Prem Krishnamurthy Papers

Prem Krishnamurthy (born 1977) is a designer, curator, writer and teacher. Krishnamurthy’s wide spanning practice examines exhibition and presentation strategies through a multitude of formats, including, but not limited to, graphic design and branding; publication design; exhibition design; artmaking and curatorial practice.

Krishnamurthy holds a B.A. in Fine Art from Yale College and was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship in Germany in 1999. In the early 2000s, Krishnamurthy began his career as a graphic designer working independently for clients in Berlin and New York including O-R-G Inc. and "The New York Times Magazine." In 2004, Krishnamurthy founded Project Projects, a Manhattan-based graphic design studio and firm, with partner Adam Michaels. From 2010-2014, Rob Giampietro joined as a principal.

From its inception, Project Projects focused primarily on producing design work and providing consulting services for cultural institutions, including major museums, galleries, creative nonprofits, educational institutions and architecture firms. At the core of the firm’s practice was a fundamental concern and examination of the nature and purpose of an art publication object — as exhibition publications and ephemera, documentation, or, crucially, as an artwork in itself. While always engaged with digital identity design, Project Projects was an eminent proponent of printed media at the height of the digital age— key actors in the art publishing renaissance of the 2010s.

Project Projects operated as a graphic design firm from 2004–2017, and forged long-term relationships with clients including the Museum of Modern Art, Creative Time, American Academy of Poets, Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, SALT Istanbul, Whitney Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, as well as numerous other commercial and nonprofit galleries and arts organizations, architecture and design firms and consumer brands. Project Projects also worked closely with artists including Amie Siegel, Barbara Bloom, Katharina Grosse, Judith Barry, Mika Rottenberg, Omer Fast, Stephen Prina, and Walid Raad In 2015, Project Projects was the recipient of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Communications Design.

In 2012, Krishnamurthy founded P!, a commercial gallery and exhibition space on New York City’s Lower East Side. From the original gallery mission statement, “P! proposes an experimental space of display in which the radical possibilities of disparate disciplines, historical periods, and modes of production rub elbows.” Erected with the support of architects Leong Leong in a former HVAC contracting office on Broome Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown, P! was concerned with issues of exhibition display and exhibition histories, as well as multidisciplinary collaboration. Exhibitions sought to present the financial and economic underpinnings of the work presented in the space. On multiple occasions, Krishnamurthy referred to P! As a “Mom and Pop Kunsthalle,” gesturing to programmatic commitments to the exhibition of unique works and projects by “polymathic practitioners” of art, design, architecture, music and writing, on a small scale.

P! operated from 2012-2017, with programming that followed a narrative arc, and included several “micro epochs,” including the transition of the branding of the gallery from P! to K. for a series of exhibitions in 2015. The gallery’s architecture was similarly transitional, with regular drastic interventions from artists and collaborators.

Additionally, P! hosted extensive public programs including lectures, discussions, and participated in art fairs including NADA, NADA Miami Beach, and Frieze.

Krishnamurthy’s decision to end P!’s programming was reflective of a natural end to the economic and narrative life cycle of the gallery. Primary artists and designers exhibited at P! included Brian O’Doherty, Céline Condorelli, Elaine Lustig Cohen, Karel Martens, Mathew Hale, Maryam Jafri, and Wong Kit Yi.

In addition to his work with Project Projects and P!, Krishnamurthy is also a prolific curator, writer and teacher. He has held teaching positions at Barnard College at Columbia University; California College of the Arts; Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; Central Saint Martins; Maryland Institute College of Art; Rhode Island School of Design; Parsons The New School for Design; Princeton University; Royal College of Art, London; and University of Connecticut Storrs, among other institutions.

Since 2008, Krishnamurthy has organized numerous exhibitions and programs as an independent curator, including the FRONT International 2022 triennial, titled “Oh, Gods of Dust and Rainbows;" "Our Silver City, 2094," at Nottingham Contemporary; “The 13th A.I.R. Biennial: let’s try listening again,” New York (2019); “Fikra Graphic Design Biennial 01: Ministry of Graphic Design,” Sharjah, UAE (2018); “Masterpieces and Curiosities: Elaine Lustig Cohen,” Jewish Museum, New York (2018); “P!CKER,” Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University London (2017–2018); “Creative & Operational Solutions,” Para Site, Hong Kong (2016); and “DIS-PLAY / RE-PLAY,” Austrian Cultural Forum, New York (2016).

As a writer, Krishnamurthy authored the book "On Letters," published by Domain Books in 2022, and the experimental electronic book "P!DF", published by O-R-G from 2017 onwards, as well as essays in books including "John Heartfield: Photography Plus Dynamite" (Hirmer, 2020); "Curating After the Global" (MIT, 2019); "One/Here/Now: The Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland Project" (Sirius Arts Centre, 2019); "The Dispatch: Carnegie International, 57th Edition, 2018" (Carnegie Museum of Art, 2018); "As Seen: Exhibitions that Made Architecture and Design History" (Art Institute of Chicago, 2017); "The Way Beyond Art: Wide White Space" (CCA Wattis, 2013); and "I Like Your Work: Art and Etiquette" (Paper Monument, 2009). He has co-edited books such as "The Death of the Artist" (Cabinet, 2018); "Speculation, Now" (Duke, 2015); "Amie Siegel: Catalogue" (Inventory Press, 2014); "Draw It With Your Eyes Closed: The Art of the Art Assignment" (n+1, 2012); and "MATRIX / Berkeley: A Changing Exhibition of Contemporary Art" (University of California, 2009).