Publication Launch

Join us for a conversation between artist Sreshta Rit Premnath and writer Avram Alpert on Premnath’s artistic practice and new publication produced by CAG. The talk will be followed by a reception and publication launch at READ Books.

The word “knot” describes a difficult problem, a fastening, or an uncomfortable mass, tightness or tension. Sreshta Rit Premnath charts his artistic practice through the multiple definitions of this term: it is a making-visible of knots. The artist’s solo exhibition, Those Who Wait, at the Contemporary Art Gallery—his first in Canada—offered an occasion to consider the particular knots that have bound his practice for the past six years: the contradiction between the occupation and ownership of space, and the conditions of visibility and mis-recognition that define migrant experience. Drawing a line through a series of material, conceptual and written propositions articulated across numerous exhibition projects, and punctuated by astute contributions by US-based critical theory scholar Avram Alpert and Brazilian writer and curator Tiago de Abreu Pinto, this book offers an archive of these investigations.

Biographies

Sreshta Rit Premnath is a multidisciplinary artist and the founder and co-editor of the publication Shifter. His work has been the focus of solo exhibitions at Rodriguez Gallery, Poznan (2019); Ace Gallery, Los Angeles (2017); Nomas Foundation, Rome (2017); Kansas Gallery, New York (2014); Gallery SKE, Bangalore (2013); The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2012); Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago (2012); Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin (2011); and Art Statements, Art Basel (2010). He has participated in group exhibitions at venues including Westfällischer Kunstverein, Münster (2019); Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eynde, Dubai (2017); Queens Museum, New York (2015); YBCA, San Francisco (2011); Galerie Balice Hertling, Paris (2010); and 1A Space, Hong Kong (2010). With a BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Bard College, he attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, Skowhegan and Smack Mellon. Premnath has received grants from Art Matters and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and was awarded the Arthur Levitt Fellowship from Williams College. Based in Brooklyn, Premnath is the Director of the BFA Fine Arts program at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York.

Avram Alpert researches literature and critical theory with a focus on the impact of globalization on modern thought and institutions. His writing examines what it means to be at once a private individual and a global subject, and how this dual demand has shaped modern life. His first book, Global Origins of the Modern Self, from Montaigne to Suzuki (SUNY Press, 2019) offers a history of modern selfhood, from Renaissance Europe to modern Japan. He also writes art criticism and fiction. He is a lecturer in the Princeton University Writing Program.