project, Sérignian, France 2009: Dicream, CNC Ile-de-France, France 2008: Biennale de Rennes, public art project, Résidence Synagogue de Delme, France 2001: Terra Art Foundation, Fellowship residency
References
Further reading Lichtig, N., Dufour, M., Seyfarth, L., & Lebron, M. (2014). Nadia Lichtig: pictures of nothing. Kerber Verlag. Maltzahn, Katrin von, Mona Schieren, and Franciska Zólyom. Re:BUNKER Erinnerungskulturen, Analogien, Technoide Mentalitäten. Berlin: Argobooks, 2019. Juler, E., Robinson, A., & Lichtig, N. (2020). ch. 8, Nadia Lichtig: Poetry and the Pathology of the Museum: A model of difference. In Post-specimen encounters between art, science and curating rethinking art practice and objecthood through scientific collections. essay, Intellect Books.