CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/14/2026

Printed Matter, Inc. presents Pedro Bernstein and Courtney Smith on "Commentary on 'Approximations to the Object'"

Wednesday, January 14, from 6–8 PM, Printed Matter presents a launch and conversation with Pedro Bernstein on the occasion of his new publication, Commentary on "Approximations to the Object": Readings in Designed Literature, published by Set Margins’. Berstein will be joined in conversation by artist Courtney Smith.

Bernstein’s Commentary on the oeuvre of Approximations to the Object, a nineteenth-century treatise attributed to Edmund Stone, explores the possibility that certain material objects may have prefigured particular literary modes of understanding. As long as this thesis persists, the commentary keeps the reader on edge, engaging in its own material logic, only to diverge from it—reaching a peak of utmost emancipation, ultimately to: comment on it.

Harnessing historical gaps, predication, speculation, and the shifting boundaries between objects and texts, Bernstein’s textual and design inferences are far from incidental deviations. They propel the commentary into something beyond a mere study of influence, raising intriguing questions: What other objects might have influenced certain literary forms? How can the interplay between design and literature uncover the structures that shape interpretation and meaning? Why has Stone’s treatise remained overlooked for so many centuries?

Pedro Bernstein is an Argentine designer and art director based in New York. His work moves between fiction, literature, design, and fashion through vehicles of text, image, and speculative research. He holds a degree in Strategic Design from Parsons School of Design and has realized curatorial and image-making projects for both cultural institutions and design agencies, including Baron & Baron, Creative Time, Swiss Institute, and Instituto de Visión.

Courtney Smith is an artist based in Brooklyn working in sculpture and performance. Her sculptural work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America. After a twenty-year solo career as a sculptor, starting in Rio de Janeiro in the mid-nineties, she shifted her practice to focus exclusively on Konantü, an ongoing series of participatory performances that she established in 2015 with her collaborator and long-time partner Iván Navarro.

Printed Matter Chelsea
Pedro Bernstein: Commentary on Approximations to the Object Launch and Conversation
Wednesday, January 14, 6–8 PM
231 11th Ave, NYC