KAREN NIELSEN LICHER
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I N S T A L L A T I O N  / P E R F O R M A N C E


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The music ensemble SR2 features the sounds of Karen Nielsen Licher and husband Bruce Licher's uniquely tuned electric twelve string guitars.

Photo: Bruce Willey



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COMMON GROUND: The Space Between Contrasting Viewpoints

Installation: earth, metal, soundscape

Size: variable to space. 

Parameters: the presence of earth in various colors; the sounds of high and low pitched notes interspersed with barely audible recorded words; fabricated and rusted metal signs.  The words displayed on the signs are adjectives expressing contrasting viewpoints which can be used to describe land in its various aspects: economic, aesthetic, spiritual and ethical. The words are placed at opposite ends of long tracts of earth.  The words chosen for the COMMON GROUND installation at the Ice House in Phoenix, Arizona are: Sacred/Exploitable; Public/Private; Eternal/Finite; Promised/Forbidden.

P R O M I S E D     -      F O R B I D D E N     
Volcanic ash from Skull Valley
S A C R E D    -    E X P L O I T A B L E
 Red Earth from Sedona

F I N I T E    -   I N F I N I T E
Dark volcanic earth from The Village of Oak Creek
P U B L I C    -    P R I V A T E
Brown earth from Jack's Canyon

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ARTIST STATEMENT:

Our words are ephemeral.  The earth endures.

I began to compose my ideas for this work after hearing a lecture by the East Indian sociologist Vandana Shiva.  She noted that our definition of certain words has shifted in modern times.  For example, the commonly used definition for the word "value" has changed from that of "the relative worth or usefulness" of something, to that of its "monetary worth."  With similar ramifications, the meaning of the word "resource" has shifted away from its Sanscrit origins of "return to one's source" (a renewable supply) to that of "a land's capacity for producing wealth" (a limited supply.)  Modern westernized thinking has shifted the given meaning of many words. and in doing so has created a new and deadly paradigm.  We envision our world through the meanings of our words. The inevitable polarization of the Sacred and the Exploitable is something which needs to be transcended.

I am intrigued by the inherent connectedness of the most extreme viewpoints with their opposites.  These polarized positions cannot exist without each other.  This is illustrated in the Eastern concept of Yin and Yang.  In the area of COMMON GROUND, the space between these polarized oppositions, there is the possibility of a fruitful existence. 

Isn't the sacred so often that which is exploited?  Alternately, are we not often holding sacred that which we can exploit?  Isn't the eternal actually composed of the infinite?  Does not man struggle with the perception of being forbidden the promised land?  Doesn't living on this planet necessarily involve private ownership of that which we cannot ever truly own? 

In completing the work COMMON GROUND, I was surprised by its resemblance to a burial ground.

In his book, Living without a Goal, James Ogilby wrote that "we do not find the good by aiming directly at it as a goal.  Like a dim star that disappears when you look right at it, so does goodness disappear when I truly set it clearly apart from evil."
EARTHWORKS / INSTALLATIONS:
(Click on the images below for a larger view)

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2016

The Voice of the Earth

Solo exhibition with installation of volcanic ash, earth, metal signs and hanging plant materials.

2004    

Common Ground: An Exploration of the Space Between Contrasting Viewpoints

Solo exhibition with installation of two tons of earth in roofless building which used to be an ice house, metal signs,
Soundscape in collaboration with Bruce Licher
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Ice House, Phoenix, AZ. 



2001    

Evidence of Change

Solo exhibition with installation of progressive selections of earth excavated from the construction route of an expanding highway.  Also: bulldozer parts, metal leaf.
Arte-Misia Gallery, Sedona, AZ.


1998    

Suspension of Disbelief

Installation in collaboration with musician Bruce Licher, and artists Clare Helfrich Licher, and William Faircloth, 
The floor of a darkened room is completely covered with earth, several sage bushes are suspended in mid air and lit from below. A maximum of three people are admitted to the space at a time.  They follow a path through the bushes to a deeply colored red tent which is illuminated from within.  Inside they find a suspended mirror on which is balanced a bed of arctic sand which cradles a single spot-lit pearl.

Soundscape created by Karen Nielsen Licher and Bruce Licher.

New Territory Artspace, Sedona, AZ.



1996   

Unexplored Territory: Common Ground
Solo exhibition: nstallation of four mats with four tones of earth, presented with metal stands and signs.  Wall paintings elaborate on the concepts of the signs: Sacred/Exploitable, Private/Publc. Promised/ Forbidden, Finite/Infinite.
Select Art Gallery, Sedona, AZ.


1995   

The Lunar Power of the Waters: Sedona Flood Story
Solo exhibition of conceptual installation, painting and sculpture.  Accompanying a winding line of creek stones, debris from wreckage from destroyed homes  worked into sculpture and wall works.
The Sedona Arts Center, Sedona, AZ.


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1992  

Earth Day 1992  -  As Above, So Below,

Collaborative earthwork project, East Mojave Desert, CA. 
Six artists create an earthwork: Karen Nielsen Licher, Bruce Licher, Kristin Bell, Henry Solis, Barry Craig, Deanne Belinoff.

The subject matter selected by the group of artists was the dilemma around the growing hole in the Earth's ozone layer.  The group chose Greenpeace as the recipient of the proceeds generated from the creation of collaborative letterpress prints documenting the earthwork.



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Project commemorated by a letterpress art print edition produced by Independent Project Press.

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Detail from Calendar, Karen Nielsen Licher's sculpture from Collaborations with Nature, Merging One Gallery, Santa Monica, California, 1990.
Collaborations with Nature
5 person exhibition, curated by Karen Nielsen Licher
Merging One Gallery,Santa Monica, California.




1990  

Earth Day 1990 - Mojave Earthwork

Collaborative earthwork project, East Mojave Desert, CA.
Seven artists create multitudes of ephemeral earthworks on Kelso Dune in the East Mojave Desert:
Kristin Bell, Nick Gadbois, Bruce Licher, Karen Nielsen Licher, Victoria Marino, Luis Sampaio, Daniel Voznick. 

Walking an Acre in a Climate of Change: Artists create a series of ephemeral earthworks relating to the destruction of rain forests in South America.  The group choses The Nature Conservancy as the recipient of the proceeds generated from sales of the collaborative letterpress prints documenting the earthwork.




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Project commemorated by letterpress art print edition produced by Independent Project Press.


1988   

Uprooted
Stage design for "Falling Trees," a modern dance performance choreographed by Trish Doherty's Hot Blossom Motion Company.
Westside Academy, Santa Monica, CA.





1984   

Black Whole, White Noise

Installation of beach sand from Santa Monica Beach in a small bathroom and foyer in a building in downtown LA just before it is demolished.
Sand, light source, rotating fan, two small rooms painted completely black.  The door leading to the smaller room in back has a glass window which is cracked and broken open.  Sand is blowing inside the smaller inner room.

The Cotton Exchange Show, LACE, Los Angeles, CA.  


































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  • HOME
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