Equilibrio: LINDA KARSHAN - "Art, Architecture and Sacred Geometry in Conversation" at the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice

From Equilibrio by Linda Karshan - Choir of San Giorgio Maggiore - Photo Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) If you title an exhibition, Equilibrio, with a subtitle of Art, Architecture and Sacred Geometry in Conversation, and the venue is the Benedictine Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, designed by Palladio, you will be sure to catch my attention. It was not what I expected.

American artist Linda Karshan says that she is "after the most perfect line," and that she feels like the Vitruvian Man. The artist will be 71-years-old next month, but has the looks and energy of someone 20 years younger.

There is a famous story about the great artist Giotto. Back in the 13th century, Pope Boniface VIII wanted to embellish Saint Peter's Basilica, so he sent out a messenger whose mission it was to find the best painter in Italy, and bring back samples of their work. When the messenger got to Giotto, the artist balanced himself, and positioning his arm liken a compass, drew the perfect circle with one stroke, using red paint. He got the job.  

Linda Karshan sort of works like that, except she is interested in lines. She is left-handed, but uses her right hand to draw lines, after raising her left leg and balancing on the point of her pencil. Unlike Giotto, there are no circles on display, nor human figures lurking behind the line.

Linda Karshan at work

Equilibrio is the product of the artist and three diverse curators, a spiritual collaboration born from art, religion and culture. Linda, who is Jewish, was born in Minnesota, lives in London, and has a house with a pond in Connecticut. She was educated at Skidmore College, the Sorbonne, the Slade School of Art, and has a Masters in Humanistic Psychology from Antioch Centre for British Studies. Richard Davey, who wrote the essays, has a PhD in Theology and Contemporary Art, and is the Anglican Chaplain at Nottingham Trent University. Elisabetta Bresciani studied art history, archaeology and philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, the University of Vienna and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Brescia, and is a cultural anthropologist. Carmelo Grasso graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan and is the director of the non-profit Benedicti Claustra Onlus organization of the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, which preserves and promotes their treasures.

From Equilbrio by Linda Karshan - Photo: Cat Bauer

Linda Karshan states: "Due to the enduring power, and allure of Euclidian forms as embodied in my work, Elisabetta Bresciani and the Rev. Dr. Richard Davey conceived of this exhibition and the city in which it should take place, developing it into the project it has become. Dr. Carmelo Grasso and the Abbot Norbert Villa then took up and shared their vision and have deemed my art worthy of the sacred space of San Giorgio Maggiore Abbey. I am immensely grateful to them all."

Geometric tiles - San Giorgio Maggiore & the Venice lagoon - Photo: Cat Bauer

From the text by Richard Davey:

"When the American artist Linda Karshan first stepped off the water bus at San Giorgio Maggiore, walked across the geometric tiles of the sagrato and into the spacious interior of  Andrea Palladio's Basilica, she immediately felt at home. The ubiquitous presence of water was deeply familiar to Karshan, who had grown up in Minnesota, the 'Land of 10,000 Lakes,' and still swims regularly in the natural pond at her Connecticut home. What she recognised in Venetian art and architecture was the same diaphanous and playful quality of light and sense of continuous movement she had known since her youth. But it wasn't just the proximity of water that struck a chord. Everywhere she looked she also found examples of sacred geometry: in floor tiles, woodwork, stonework and the Abbey's illuminated manuscripts. Here were the same Euclidean angles and patterns that have defined her work since the mid 1990s, the familiar play between two and three dimensions, form and formlessness that take us from the realms of the physical into the metaphysical. 

Equilibrio: Linda Karshan -- Art, Architecture and Sacred Geometry in Conversation celebrates these resonances. It brings together works from different centuries and created in very different circumstances to make connections that will help us discover the qualities of a distinctively Venetian sacred geometry: The Venetian 'disegno' that underlies Venetian 'colore.'"

Tintoretto's Last Supper & High Altar - Photo: Cat Bauer

The Equilibrio exhibition and its accompanying text weave a story between the ancient sacred geometric elements of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore and the contemporary work of Linda Karshan -- the church itself is part of the exhibition with its geometric tiles, woodwork, stonework and Tintoretto's Last Supper incorporated into the text. One of the Abbey's monumental illumined choir books commissioned at the turn of the 15th century is on display, an 'Antiphonal' call and response that Davey relates to Karshan's method of working. The exhibition includes a short film, Movements and their Images, by Candida Richardson showing the artist at work, which should be watched in its entirety before viewing the drawings. To fully appreciate the aim of the exhibition, an illustrated book with text by the curators is available for purchase from the Abbey or Beam Editions.

Antiphonal Choir Book - Photo: Cat Bauer

Richard Davey writes:

"We can look for signs of geometric perfection in the stones of Venice, but more often what we discover is what we find in Karshan's drawings: angles that look right, lines measured by breath and measurements made by rule of thumb. We see wobbles, slips and deviations; moments of unsteady balance and bold gestures of great assurance. We see unevenness and irregularity, things off centre and not quite true, adapted to the seam of the stone of the level of the land rather than the angle of the set-square. For this is a sacred geometry that is not defined by a divine ideal or an adherence to Minimalist anonymity, but made by a human being teetering on the water's edge, standing upright whilst constantly adjusting their balance; their presence revealed on the page, declaring -- the artist's hand was here."

Linda Karshan - Photo: Cat Bauer

Equilibrio: Linda Karshan -- Art, Architecture and Sacred Geometry in Conversation  at the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore runs from August 26 to October 7, 2018.


Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog