NYAB Event - Linda Karshan “Signs of Men”

Linda Karshan “Signs of Men”

ART 3

This event has ended.

Linda Karshan’s career has been steadily growing since the early 1990’s. She is best known for her
drawings and prints on paper, which combine the rigor of minimalist abstraction with the spontaneity and
expressiveness of a very personal marking system. For Karshan, drawing is a highly disciplined physical
activity, which can be described as being choreographed. It has been said that “as Jackson Pollock
‘performed’ his drip paintings, she ‘dances’ her drawings” (Lynn McRitchie, in: Linda Karshan, exhibition
catalogue, IVAM, Valencia, Spain, 2002). Her works are also appreciated for their philosophical and
literary references to certain texts by Plato and Beckett’s plays, among others.

Karshan’s work has attracted a dedicated following among critics, philosophers, writers and collectors. An
American, she has been primarily residing in London since 1968, and her works are in such European
collections as the British Museum or the Courtauld Institute, where they were presented together with
masters of European prints such as Mantegna, Bruegel, Canaletto, Picasso, Matisse and Freud.
Following the recent acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art of 11 prints spanning 25 years of her
career, the exhibition at ART3 will draw attention in the US to this extraordinary artist.

ART 3 will present, for the first time, Summer Drawings, 2014 and Footfalls, a series of 27 etchings,
drawn and printed in Copenhagen, in the workshop of Niels Borch Jensen. These two most recent series
represent a critical juncture in the development of the work, wherein diagonals and curves have
reappeared, taking their place among the horizontals and verticals that have characterized Karshan’s
work since 1996. The show will contextualize Karshan’s newest work by including a selection of drawings
since 1993, and a video by Candida Richardson, Movements, and their Images (2009), which observes
the artist’s unique working method.

The title of the exhibition, Signs of Men, comes from a story related by Vitruvius (Marcus Vitruvius Polio,
De Architectura. Book VI, ca. 15BC): the 4th century BC Greek philosopher, Aristippus, shipwrecked and
cast on the shore of Rhodes, noticed some geometrical figures scratched into the sand – triangles, or
circles, or lines suspended from points. He said to his companions: “we can hope for the best, for I see
signs of men.”

On Sunday, March 29, 4-5 PM, Balance in Determination: Walking with Linda Karshan will feature the
artist in conversation with Dr. Mark McDonald, Curator of Prints, Dept. of Drawings & Prints, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Media

• Drawing
• Prints

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