News

Stonedog Releases 'Linda Karshan: Covid-19 Conversation'

Genre: Documentary Short / Running Time: 31.20 minutes / Format: HD

London film collective Stonedog Productions releases Linda Karshan: Covid-19 Conversation, an inspiring documentary about American artsist Linda Karshan’s historic rebirth under Covid-19 lockdown. 

While under Covid-19 lockdown in New York, Linda Karshan recalled her father’s crippling polio affliction in the 1952/53 epidemic, the social alienation, and his gallant battle against it. This inspired her to “push back” by producing her most prolific body of work to date, “…because I can stand, and he could not.” 

Karshan’s father, Roger E. Joseph, was a decorated World War II hero, outlived his doctor’s pessimistic prognosis by sixteen years, during which he resumed his legal practice in his family’s law chambers.

Directed by London-based Ghanaian filmmaker Ishmael Fiifi Annobil, Linda Karshan: Covid-19 Conversation shows Linda Karshan at her most eloquent, offering a rare insight into her inner and outer impulses during her “channelling” of the unique art pieces, and the influential role her agent, Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts, played by throughout that process.

Covid-19 Conversation evokes Linda Karshan’s profound art practice, her magnificent exhibitions, and her groundbreaking ‘Walked Drawing’ genre, interspersed with poignant anecdotes from the collective memories of her family, and the heroism of her father, Roger E. Joseph, in World War II. 

Covid-19 Conversation is rich with poignant anecdotes from the collective memories of Linda and her sisters, lavishly interspersed with telling family photography. It also offers a mesmerising tableau of the Covid Works, photographed in-situ by Linda’s son, Roger Karshan, and her studio manager Allison Wucher.

“Covid-19 Conversation is a testament to human resilience, and to the role of memory in the mark making of artists. It is Linda’s requiem for her father,” says Ishmael Fiifi Annobil. 


FREE OF CHARGE: The whole Covid-19 Conversation film is on free release via Youtube and the film’s website, and can be acquired for TV and Cable transmission: 

Youtube URL: https://youtu.be/0aja6kUabpI
Film’s Website: www.covid19conversation.info

Producer/Director/Editor: Ishmael Fiifi Annobil 
Associate Producer: Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts
Cinematography/Sound: Max Mallen 
Audio Post-Production: Nick Kulukundis

• For the Film’s Trailer, Press Releases, Biographical Notes, Images, Film’s Poster downloads, and more info, visit the Media Room of the film’s website: www.covid19conversation.info
• To requests interviews with Linda Karshan, contact: Jill Siverman van Coenegrachts at info@jsvcprojects.com / website: www.jsvcprojects.com
• Related websites: lindakarshanstudio.com / stonedog.info / thelindakarshanfilm.com

By Ishmael Annobil | Saturday, January 23, 2021
Karshan - Schlitz : In Dialogue

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

Address:
ART 3 | SILAS VON MORISSE gallery
109 INGRAHAM ST
BROOKLYN NY 11237
T +1 646 331 3162
info@silasvonmorisse.com
 
GALLERY HOURS
Wednesday-Sunday: 12- 6 PM and by appointment

Images | Credits:
1) Linda Karshan, Dresden woodblock
2) Frauke Schlitz, Escaping Lines II, 2016, Acrylic on paper, 118 x 60 in.

By Ishmael Annobil | Wednesday, September 20, 2017
The Line is Thought - Fascination Drawing

Twelve contemporary artistic positions at Galerie Stihl Waiblingen

Waiblingen, 30.05.2017. Galerie Stihl Waiblingen will be showing the exhibition Das Linie ist Gedanke - Faszination Zeichnung (The Line is Thought - Fascination Drawing) from 3 June to 27 August 2017. It presents more than 90 works by twelve Baden-Württemberg artists and European artists, revealing the fascinating variety of the artistic confrontation with the line. The exhibition is funded by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation.

With this exhibition, the Galerie Stihl Waiblingen presents the current positions of artists from Baden-Württemberg and Europe who are dealing with the art form of the drawing in a very different way. The focus of these works is the graphic expression of the line and its boundaries on the surface of the paper. It will feature over 90 works as well as artist films by Karoline Bröckel, Hildegard Esslinger, Nadine Fecht, Niko Grindler, Katharina Hinsberg, Linda Karshan, Pia Linz, Thomas Mueller, Karim Noureldin, Albrecht Schnider, Malte Spohr and Robert Zandvliet.

Drawing is one of the oldest cultural techniques of man. Paul Klee (1849-1940), in his theory of art, tackled the inexhaustible fascination that emanated from the lightness of the line and from the exhilaration of linear character systems. For the Bauhaus artist, drawing was an experimental field for thinking about art. For the line is able to grasp thoughts and translate them into a sensually experienceable image. It is an idea which has become a form of paper.

In their works, many contemporary artists are again looking for an exploration of the line and exploring its many possibilities. The fascination is aimed at drawing as a sensory perception space where new attention is paid to the aesthetic self-value of the line and its free development from the outline drawing over lines or gestural outbursts. Lines can be straight, curving, thick, thin, expressive or precise. You can combine points, render outlines, or separate things from each other. Alternating and imaginative, the lines conquer the space and expand our perception of how images, surfaces, rhythms and structures are created, or movement and time can assume a visible shape.

The work of the twelve artists shows how diverse the results of the intensive artistic exploration of the creative qualities of the line can be. Katharina Hinsberg for example
overlaps over 900 single sheets with precisely calculated lines so that they stack one over one another Playful line along the leaf edge. The Stuttgart artist Thomas Müller, among other things, creates works from the effect of space-grabbing plasticity from numerous colored, parallel-drawn lines. Nadine Fecht uses the chance of a ball-pencil bundle to draw a trace over large-sized papers in a steered, but passive movement, and Linda Karshan who draws per formatively, utilising balletic kinesis, while counting in sequences (2,4,8…16) to her heartbeat and breathing. At the end of each sequence she rotates the paper 90° counterclockwise and continues the process of drawing following her inner rhythm.

From the observation of natural phenomena such as the branches rotating in the wind or crawling ants, the seemingly spontaneous line braids of Karoline Bröckel arise. With Waiblinger artist Hildegard Esslinger, the line is never the shortest connection between two points. She shears, reverses, or materialises objects. Finally, Albrecht Schnider leaves the viewer to fill the outlines of his portraits with imaginary colour. With these as well as six other artist positions, the exhibition is dedicated to those fascinating drawings in contemporary art, which innovatively capture the image space, test new perspectives and explore the tension field of the line and surface.

On 17 June 2017, the the exhibition was played host to the groundbreaking film, Linda Karshan – Educating the stone; Being educated by the stone, by Dresden-based German filmmaker Harald Shluttig. The film is a lyrical exploration Linda's stone lithography work, at the famous Handpressendrucke Dresden.

The works in The Line is Thought - Fascination Drawing come from the artists' workshops as well as from private collections as well as the galleries Clemens Fahnemann, Berlin, Werner Klein, Cologne, Bernhard Knaus Fine Art, Frankfurt am Main, Thomas Schulte, Berlin, as well as Stuttgart galleries Michael Sturm and edith wahlandt.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation and the long-standing partner of the Galerie Stihl Waiblingen, Kreissparkasse Waiblingen.

Contact:
Stadt Waiblingen
Galerie Stihl Waiblingen
Stephanie Hansen
Weingärtner Vorstadt 16
71332 Waiblingen
T (07151) 5001 1682
F (07151) 5001 1699
www.galerie-stihl-waiblingen.de

Image: Exhibition View, The Line is Thought - Fascination Drawing

By Ishmael Annobil | Monday, June 19, 2017
Linda Karshan - Intensity - Drawings and etchings

Gallery Werner Klein, Cologne
November 12 through December 10, 2016
 
We are proud to announce our fifth solo show of drawings and etchings by American draftswoman Linda Karshan. The exhibition will focus on drawings, that have been made from 1983 to 2016. We are showing for the first time in Europe a group of large scale etchings with drypoint printed at Burnet Edition NYC.
 
In 1994 Linda Karshan explored her working method. Counting in sequences (2,4,8…16) following her heartbeat and breathing she taps her foot. Continuing counting she begins to draw. At the end of each sequence she rotates the paper 90° counterclockwise and continues the process of drawing following her inner rhythm. Over the course of 30 years, she moved away from depiction, her drawings gradually became more geometric, but still her measure comes not from calculation but deep from within her body.
 
In April 2016 Linda Karshan made “Glint I-VII”, a group of seven etchings with drypoint at Burnet Edition in New York City. “Very few lines describe these large, spare, graceful figures. They give the impression of the archaic. When carving the lines into the grounded plate, my body demanded that each line be carved once, twice, thrice and a fourth stroke. Each line is both etching and drypoint.” (Linda Karshan)
 
Linda Karshan, born 1947 in Minneapolis (MN), lives and works in London and New York. Her works were shown in solo museum shows as IVAM, Valencia, Spain, and Sir John Soane's Museum, London, UK in 2002, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, UK, in 2003 and Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserlautern, Germany in 2013. Her drawings and etchings are held in public collections: The British Library, The British Museum, The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, UK and The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The Morgan Library and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and Kupferstichkabinett Berlin and Dresden, Museum Folkwang Essen, Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern and Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich in Germany.
 
Gallery Werner Klein
50677 Cologne  Volksgartenstr.10
http://www.galleryklein.com
Phone: +49 221/2585112
Fax: +49 221/2585114
Email: info@galleryklein.com

Opening Hours:
Wednesday to Friday 10-12, 14-18h
and Saturday 11-15h and by appointment

Image: untitled 1995, ink and pencil on paper, 152 x 121 cm

By Ishmael Annobil | Sunday, October 30, 2016