the Roberts Institute of Art

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. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here [https://www.therobertsinstituteofart.com/programme/projects/collection-study-prem-sahib-by-osman-yousefzada]. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com [http://therobertsinstituteofart.com/], @therobertsinstituteofart [https://www.instagram.com/therobertsinstituteofart/] and subscribe to our newsletter [https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/w6w4b4]!

Marina Warner’s Pentimento is written in response to Paula Rego’s drawing in pencil and conte, St Mary of Egypt (2011) and tells the story of the little-known saint from fragments of reports of those who knew and remembered her. Knowing Rego’s love of storytelling and character studies, Warner has written a fictional account of a professor who has discovered Rego’s drawing and has pieced together memories of the saint gathered from a fictional fourth-century palimpsest she is researching from the city of Fustat (old Cairo). The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here [https://www.therobertsinstituteofart.com/programme/projects/collection-study-paula-rego-by-marina-warner]. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com [http://therobertsinstituteofart.com/], @therobertsinstituteofart [https://www.instagram.com/therobertsinstituteofart/] and subscribe to our newsletter [https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/w6w4b4]!

Heather Phillipson’s The Creeps is written in response to Emma Talbot’s How the Web was Woven (2009), an acrylic on canvas work with a variety of vignettes, spider webs, texts and mysterious figures. Reflecting the haunting, unsettling atmosphere in Talbot’s painting, Phillipson considers how an artwork can never be fully understood or described, but is something we can continually think with and learn from. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here [https://www.therobertsinstituteofart.com/programme/projects/collection-study-emma-talbot-by-heather-phillipson]. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com [http://therobertsinstituteofart.com/], @therobertsinstituteofart [https://www.instagram.com/therobertsinstituteofart/] and subscribe to our newsletter [https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/w6w4b4]!

Julie Ezelle Patton’s Three Phases of Eva, 1965 is written in response to Eva Hesse’s Three (1965), a triptych of gouache and oil on paper collage. Patton takes Hesse’s triptych and title to structure the poem in three, imaginatively exploring Hesse's name, work and life, from Patton's first memory of hearing the artist’s name to once assisting Hesse’s partner, artist Tom Doyle. For Patton, the encounter with this work becomes a point of departure to play with language just as Hesse experimented with materials, and to reflect on acts of violence, from Hesse’s experience of fleeing from Nazi Germany in her childhood, to current events today. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here [https://www.therobertsinstituteofart.com/programme/projects/collection-study-eva-hesse-by-julie-ezelle-patton]. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com [http://therobertsinstituteofart.com/], @therobertsinstituteofart [https://www.instagram.com/therobertsinstituteofart/] and subscribe to our newsletter [https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/w6w4b4]

Imani Mason Jordan’s 1:1 is written in response to Ellen Gallagher’s Untitled (2005). Gallagher’s intimate work shows two silhouetted figures etched onto a gold leaf background. The figures, posed as if in conversation, recall nineteenth-century portraits of authors found in narratives of slave emancipation. Jordan’s couplets of words and sounds, pulsing and intimate, fragmentary and accumulative, reflects Gallagher’s own process of gathering, erasing, cutting and collaging materials. The text was commissioned as part of our exhibition Close Looking: Collection Studies from the Roberts Institute of Art at Cromwell Place, on show from the 22 November to 3 December 2023. The exhibition is about close looking and reading. Six writers of different backgrounds have been specially commissioned to write responses to six works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, with texts that span from poetry to storytelling. Read the text and see the artwork here [https://www.therobertsinstituteofart.com/programme/projects/collection-study-ellen-gallagher-by-imani-mason-jordan]. Have questions, comments or want to see more of what the Roberts Institute of Art does? Reach us via therobertsinstituteofart.com [http://therobertsinstituteofart.com/], @therobertsinstituteofart [https://www.instagram.com/therobertsinstituteofart/] and subscribe to our newsletter [https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/w6w4b4]!