Collection Study

Prem Sahib, User_01, 2016

November 2023

Osman Yousefzada’s poem, Untitled (for Prem), is written in response to Prem Sahib’s User_01 (2016), a panel of black aluminium covered with drops of resin that look like sweat and moisture, smudged in one part as if by a hand. The work’s eroticism, inspired by the sweaty walls of clubs, is framed by Yousefzada’s evocation of memory, longing and sensuality.

Roberts Institute of Art

Prem Sahib, User_01, 2016
Aluminium, resin

Close Looking
Collection Study: Prem Sahib by Osman Yousefzada
03:07

Text by Osman Yousefzada

Untitled (for Prem)

I surrender myself Into Myself
The shadow still Exits
In the corner
It stands apart
By itself
The sweat exorcises the profane
I leave it for you to find
I swallow a mouthful
And my ears pop
Drowning out the suffocation

The moon looks at me silently
As I press my body
leaving my mark
Like a cuneiform inscription

Like a laceration of Curry stains
Turmeric
Haldi & Dhaal
I turn off the light and stand still

I stay here until the early morning
At Dawn
I glimmer in this light
My body pressed
My two eyes open
This must be
Like being born
My mouth turns towards the Sun

And I feed myself on my own placenta
Dark laments run trembling through my voice
As I sing to you
In my high phonetics
Like sirens
From Foreign Shores

I press, peer, push, and mark
Sweet Curried Sweat
Cloves, Cinnamon and Chilli.
Liquid Turmeric Rush
Higher + Higher

I want to be more
Than you will let Me
Again
I turn off the light
I stand still
The sweat colours my Throat
And I eat my Tongue

Osman Yousefzada

Osman Yousefzada’s (b. 1977) practice revolves around modes of storytelling, merging autobiography with fiction and ritual. His work is concerned with the representation and rupture of the migrational experience and makes reference to socio-political issues of today. These themes are explored through moving image, installations, text works, sculpture, garment making and performance. Yousefzada is a research practitioner at the Royal College of Art, London and a visiting fellow at Cambridge University. His work has been shown at international institutions including: Whitechapel Gallery, London; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (solo 2018); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, V&A (solo 2022): Wapping Project, London; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; Ringling Museum, Florida; Lahore Museum, Pakistan; Design Museum, London; Lahore Biennale, Pakistan; and Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh. Yousefzada’s contemporary art practice has been described as ‘defiant’, where the participating bodies throughout his work are presented as part objects that refuse to identify or conform. Most recently, his series of solo interventions titled What Is Seen & What Is Not was shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London. Across three site-specific works, this commission responded to the 75th anniversary of Pakistan independence and explored themes of displacement, movement, migration and climate change. He lives and works in London.

Prem Sahib

Prem Sahib (b.1982) works in sculpture, installation, performance, events, photography and sound. They graduated from the Slade in 2006 and the Royal Academy Schools in 2013. Often minimal and sparse in color, Sahib’s work explores themes including relationships, intimacy and sexuality, desire, repulsion, clubbing, community, alienation and confinement. Their work is informed by an interest in the architecture of meeting places, particularly for gay and queer communities. Mixing the personal and political, abstraction and figuration, their formalism is suggestive of the body as well as its absence, drawing attention to traces of touch and frameworks of looking. They live and work in London.

Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art

The Roberts Institute of Art brings together six artists and writers with six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. Each writer has been invited to select and study a single artwork from the Collection to develop new texts, which span from poetry to storytelling. The exhibition is part of our commitment to bringing in diverse perspectives to an internationally significant collection, and takes place at Cromwell Place (22 November – 3 December 2023).

Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art

at Cromwell Place

Roberts Institute of Art

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Eva Hesse, Three, 1965

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Emma Talbot, How the Web was Woven, 2009

Roberts Institute of Art

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Ayan Farah, Stardust, 2011

Roberts Institute of Art