Artists Talks: A conversation between Prem Sahib and Mary Rinebold
When: Thursday, March 27, 2025, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Where: Lecture Theatre, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London, 67-69 Lincolns Inn Fields, London WC2A 3JB
For the ongoing Art, Business and Law (ABL) Artists Talks Series, please join us for an evening conversation between artist Prem Sahib and writer Mary Rinebold, with an introduction from Professor Debbie De Girolamo.
The Art Business and Law LLM at Queen Mary University of London is honoured to welcome to the Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS), Prem Sahib, a prolific artist whose installations and objects challenge, stretch and propel sculptural practice. Active since the mid-2000s, Sahib has created a body of work that shifts between social and object-based sculpture to articulate an artistic language indicative of his cultural moment using sound, form and emotional experience as tools. Sahib demonstrates a dedication to form through masterful attention to detail whether it be through surface veneer or auditory intervention.
In March of last year, Sahib explored the realms of sound and sculpture with the premier of Alleus at Somerset House, with a second iteration at the Edinburgh Art Festival in August. Based off a sound piece first premiered at the Göteborg Biennial 2023, with Alleus Prem innovated a social sculpture through the modes of performative vocal experimentation and polyphonic sound. This historically significant performance will form the basis of the evening at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, allowing the discussion to move between the formal elements of Sahib’s practice and the concerns of artists creating work that contravenes with public law.
Prem Sahib’s work explores the structures that shape individual and communal identities, senses of belonging, alienation and confinement. Blending personal and political elements, abstraction and figuration, Sahib's formalism suggests the body and its absence, highlighting traces of touch and frameworks of looking. Sahib’s work has been shown widely, including solo institutional exhibitions Documents of a Recent Past, Studio Voltaire in 2025; Balconies, Kunstverein Hamburg in 2017; and Side On, ICA in 2015, as well in group shows at Sharjah Art Foundation, Migros Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Hayward Gallery, KW Institute of Art, Des Moines Art Centre and the Gwangju Biennale. Sahib’s work is in the collections of Tate, Arts Council England, the Government Art Collection, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Norway, MONA in Australia and Walker Art Center.
Writer Mary Rinebold is curator of the Artists Talks series. Mary is art consultant at Canvas Art Law, a specialist international art and cultural property law firm (www.canvasartlaw.co.uk), and runs a parallel creative practice (www.lucylovelace.com) in writing, curating, and art bookmaking, having contributed art criticism to magazines including Artforum, Artforum.com, Flash Art, and Art in America, and fictive essays for artists' exhibitions and monographs. Between 2009 and 2014, she co-founded and co-directed Kunstverein NY. Compelled by ecological values, since 2011 Mary has collaborated closely with major artists and curators involved with environmental justice, having hosted connected leaders for the Artist Talks series. Mary also serves on the Board of Trustees at London’s influential non-profit gallery, education programme and artist studios, Cubitt Artists.
Schedule
6pm - 6:30pm
Registration
6:30-pm - 7:30pm
Welcome: Professor Debbie De Girolamo (CCLS)
Conversation between Prem Sahib and Mary Rinebold
Q&A
7:30pm - 8:30pm
Reception