BERLIN.- The Julia Stoschek Collection is presenting the work of the acclaimed US filmmaker, cinematographer and artist Arthur Jafa (b. 1960 in Tupelo, Mississippi) in his first exhibition in Germany, featuring Ming Smith, Frida Orupabo, and Missylanyus. The exhibition was developed in partnership with Serpentine Galleries, London and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Amira Gad. First presented at Serpentine Galleries from 8 June – 10 September 2017.
Across three decades, Jafa has developed a dynamic, multidisciplinary practice ranging from films and installations to lecture-performances and happenings that tackle, challenge and question prevailing cultural assumptions about identity and race. Jafa's work is driven by a recurrent question: how might one identify and develop a specifically Black visual aesthetics equal to the 'power, beauty and alienation' of Black music in US culture?
The title of the exhibition A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions relates to the sense of absence that Jafa observes as haunting Black life. The word 'rendition' refers to the artist's interpretation of the aesthetics associated with Black being, which are historically-inscribed in images, objects and artefacts. By re-performing these narratives in the present, Jafa imagines and constructs new possibilities for making them visible.
Jafa creates work that approximates the radical alienation of Black life in the West while seeking to make visible – or emancipate – the power embedded in modes of African expression. With reference points ranging from Fang sculpture to Mississippi juke joints, Duchamp's urinal to jazz, he is a filmmaker with a unique understanding of how to cut and juxtapose a sequence to draw out maximum visceral effect. By presenting the content that is historically embedded within an African American understanding of Blackness, Jafa proposes a scenario in which these histories might hold a universal significance if freed from a fixed set of discourses.
Jafa has also collaborated with directors ranging from Spike Lee (CROOKLYN, 1994) to John Akomfrah (SEVEN SONGS FOR MALCOLM X,1993) and artists including Kara Walker and Fred Moten. He has also been recognized for his work on the Solange Knowles videos DON'T TOUCH MY HAIR and CRANES IN THE SKY (2016).
Explaining his favourite medium, Jafa has said: 'Film is one of the few things, particularly in the theatrical context, that takes up as much space as architecture but like music is fundamentally immaterial.'
A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions also includes the work of three additional voices: the photographer Ming Smith, @nemiepeba – the lnstagram feed of artist Frida 0rupabo – and content from the YouTube channel of Missylanyus. Together, these three 'platforms' or 'guests' are integral to Jafa's presentation in the exhibition, and acknowledge the influence of others within his own practice.
Accompanying the exhibition, a catalogue will be published in Spring 2018 with texts by (among others) John Akomfrah, Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard, Arthur Jafa, Fred Moten and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Mississippi-born Arthur Jafa is based in Los Angeles. His first solo exhibition at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York took place in 2016. He was selected for the 2016 Made in L.A. Biennial at the Hammer Museum, and in 2015, he presented APEX redacted, a public video installation for Flux Night in Atlanta. Additionally, his work was included in Kara Walker's exhibition RUFFNECK CONSTRUCTIVISTS at the ICA Philadelphia and he has shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2001); Media City, Seoul (2000); Black Box, CCAC Institute, Oakland (2000); and Artists Space, New York (1999). Selected works as a film director include: SLOWLY THIS, SMILE, UNTIL, DESHOTTEN, DREAMS ARE COLDER THAN DEATH, ADRIAN YOUNG. As a cinematographer, he has worked with featured-film directors, John Akomfrah, Julie Dash, Andrew Dosunmu, Haile Gerima, and Spike Lee. Jafa is also a principal member of studio collective TNEG (along with Elissa Blount Moorhead and Malik Hassan Sayeed), a trans-Atlantic university lecturer; and has published a scribe of critical theory manifestos.
