Press Release: Arthur Jafa

New Works: 02.2
07.11.02

New Works: 02.2

July 11 ?ptember 8, 2002

Sharon Engelstein Houston, TX

Arthur Jafa New York, NY

Ann-Sofi SidŽn Stockholm, Sweden

Selected by Valerie Cassel

About the Artist

Arthur Jafa was born in 1960 in Tupelo, Mississippi and raised in Clarksdale, MS.
He currently lives and works in New York, NY. Jafa studied at Howard University
in Washington, D.C. His work has been exhibited in Social Formal,
WestfŠlischer Kunstveren, MÃ¼nster, Germany (2002); Bitstreams, Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2001); 2000 Biennial Exhibition,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Media City, Seoul,
Korea (2000); Black Box, CCAC Institute, Oakland, CA (2000); Artists
Space, New York, NY (1999); and in Okwui Enwezor's Mirror's Edge
which opened at the BildMusset, University of UmeŒ in Sweden and traveled to
the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy; and Tramway,
Glasgow, Scotland (1999).

Arthur Jafa selected for the 02.2 residency by Valerie Cassel. Valerie Cassel
is an Associate Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX. Prior to
her position at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Cassel was the director of the
Visiting Artists Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1996-2001)
and Program Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts (1988-1995). In
2000, she served as co-curator of the Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum
of American Art, New York, NY.

About the Project

Arthur Jafa is a conceptual artist whose body of work considers the conundrum
of creating complex personifications of one's (Black) self while resisting the
reductive mechanisms that strive to constrain any non-white (and non-male)
subject resistant to privileging hegemonic modes of artists discourse. His work is
informed by music, psychoanalytic theory, working class expressivity, image
processing, Buddhism, and Black aesthetic, which are taken to be of a whole. As
such he seeks to create artifacts equal to the task of embodying the complex
array of influences that constitute his (contested) paternity.

Through his visual work, Jafa is simultaneously creating and mapping a
space for himself in relation to cultural assumptions concerning identity and race.
Jafa endeavors to envision and develop a precise language of a black being
while meeting the paradoxical challenge of articulating the sensations in the
space of a physical material reality, all in a manner which is both culturally
specific and universal. Additionally, he is preoccupied with triggering the
formation of mutant strands of cultural discourse: axenzi, superbad behavior,
Black abstraction, black white trash.

Citing a desire to create works that are felt, Jafa's installation at ArtPace explores
relatively underutilized sensory modes (touch and smell) as privileged means of
artistic expressivity. Referencing influences as diverse as Fang sculpture, John
Coltrane, John DeLorean, Mississippi jook joints, Miles Davis, Ryoanji gardens,
Donald Judd, boliw, Smokey and the Bandit, tantric practices, and Albert Ayler,
Jafa's installation levels and amplifies the process of social being and
alienation.

Exhibition Dates

July 11 ?tember 8, 2002

Opening Reception

Thursday, July 11, 6:30-8:30 PM

Artists' Dialogue

Friday, July 12, 6:30-8:00 PM

Featuring Sharon Engelstein, Arthur Jafa, and Ann-Sofi SidŽn Moderated by
Valerie Cassel Associate Curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston,
TX.

Brown Bag Lunch

Wednesday, August 21, 2002, 12:00-1:00 PM

Join us for a tour of New Works: 02.2 and a brown bag lunch provided by
Pecan Street Deli. Please call ArtPace to make reservations.

Event Locations

All events held at ArtPace, 445 N. Main Avenue. Free parking at Flores Street
and Savings. ArtPace is open to the public Wednesday thru Sunday, 12-5 PM,
Thursday until 8 PM and by appointment. There is no charge for admission.

445 North Main Avenue San Antonio TX 78205 t 210 212 4900 f 210 212 4990 www.artpace.org