Stone-Ideas.com 
“The Shape of Time,” is the title of a major exhibition of New York-based sculptor Barry X Ball at the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice through November 22, 2026. Ball is one of the most technically ambitious stone sculptors working today. His practice combines 3D scanning, virtual modeling, computer-controlled milling, and thousands of hours of hand finishing to produce works of extraordinary material complexity. He has described his approach not as mechanical reproduction but as an attempt to get into the soul of the historical pieces he works with, producing sculptures that are simultaneously ancient in feeling and entirely new in form.
The 23 works brought together at San Giorgio Maggiore span five series and showcase a remarkable range of stones, each chosen with precision for its conceptual as well as visual properties.
His Pietà, inspired by Michelangelo’s unfinished Pietà Rondanini, is realized in translucent golden-white Iranian onyx, with surfaces ranging from robot-milled fluting to mirror polish. Saint Bartholomew Flayed is carved in what Ball calls a “bloody” French Rouge du Roi marble.
Three Buddha sculptures in the Sacristy draw on Belgian black marble, golden honeycomb calcite, wounded Mexican onyx and translucent pink Iranian onyx, often combining multiple materials within a single piece.
Three of the artist’s recent stone Buddha sculptures will be presented in the basilica’s Sacristy, arranged in a cruciform composition. Creating a meeting point between the Catholic faith and Buddhist philosophy, the works reveal the ecumenical dimension of Ball’s art. Among these stands out Mirrored Buddha Herms, a visual and conceptual dialogue between a 15th-century Japanese sculpture and its mirrored version in Belgian black marble created by the artist.
In 2012, Ball collaborated with Vicenza-based technical company UnoArte to 3D-scan 39 Rosso sculptures in Italian museums and private collections. Using a state-of-the-art Breuckman white-light scanner, the team captured all surfaces and volumes, creating highly detailed virtual models—the most precise digital records of Rosso’s works ever produced. Ball further refined the scan data with extensive digital reference photography, completing the virtual models at his New York studio. The intention was to use this scientific scan data as a foundation for poetic new sculptures that retain the power and mystery of Rosso’s works while introducing myriad subtle alterations that transform them into original Barry X Ball creations.
About the artist: Barry X Ball was born in 1955 in Pasadena, CA, and lives and works in New York. He has reinvigorated the age-old tradition of figurative sculpture through the use of unconventional materials and methods. Ball employs a complex array of equipment and procedures to realize his sculptures, ranging from the cutting edge to the traditional, from 3D digital scanning, virtual modeling, 3D printing, and computer-controlled milling to hyper-detailed hand carving and polishing.
Although paying reverent homage to their historical antecedents, they are completely new. With their simultaneous fever-pitch intensity and surreal stillness, Barry X Ball’s bravura works make an expansive case for the reconsideration of contemporary sculptural practice.
About Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore: The non-profit branch of the Benedictine Community considers hospitality, coordination, and curatorship of contemporary art exhibitions as an integral part of its institutional mission. Under the guidance of Abbot Stefano Visintin OSB and Director and Institutional Curator Carmelo A. Grasso, the organization has worked tirelessly since 2013 to restore the necessary dialogue between the Church and contemporary art, which has weakened over the last century.
Barry X Ball: “The Shape of Time”
Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore 2, 30124 Venezia VE, Italy
Through November 22, 2026
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday: 10:00 – 18:00
Closed on Monday.
Free admission
