Polymathic designer Prem Krishnamurthy will lead eina idea’s first program of the 2021–22 season. This event also represents the newest iteration of Krishnamurthy’s multi-format self-exploration entitled Structures (Describing a System in Real Time). Functioning as a necessarily incomplete index of “everything I know that I know”, Structures uses the Tags function of the task management app Things as a container for organizing an open enumeration of themes, topics, activities, outputs, and references across disciplines.
For this public event, a new printed version of Structures will be produced by eina idea as the score for a participatory gathering on September 10, 2021. The event also marks the start of a year-long engagement with Prem’s pedagogical, multi-layered artistic approach. His original, transdisciplinary thinking pushes us to unlock the protocols of daily creative practice, opening up to the improvisation and bumpiness of performative reinvention.
Prem Krishnamurthy (b. 1977) is based in Berlin and New York. His work across media explores the transformative potential of art and design by experimenting with presentational strategies, performative modes, and ways of communing. He directs Wkshps, a multidisciplinary design consultancy; is artistic director of FRONT International 2022, the Cleveland triennial of contemporary art; and organizes Commune /kəˈmjuːn/, an emergent workshop that practices artistic tools for social transformation. Previously, Prem founded the design studio Project Projects and the exhibition space P! in New York. He received the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Communications Design in 2015 and KW Institute for Contemporary Art’s “A Year With…” residency fellowship in 2018. In March 2021, Pompeii Archaeological Park released his digital artwork, Pompeii!, which reflects upon rituals, destruction, memory, and letting go. More info here.
Readings (Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind), 2020
Diagram for Polymorph!, 2021
Still from Counting, 2019. Video Production: Ethan Hayes-Chute
Emily Smith & Prem Krishnamurthy, “The Social Life of Signs”, 2015. Domaine de Boisbuchet, Limoges, FR. Photo: Ivy Tzai
Prem Krishnamurthy with Klasse Digitale Grafik, Commune Conversations, 2020.
Klaus Wittkugel: OST UND oder WEST, 2016. P!, New York, USA. Photo: Sebastian Bach
nstallation view of P!CKER, PART I: Elaine Lustig Cohen, 2017. Stanley Picker Gallery, London, GB. Curators: Prem Krishnamurthy and Stella Bottai. Photo: Plastiques
Wkshps (fka Project Projects), SALT identity program, 2010–
P!DF, 2017. Stanley Picker Gallery, London, GB
K, [K-Komma], 2018. Berlin, DE
Installation view of The Ceiling Must Be Green, 2013. P!, New York, USA. Curators: Ali Wong and Prem Krishnamurthy. Photo: Naho Kubota
Page from P!DF, v.1.0.0, 2016. Publisher: O-R-G
Screenshot from Commune, v.1.0.0, 2020
Diagrams (Maximum Complexity), 2021
“Workshop Without Words” (“Taller sin palabras”), 2014. NoMíNIMO, Guayaquil, EC. Curator: Manuela Moscoso
K, [K-Komma], 2019. Berlin, DE
Endless Exhibition, 2018–. Kunsthal Gent, Ghent, BE
Screenshot from Present! v.1.0.0, 2020
Readings (Viktor Shklovsky, Art as Device), 2021