Sreshta Rit Premnath

Recto/Verso

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Sreshta Rit Premnath , Recto/Verso , 2017, Digital print on aluminium, 61 x 76 cm. Courtesy of the artist. Art Jameel Collection

Artwork Details

Artist

Sreshta Rit Premnath

Title

Recto/Verso

Date

2017

Medium

Digital print on aluminium

Dimensions

61 x 76 cm

Credit Line

Art Jameel Collection

Work Description

Recto/Verso and The Law of Identity #1, #2, #3 and #4 were created during a residency in Italy, where Sreshta Rit Premnath looked at the relationship between the Polish conceptual artist André Cadere (1934-1978) and Bangladeshi rose sellers in Rome. Born and raised in India, Premnath noticed that his physical attributes, in a very general sense, resembled that of the flower sellers. Similarly, Cadere, a Polish-born artist of Romanian descent, was seen as an immigrant by the art world of Paris, where he lived in the 1970s. Uninvited, he often attended art openings, where he discreetly leaned his works against the walls of other artists’ exhibitions. These works, known as Barres de Bois Rond, were essentially wooden dowels painted in segments in successive variations.

Recto/Verso presents a double-spread of photographs; on one page, the artist holds a bouquet of red roses, while the opposite, mirroring, page, taken from the catalogue Documenting Cadere, features the last three photographs taken of Cadere before his death. Premnath suggests that Cadere’s round stick, which he is photographed holding, functions in much the same way as the flower seller’s rose, each object entwining contradictory symbolic and monetary values.

Artist Biography

Sreshta Rit Premnath (b. 1979, lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) is a multidisciplinary artist and the founding editor of Shifter, an issue based journal featuring contemporary art, creative writing and critical theory. Premnath completed a BFA at The Cleveland Institute of Art (2003), MFA at Bard College (2006), and has attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, Skowhegan and Smack Mellon. Premnath is the Director of the BFA Fine Arts program at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York.

His work has been included in 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 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). Premnath has received grants from Art Matters and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and was awarded the Arthur Levitt Fellowship from Williams College.

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