The work of Arthur Jafa inaugurates in Serralves

"I've always been a person who looks at things that disturb me."

Arthur Jafa

The American video artist and cinematographer, Arthur Jafa, inaugurates his latest exhibition in the Serralves Foundation, this Thursday, 20th February, at 10pm.

The exhibition themed "A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions (Featuring Ming Smith, Frida Orupabo and Missylanyus), will be on show in Serralves, from 21th February till 21st June this year.

Jafa, who won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennial 2019, with his film "The White Album", takes to Serralves different projects developed in the scope of audio-visual and sculpture areas, addressing issues such as gender, social class and skin colour, and the way these elements influence daily life in the USA.

In the framework of this exhibition, the Serralves Foundation hosts a talk between Arthur Jafa, the co-curator of the exhibition, Amira Gad and the Director of the Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, António Preto. On Friday, at the Serralves Auditorium, at 7pm.

As a child, Arthur Jafa assembled binders full of found images in collections he called "the books", and he grew up watching "I spy" and other science fiction programs. These have influenced his artistic practice as an adult, notably in his self-portrait "LeRage," (2017).

His work was also inspired by his interest in prominent black jazz music and musicians such as Miles Davis.

Arthur Jafa has exhibited in venues such as The Hirshhorn Museum of Contemporary Art, in Los Angeles, and the Julia Stoschek Collection Museum in Düsseldorf, Germany, just to mention a few.

Arthur Jafa co-founded TNEG along with Malik Sayeed, a "motion picture studio whose goal is to create a black cinema as culturally, socially, and economically central to the 21st century as was black music to the 20th century" and has also worked on a number of music videos, namely as the director of photography on videos for Solange's Don't Touch My Hair and Cranes in the Sky.

See here for furher information on Arthur Jafa's exhibition related activities.