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Arthur Jafa
A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions
Direct-to-disc on The Vinyl Factory Lathe on 9 September 2017.
Co-produced by the Serpentine Galleries and The Vinyl Factory
Edition of 300 + 50 AP
£300 (incl VAT)

This Limited Edition Vinyl Record is produced on the occasion of Arthur Jafa’s exhibition A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions at the Serpentine North Gallery (8 June – 10 September 2017).

Artist, filmmaker and cinematographer Arthur Jafa presented a Listening Session on 9 September 2017 with musicians Steve Coleman, Morgan Craft, Micah Gaugh, Melvin Gibbs, Kokayi Carl Walker, Jason Moran and performing artist Okwui Okpokwasili, coinciding with the closing of his exhibition, A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery.

The dismembered jazz ensemble improvised simultaneously but separately at secret ‘Black Sites’ across London. The resulting music was live streamed to the Serpentine North Gallery, where Okwui Okpokwasili performed, devising a time-based work accompanying the discordant soundtrack. The Listening Session was recorded direct-to-disc on The Vinyl Factory Lathe, which was installed in the Gallery.

A: Live Recording

B: Guide Track

Click here to listen to a clip of the live recording. 

 

* Vinyl edition by Arthur Jafa, limited to 300 copies worldwide, each hand-signed and numbered by the artist
* Live Recording featuring Steve Coleman, Morgan Craft, Micah Gaugh, Melvin Gibbs, Kokayi Issa and Jason Moran
* Recorded direct-to-disc on The Vinyl Factory Lathe at the Serpentine North Gallery, September 2017
* Sleeve artwork concept by Arthur Jafa, designed by OSK Studio Los Angeles
* Gatefold sleeve printed UV litho with a black overprint on 340gsm silver mirri board
* Inner sleeve hand screen printed with clear gloss foil blocking on 320gsm popset black paper
* Pressed on 180-gram heavyweight black vinyl on the EMI 1400 in Hayes, Middlesex
* Release date: 28th Feb 2018.

 

Arthur Jafa

See more products by   Arthur Jafa

Arthur Jafa (b. 1960 in America) 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.

‘How do we imagine things that are lost? What kind of legacy can we imagine despite that loss and despite the absence of things that never were?’ –Arthur Jafa

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?

 Jafa originally trained as an architect and made his cinematic debut as Director of Photography for Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust,  for which he won best cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival. As part of the BFI’s season Unbound: Visions of the Black Feminine,  a new restoration of Daughters of the Dust was released at selected cinemas across the UK on Friday 2 June to mark the film’s 25th anniversary – see the BFI website for more information.

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 recognised 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.”

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