Arthur Jafa will discuss the relationship between artists and the larger art infrastructure. He will draw on his experiences as an artist and filmmaker navigating art institutions such as museums and galleries, while also working within and around the commercial film industry. Through conversations and debates, the fellows will begin to ask how their work as curators, artists and writers, is impacted by the culture of production and display, and how one’s creative practice is changed and shaped as one enters the infrastructure.
Registration
REGISTER TO ATTEND OVER ZOOM | REGISTER TO ATTEND IN PERSON
Proof of vaccination will be required for on-site attendance
Live captioning will be provided on-site and over Zoom.
Artist Bio
Arthur Jafa (b. 1960, Tupelo, Mississippi) is an artist, filmmaker and cinematographer. Across three decades, Jafa has developed a dynamic practice comprising films, artifacts and happenings that reference and question the universal and specific articulations of Black being. Underscoring the many facets of Jafa’s practice is a recurring question: how can visual media, such as objects, static and moving images, transmit the equivalent “power, beauty and alienation” embedded within forms of Black music in US culture?
Jafa’s films have garnered acclaim at the Los Angeles, New York and Black Star Film Festivals and his artwork is represented in celebrated collections worldwide including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Tate, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The High Museum Atlanta, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Stedelijk, Luma Foundation, The Perez Art Museum Miami, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others.
Jafa has recent and forthcoming solo exhibitions of his work at the Pérez Art Museum Miami; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives; Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and the Louisiana Museum of Art, Denmark. In 2019, he received the Golden Lion for the Best Participant of the 58th Venice Biennale May You Live in Interesting Times.
Support
Programming support for RAW Académie Session 9: Infrastructure is provided by the Sachs Contemporary Art Fund and the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.
Programming at ICA is made possible in part by the Emily and Jerry Spiegel Fund to Support Contemporary Culture and Visual Arts and the Lise Spiegel Wilks and Jeffrey Wilks Family Foundation. Public and Student Engagement at ICA is supported by the Bernstein Public Engagement Fund, Suzanne Weiss Doft & Jacob W. Doft, Hilarie L. & Mitchell Morgan, the Nash Family Foundation, and by Dana McDonald Strong & Mark W. Strong.
