arthur jafa: a series of utterly improbable, yet ... series of utterly improbable, yet extraordinary...
TRANSCRIPT
ARTHUR JAFA:
A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions
Featuring Ming Smith, Frida Orupabo and Missylanyus
SERPENTINE SACKLER GALLERY
8 JUNE – 10 SEPTEMBER 2017
LIST OF WORKS
Unless otherwise stated all works are courtesy of the artist and Gavin Brown’s enterprise,
New York / Rome.
SOUTH GALLERY, SOUTH POWDER ROOM & WEST PERIMETER
Arthur Jafa
Mix 1 – 3_constantly evolving 2017
Video installation, three screens
Jafa has reconfigured the spaces of the Serpentine Sackler Gallery by creating two, angled
projection screens in the corners of the Gallery and one suspended screen in the South Powder
Room, each of which display different videos. Jafa views these works as ‘mixes’ that are constantly
evolving, comprising moving image material, both found and created, that he has edited together
with a sonic score accessed via wireless headphones. Visitors are invited to wear these
headphones as they move throughout the space, switching between the three channels as they
view each video. The expanded and cinematic nature of Jafa’s moving images is emphasised by
the localised effect of ‘tuning in’ to each soundtrack, as well as the artist’s sampling and mixing
together of different music. Across each screen, viewers hear a selection of sounds, from the guitar
solo of the African American musician, Eddie Hazel, who played with the funk, soul and rock music
collective, Parliament-Funkadelic, to the jazz pianist, Alice Coltrane.
Jafa has incorporated other ‘platforms’ into these video works. One projection includes material
from the YouTube channel of Missylanyus, which Jafa stumbled across in the sidebar of his web
browser whilst listening to music. The channel’s owner and creator is seen performing to the
camera, intensely absorbed by the sound and voyeuristic lens of the webcam. Jafa has also
featured material from the Instagram feed of Frida Orupabo (@nemiepeba), whose photographic
works are on display in this exhibition.
SOUTH GALLERY
Arthur Jafa
Jonathan 2017
Wallpaper
Copyright Jim Kean/Marin Independent Journal
This photographic montage depicts Jonathan P. Jackson during the Marin County courthouse
incident on 7 August 1970. Jackson attempted to negotiate the freedom of a group called the
Soledad Brothers, three African-American inmates charged with the murder of a White prison
guard in retaliation to the shooting deaths of three Black prisoners during a prison fight three
days prior. Jonathan’s brother, George Jackson, was an activist, Marxist, author, member of the
revolutionary Black Panther Party, and one of the three Soledad Brothers who Jonathan attempted
to emancipate. He kidnapped Superior Court judge Harold Haley from the Marin County Civic
Centre in San Raphael, California, which resulted in a shootout leaving four men dead, including
both Jonathan and Judge Haley.
Jafa has appropriated an archival photograph from the Marin Independent Journal to produce a
blown-up and fragmented rendition of this event. This work reflects Jafa’s interest in exploring and
re-contextualising particular historical narratives and news stories that have been subject to bias
against the Black community.
The confederate flag is widely considered a symbol of racial division in America. It first came
into use during the American Civil War, from 1861–5, which was triggered by the subject of
slavery. Seven southern US states rebelled over President Abraham Lincoln’s anti-slavery
legislation and declared withdrawal from the United States. The confederate flag was first used
as the battle flag by the army of Northern Virginia, and although not officially adopted by them,
it came to represent the Confederate States of America, or the dissenting states of the
American South. The flag has since maintained its charged history, being flown by Southern
militants during the Second World War and adopted by the Ku Klux Klan during the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Today, for many Americans, the flag is a representation of
slavery, hatred and White supremacy.
For this exhibition, Jafa has appropriated the 13-star saltire confederate flag and rendered it in
black, hand-sewn fabric, its material and image becoming embedded with the ‘Blackness’ it is
symbolically and historically against. Behind it sits a blackened flag of the United States, its
image shrunken and shrouded in its obscured positioning.
Arthur Jafa,
Black Flag 2017
Hand-sewn flag
Arthur Jafa
Krazy Kat 2017
Printed acetate
Arthur Jafa,
Black American Flag 1.0 2017
Dyed flag
WEST PERIMETER
This is an image that Jafa took of a display at the Murambi memorial site of the Rwandan
genocide in 1994. It was here that 10,000 Rwandans who sought refuge at the technical school
were murdered by genocidal militias. All parts of Rwanda were victim to the atrocities
committed against the Tutsi and moderate Hutus by members of the Hutu majority
government during the Civil War (1990–4). This work, together with the confederate flag, reflect
Jafa’s interest in the artefacts and remnants of Black history and how these objects and
images can be re-presented and re-contextualised through display.
This archival photograph shows a group of African-American children at Whittier Primary
School in Hampton, Virginia, collectively saluting an American flag held up by a fellow
classmate. The image was taken in 1900, a time when the full force of racial segregation was in
effect in the wake of the American Civil War.
Arthur Jafa
Rwanda 1999
Digital C-print, printed 2017
Pledge of allegiance, 1848 2017
Wallpaper
Exhibition print copyright the Library of
Congress, Washington DC
This series of works by artist and sociologist, Frida Orupabo, is an extension of her Instagram
feed, @nemiepeba, a collection of written works, images and sounds that address ideas and
iconographies of Blackness, identity and heritage. Orupabo’s images are the result of collecting,
storing and working with found material, which is then rendered digitally via Instagram. The
artist describes this platformas a virtual space where she can challenge and deconstruct the
White gaze through an idiosyncratic visual language. As part of the exhibition, Orupabo has
given a small selection of her works three-dimensional form through cut-out figurines and
black and white photography. Content from @nemiepeba has also been incorporated by Jafa
into the videos displayed throughout the Gallery.
Arthur Jafa
Mickey Mouse was a Scorpio 2016
Wallpaper
Ming Smith
In the Wings, Padova, Italy, 1978
Gelatin silver print, printed 2017
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Frida Orupabo
Keeping it Together 2016-17
Collage with paper and pins
Courtesy of the artist
NORTH GALLERY
Picture books 1990–2005
Cut paper in plastic sleeves, bound in three-ring binders
Dimensions variable
Since the 1990s, Jafa has been assembling collections of images, which he arranges together in
series of picture books. Often bringing together images from disparate contexts, time frames
and histories, Jafa creates a renewed tension and energy by placing them in what artist and
filmmaker, John Akomfrah calls an ‘affective proximity’. For this exhibition, a selection of these
books has been reproduced as facsimiles for visitors to browse.
These two photographs were shot by Jafa on an early morning in South Los Angeles, capturing
sublimity in the sharp contrast of forms within the contemporary urban landscape.
Arthur Jafa
LA Haze I 2014
Digital C-print, printed 2017
Arthur Jafa
LA Haze II 2014
Digital C-print, printed 2017
Miles Reggie Lucas c. 1974
Digital C-print, printed 2017
This archival photograph depicts the American musicians Miles
Davis and Reggie Lucas playing together in the early 1970s.
Between 1972 and 1976, Lucas played in Davis’ electric band,
alongside Pete Cosey, Michael Henderson, Al Foster and Mtume.
They were acknowledged as one of the most exciting and
ground-breaking bands of its time.
Arthur Jafa
Carry Out 2017
Printed acetate
Arthur Jafa
Horrid Massacre Virginia 2017
Printed acetate
EAST PERIMETER
Ming Smith
Lamentation in San Miguel Allende, San Miguel Allende, Mexico, 1977
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1977
40.6 x 50.8 cm
Arthur Jafa
The Surge 2017
Wallpaper
Several of the photographic works in the exhibition focus on Jafa’s interest in contemporary
forms of portraiture and the prevalence ofthe White gaze in modes of capturing subjects via
film and photography. Jafa says that ‘if you point a camera at a Black person, on a
psychoanalytic level it functions as a White gaze...It doesn’t matter if a Black person is behind
the camera or not’.
From low-fi screenshots using FaceTime, where pixelated faces are held in place by the
iPhone’s digital symbology, to the abstract rhythmic movement of performing musicians, Jafa
presents a series of subjects frozen in exclamatory movements, eclipsed by flares of sunlight,
or directly returning the gaze of the camera lens.
Arthur Jafa
Monster 1989
Gelatin silver print, printed 2017
Arthur Jafa
Sharifa 2016
Digital C-print, printed 2017
Arthur Jafa
Facetime Unavailable 2016
Digital C-print, printed 2017
Arthur Jafa
SRP Unavailable 2016
Digital C-print, printed 2017
Arthur Jafa
Monster 1989
Digital C-print, printed 2017
Arthur Jafa
LeRage 2017
Cut-out
Arthur Jafa
Monster II 2017
Cut-out
NORTH POWDER ROOM
A room in the Gallery is dedicated to a series of works by the American photographer, Ming
Smith. In a career spanning over forty years, Smith has become known for her informal, in-
action portraits of Black cultural figures, from Alvin Ailey to Nina Simone, a wide range of jazz
musicians, as well as capturing subjects throughout the streets of New York City.
Smith’s work is characterised by a unique understanding and use of low-light situations. The
instants that the artist captures often hover between a state of distortion and definition. Light,
form and motion become crystallised, resulting in images that are simultaneously abstract and
figurative. Smith describes each of her images as like a Haiku or Imagist poem, where a fleeting
moment in time is rendered through her own visual language of light and shade. The works on
display in the exhibition span the early 1970s to the 1990s and demonstrate the breadth of
Smith’s subject matter and technique. Several of these works have been revisited through the
artist’s act of painting directly onto the original photograph. This desire to re-work her images
highlights the significance of time and context within Smith’s practice and how lost moments
can be brought back to life in unexpected ways.
Frida Orupabo
Untitled 2016-17
Black and white photograph
Courtesy of the artist
Arthur Jafa
Slaver 2017
Printed acetate
Ming Smith
Untitled, New York, NY, c. 1981
Cibachrome print, printed c. 1981
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Untitled, New York, NY, c. 1981
Cibachrome print, printed c. 1981
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Untitled, New York, NY, c. 1981
Cibachrome print, printed c. 1981
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Untitled, New York, c. 1981
Cibachrome print
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery,
New York
Ming Smith
Invisible Man No Border c. 1998
Gelatin silver print, printed 2017
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Manhattan Parallels, New York, NY, c. 1972
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1972
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Sunday Morning Service, Father and Son, Abyssinia, Harlem,
NY, c. 1990
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1990
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
August Blues (from the Invisible Man series), Harlem, NY, c. 1991
Unique gelatin silver print, printed c. 2000
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Mother and Child, Harlem, NY, 1977
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1977
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery,
New York
Ming Smith
Sun Breeze After the Bluing, Hoboken, NJ, c. 1972
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1972
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Sunday Service, Abyssinia, Harlem, NY, c. 1990
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1990
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery,
New York
Ming Smith
Amina and Amiri Baraka "Lovers", New York, NY, 1980
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1980
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery,
New York
Ming Smith
Abhortion, 32nd and Park, New York, NY, 1978
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1978
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery,
New York
Ming Smith
Family free time in the park, Atlanta, Georgia, 1982
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1982
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery,
New York
Ming Smith
Hart-Leroy Bibbs Casing the scene, Paris, France, 1980
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1980
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Flamingo Fandango, Berlin, West Germany, 1988
Painted gelatin silver print, printed c. 1988
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New
York
Ming Smith
Sun Ra space II, New York, NY, 1978
Gelatin silver print, printed c. 2000
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New
York
Ming Smith
Pool Player (From the August Wilson Series), c. 1993 Vintage
gelatin silver print, printed c. 1993
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
These two photographs were taken by Jafa of different musicians. With a subtle gesture to the
semi-abstracted and slow-take photographic style of Ming Smith, these images capture the
energy, movement and rhythm of the performing body.
Ming Smith
Lady and Child (From the August Wilson Series), c. 1993
Vintage gelatin silver print, printed c. 1993
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Ming Smith
Untitled (Self-Portrait with Camera), New York, NY, c. 1975 Gelatin
silver print, printed 2017
Courtesy of the artist and Steven Kasher Gallery, New York
Arthur Jafa
Grahm 2004
Digital C-print, printed 2017
Arthur Jafa
Red Dragon 2004
Digital C-print, printed 2017