Till October 29, 2017
ART 3 | Silas Von Morisse Gallery
Karshan - Schlitz : In Dialogue features drawings by Linda Karshan dating from 1996 – 2004, selected for this exhibition by curator Dr. Mark McDonald of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Prints & Drawings Dept.; and two large works on paper and a series of small drawings by Frauke Schlitz.
LINDA KARSHAN ( American, b. 1947 in Minneapolis, MN, lives and works in London, UK, and New York, NY).
Guided by what she calls her “inner choreography,” Linda Karshan makes spare, monochromatic, abstract prints and drawings that serve as direct reflections of the process of their making. Though she began her career producing expressive compositions, in 1994 she developed a performance-based method for making work, in which every mark is associated with her rhythmic and regulated breathing, her counter-clockwise turning of the paper, the motion of her entire body, and the musical way in which she counts off increments of time. Based on her studies of psychology and Plato’s theory that the universe is ordered numerically, Karshan’s method results in iterative images of intersecting lines, forming grids, geometric shapes and patterns, and, sometimes, ordered yet loosely scribbled marks repeating across the page.
Her practice has called for documentation from 2004 to the present. This includes photography and many films – including the forthcoming documentary, Linda Karshan, Choreographic Page, by Ismael Annobil of Stonedog Productions; a group of 4 short films from Dresden by Harald Schluttig; the seminal film by Candida Richardson, Movements and their Images; and the acoustic drawing, “Soundings” as Karshan drew during one day in her London Studio.
Her studio jottings from 2004 - Present will be published this year in a three-part book called Studio View. This book includes research towards a PhD Thesis by Elizabeth Tomos, of University of Northampton. The topic of thesis is printmaking and performance with a focus on embodiment, as seen in Karshan’s work, as a means of knowledge production.
Karshan was educated at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (1965-67); the Sorbonne, Paris (1967-68); and the Slade School of Art, University College London (1969). In 1983, she earned a Masters in Humanistic Psychology from Antioch Centre for British Studies, London. Her MA thesis, entitled Play, Creativity and the Birth of the Self, focused on D.W. Winnicott's theories of transitional space and creativity, which are central to Karshan's artistic practice.
Karshan’s work is represented in leading museums and galleries from around the world, from the Met and the Morgan in New York, to the British Museum and Courtauld in London, and the great print rooms of Berlin, Munich and Dresden. Gallery shows continue apace in her galleries worldwide: London, Staphoorst, Holland, Munich, Berlin, Cologne and in New York at SILAS VON MORISSE gallery.
FRAUKE SCHLITZ (German, b.1962, lives and works in Stuttgart)
Schlitz work is mainly an investigation of space, or more precisely, an inquiry of the relationship between architecture and the body. Her work is sensitized to the space we inhabit. However, the drawings don't only reference the physical architecture but also functions as metaphors, mirroring a mental space. The space in between is significant, as it consists of a set of relations that delineates positions and makes lines click into place.
Schlitz architectural concerns have always been stimulated through travel. During extended work stays and while participating in several artist residency programs in the US, Schlitz worked on complex large size line systems, two of them are included in the show. She uses the geometrical reduction as a kind of grammatical scaffold to create meaning within the (image-) space. While exploring the unknown space, namely the foreign urban surrounding, Schlitz uses sketchbooks and small pads. The resulting drawings function as a reservoir of forms, rhythms and tectonics as well as autonomous works.
Since 2014 Schlitz generates lines with a special technique. The large paper format forces her to climb a high ladder while drawing. She uses white tape on white paper to make the lines. Because of her precarious position and the weak color contrast there is only a vague control over the ongoing drawing process. When the tape-on-paper-drawing is finished she is following the taped lines with freehand brush strokes. After stripping off the tape, the white lines rest like the ghostly presence of precision surrounded by the random brushstroke. In her work, the use of line represents both the seen and the unseen. Schlitz is interested in emphasizing the tactile qualities of the line that evoke a distinctive presence while a certain absence of something is palpable.
Schlitz work is responsive to the experienced space. It is space related and functions as an installation. It relates to the actual show room by connecting floor and ceiling through extreme verticality. In recent projects Schlitz expands her drawing practice directly on the present walls and ceilings (2016 Brooklyn Art Space, 2017 Galerie Oberwelt Stuttgart, 2017 Galerie der Stadt Kirchheim).
Schlitz graduated from University of Arts Berlin (MFA). She has taught art at several German and European art schools. She worked as an Assistant Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart (2000-2006) and was teaching as lecturer of fine arts at the University of Educational Science Weingarten (2012-2015) , as Visiting Artist at the Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera in Milano (2006) and at Haute Ecole des Arts et de Design in Geneva (2008). In 2014 she received her B.Sc. in Psychology at Fernuniversität Hagen. Schlitz has been awarded the MacDowell Colony Residency (2017), Trestle Gallery Visiting Artist Residency, the Millay Colony Residency, Austerlitz, NY; the Omi International Art Center Residency, Ghent, NY; Villa Serpentara Residency, Italy; DAAD Residency. She received several grants among them grants from Gisela und Erwin von Steiner- Stiftung, München; Karl-Hofer-Gesellschaft Berlin; Berlin Senate. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at museums, art galleries and art institutions nationally and internationally. Including shows in Berlin, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Ulm as well as in Italy, Czech Republic, Luxembourg and the USA.
ARTIST TALK: GLENN KURTZ in conversation with LINDA KARSHAN & FRAUKE SCHLITZ - SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 23, 4- 5PM
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ART 3 | SILAS VON MORISSE gallery
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Images | Credits:
1) Linda Karshan, Dresden woodblock
2) Frauke Schlitz, Escaping Lines II, 2016, Acrylic on paper, 118 x 60 in.
