PREM SAHIB (BRITISH 1982-) §
YOUR DISCO NEEDS YOU XXXVI - 2017
£1,071
Contemporary & Post-War Art // Prints & Multiples
Auction: Contemporary & Post-War Art: 11 January 2023 | From 10:00
Description
Digital print on ceramic tile, signed, titled and dated verso
Dimensions
17cm x 20 cm (6.75in x 8in), unframed
Provenance
Provenance:
To be offered to support The House of St Barnabas (Registered Charity 207242)
Based in a Grade 1 listed townhouse in Soho, The House of St Barnabas has helped Londoners affected by homelessness since 1862. In 2013 the building became a members’ club with a difference; combining a not-for-profit creative and cultural space at No. 1 Greek Street with an Employment Academy for people affected by homelessness. Participants learn their craft in front of house, in the kitchen, the bar, or in the charity’s offices: since opening, 254 participants have graduated from the 12-week programme, many of which have secured lasting employment after graduation.
The House of St Barnabas’ cultural events, music, and the generosity of members are key to the success of the charity, but the building also showcases work by both established and emerging contemporary artists. The permanent collection of visual art includes the works of Banksy and Tracey Emin alongside a programme of temporary exhibitions supporting emerging artists.
The House have kindly been donated 11 works for sale, ranging from sculpture to paintings to support the charity's work. Most of the pieces have been donated by the artists themselves or by the galleries who represent them. Below we take a closer look at the works featuring in our January 2023 sale.
2023 is the year of the house’s 10th anniversary. With your support and dedication, the charity hopes to continue to break the cycle of homelessness.
Footnote
Note: Your Disco Needs You XXXVI (2017) is a digital print of a landscape on a white tile, glazed and fired after printing so that the image sits faintly on the surface like a bruise or a stain, hazy and opalescent. The work recalls a glimpsed reflection, in a public urinal's white tiled wall, of a leafy cruising spot in a London park. Spaces exterior and interior; public and private; expansive and intimate; memorialised and forgotten, all fleetingly combine in an eternalised ephemeral moment, a continuation of Sahib's archiving of queer spaces fading from view or relegated to the margins.
The work of Prem Sahib embodies a poetic and provocative "destabilised minimalism", referencing the architecture of public and private spaces, structures that shape individual and communal identities, senses of belonging, alienation and confinement. Mixing the personal and political, abstraction and figuration, Sahib's formalism is suggestive of the body as well as its absence, drawing attention to traces of touch and frameworks of looking.
In 2023, Sahib will publish That Fire Over There with Book Works, an artist's book developed from Descent, a three-part exhibition at Southard Reid, London in 2019 – 2020. Sahib’s work has been shown widely including solo institutional exhibitions Balconies, Kunstverein Hamburg, 2017 and Side On, ICA London, 2015, as well in group shows at spaces that include Sharjah Art Foundation, Migros Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Hayward Gallery, KW Institute of Art, Des Moines Art Centre and the Gwangju Biennale. Their work is in the collections of Tate, The Arts Council, Government Art Collection, UK; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Norway; X Museum, Beijing, China; and MONA, Australia.