hedge: Audra Wolowiec + Sreshta Rit Premnath

Present Co.

March 16—April 22, 2018

254 Johnson Ave

Brooklyn NY 11206

Brooklyn, NY, March 13, 2018— Present Co. is pleased to announce the opening of hedge, a two person exhibition featuring new works by Audra Wolowiec and Sreshta Rit Premnath—on view from March 16 – April 22, 2018.

Over the past decade, Wolowiec and Premnath have crossed over seemingly parallel interdisciplinary practices transforming the nuances of sociopolitical ephemera and perception into intricate and poetic visual iconography, sculptures, and installations. The phonetics of language and the residue of

culture rooted in the artists’ works embody personal and shared histories aimed at reframing the viewers’ awareness of sense and site.

In recent works, Audra Wolowiec’s sculptural sound installations and experimental language scores have focused on the gap, space, or breath in between speech as generators of meaning. Her newest work, language from the center / language from the edge, unravels the linguistic implications of deconstructing prose from a self-help manual titled, Power Talk. This multi-channel, site-responsive sound installation alters the command vocalizations promoted in the book by removing consonants and consequently decentralizing (or destabilizing) the nature of authoritative speech.

In one work at Present Co., Sreshta Rit Premnath alters the access and interpretation of the contents of a book. The artist chooses not to excise material, but obscure what can be seen. In the compressed form of the photograph, a hand holds a long extinct marine fossil hovering over the pages of a

catalog. Most of the view of the printed image of a Shiva Linga, an abstract representation of the deity, is blocked. The tactile and fossilized rock—both immediate and ancient—does not displace but builds upon the symbolism of what is beneath. Elsewhere in the gallery, other actual objects—a military boot and a cone of thread—become signs in states of formation. Around these concrete objects and photographic indexes, Premnath installs sculptural punctuation as a way of delimiting the signs and symbols in his work and the dislocated walls upon which they rest.

hedge suitably mirrors the way Audra Wolowiec and Sreshta Rit Premnath collaboratively engage within the gallery by mediating succinct interventions, subtle architectural shifts, and overlapping visual refrains. As a collection of articulations, developed from the artists’ prolonged engagement with their natural and built environments, the exhibition proposes a series of social and conceptual boundaries slowly inching to and from each other.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Sreshta Rit Premnath (born 1979, Bangalore, India) is an artist and co-editor of Shifter. He has had solo exhibitions at Ace Gallery, Los Angeles; Nomas Foundation, Rome; Kansas Gallery, New York; Gallery SKE, Bangalore; The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago; Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin; Wave Hill, New York; and Art Statements, Art Basel. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions at venues including Queens Museum, New York; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; Galerie Balice Hertling, Paris; 1A Space, Hong Kong and Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eynde, Dubai. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Premnath teaches at Parsons Fine Arts.

Audra Wolowiec (born 1979, Detroit, MI) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues such as MASS MoCA, Art in General, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Studio 10 and Center for Performance Research. She has been the subject of numerous articles in publications such as BOMB, Modern Painters, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, CAA Journal, and Sound American. Recent residencies include Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Complex Systems Art & Science Residency at the University of Oregon, and Dieu Donné. Wolowiec is based in New York and currently teaches at Parsons School of Design, SUNY Purchase, and Dia:Beacon.

*Image Captions:

left: Audra Wolowiec, language from the center / language from the edge, 2018, sound installation, dimensions variable

right: Sreshta Rit Premnath, Swayambhu, 2017, Aluminum Print, 20 x 30 inches

PRESENT COMPANY | 254 Johnson Ave Brooklyn, NY 11206 | www.present-co.com

Founded in 2012, Present Company is a Brooklyn-based exhibition and social space. Our program highlights artists and projects in a curated atmosphere of experimentation and collaboration.

GALLERY HOURS | Saturday & Sunday 1-6pm and by appointment

ADMISSION | Free

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