Friday, 30 January, from 5 to 8 PM, Studio la Linea Verticale inaugurates Live Transmission, a solo exhibition by Morgan O’Hara, accompanied by a critical text by Paola Caramel, realised in collaboration with Ricognizioni sull’Arte and with the support of Alessandro Mescoli, Marcello Bertolla, Massimiliano Piccinini, and Tiberio and Ciro Cattelani. Open through 7 March 2026, Live Transmission takes its title from the series of works on view, which explore the human gesture in its most subtle and vital essence. Through a practice that combines direct observation, real time, and a rigorous method rooted in drawing as an immediate vehicle, O’Hara makes the invisible visible: movements, actions, and micro-rhythms that weave together the everyday and collective experience of being human. Abstract In her graphite drawings, Morgan O’Hara translates movement into trace, gesture into rhythm, action into a sensitive map. Her Live Transmission practice observes and records, in real time, motor and relational sequences unfolding in space: exchanges, gestures, postures, micro-choreographies that the artist’s hand renders as a kind of organic seismography. “Morgan O’Hara’s (Los Angeles, 1941) graphite drawings on paper are rooted in the life of human beings, without crystallising into formal outcomes. Never taking her eyes off the subject and moving her hands swiftly across the paper, her practice focuses on targeted and analytical aspects of human behaviour: actions, exchanges, movements prolonged over time and observed from within the same parcel of space and perspective [...]. The resulting work represents a unicum in the international panorama, in both poetics and authorship, locating itself in a liminal zone of drawing that would otherwise remain vacant.” — Alessandro Mescoli In this direct transmission between eye, movement, and graphite, drawing becomes a third actor: a silent mediator that condenses the time, space, and memory of the observed actions. The paper records what is normally unseen—minute shifts, variations, convergences—transforming the instant into a complex, layered geography: gesture becomes presence. As the artist writes: “The method I have perfected requires close observation and actual drawing in real time, with multiple sharpened pencils and the use of both hands. I condense observed movement into accumulations of graphite line, combining the controlled refinement of classical drawing with the sensuality of spontaneous gesture.” Biographical Note Morgan O’Hara (b. 1941, Los Angeles) is an internationally recognised conceptual artist, active primarily in the field of performative drawing. Raised in postwar Japan, she obtained an MA in Art from California State University, Los Angeles. Since the 1980s she has developed her main body of work around the Live Transmission series, which consists of tracing, with multiple pencils held simultaneously in both hands, the real-time movements of people: musicians, dancers, speakers, artisans, and many others. Her works are held in numerous major international permanent collections, including: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the British Museum, London; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile; the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Moravská Galerie, Brno; and the Macau Art Museum, Macau. She has held major solo exhibitions at, among others: Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York; Anita Rogers Gallery, New York; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Tenri Cultural Institute, New York; Chimera Project, Budapest; Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice. O’Hara has taken part in hundreds of Live Transmission performances and projects in museums, festivals, and institutions worldwide, collaborating with musicians, dancers, scientists, and local communities. Notable collaborations include Pauline Oliveros, Anthony Braxton, John Tilbury, Roy Amotz, as well as many international ensembles and performers. Her awards include: the Lee Krasner Lifetime Achievement Award (2017–19), several Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Fellowship, the MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and the Milton and Sally Avery Foundation Fellowship. Over the course of her career, she has also taken part in artist residencies across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including: Emily Harvey Foundation (Venice), MacDowell Colony (USA), Agosto Foundation (Prague), Aomori Contemporary Art Center (Japan), Exploratorium (San Francisco), Akrai Residency (Sicily), University of Tübingen. INFO & DETAILS Opening: Friday, 30 January 2026, 5–8 PM | Via dell’Oro 4b Event details: Title: Live Transmission Dates: 30.01 – 07.03.2026 Solo show by: Morgan O’Hara Critical text by: Paola Caramel In collaboration with: Ricognizioni Sull’Arte With the support of: Alessandro Mescoli, Marcello Bertolla, Massimiliano Piccinini, Tiberio and Ciro Cattelani Video documentation: Ludovica Prandi Social media communication: Giorgia Cantelli Venue: Studio la Linea Verticale, Via dell’Oro 4b, Bologna Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 4–7:30 PM. Mornings and other days by appointment. Connect with us: Follow updates and previews of the exhibition on social media and share using the official hashtags: #livetransmission #studiolalineaverticale