RHAMESJAFACOSEYJAFADRAYTON
An exhibition by OGR Torino in collaboration with Serpentine
Edited by Claude Adjil , Judith Waldmann with Hans Ulrich Obrist

OGR Cult | Track 1
Thursday and Friday, 6 – 10 pm | Saturday and Sunday, 10am – 8pm | Free entry

OGR Torino presents RHAMESJAFACOSEYJAFADRAYTON , the first solo exhibition dedicated to the American artist and director Arthur Jafa by an Italian institution, from 4 November 2022 to 12 February 2023 .

Arthur Jafa's practice encompasses films, artefacts, and happenings, which defy categorization in a research on Black culture in the United States of unprecedented intensity and complexity. Made over three decades, Arthur Jafa's multidisciplinary works question dominant cultural assumptions about identity and racial issues through immersive and experimental cinematic experiences. At the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), with the work "The White Album", exhibited at May You Live in Interesting Times in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini, he was awarded the Golden Lion as best artist.

A recurring question guides your artistic practice: how can media, objects, static and moving images convey the power, beauty and alienation of American Black music? An investigation to which the title of the exhibition also alludes, citing the names of three electric guitars: Arthur Rhames (1957–1989), Pete Cosey (1943–2012), Ronny Drayton (1953–2020).

Commissioned and produced by OGR Torino in collaboration with Serpentine , curated by Claude Adjil and Judith Waldmann with Hans Ulrich Obrist , the project is the brainchild of Amira Gad and is part of Jafa's exhibition tour A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions sponsored by Serpentine. The exhibition is conceived by the artist for the spaces of Binario 1 as a single large installation and brings together some of the artist's most recent works, never exhibited before in Italy.

To highlight the relationship with music and the contamination between different disciplines and media typical of Arthur Jafa's practice, on the occasion of the inauguration, on November 4th at 10.30 pm , the jazz pianist and composer Jason Moran , the cellist and composer Okkyung Lee and bassist Melvin Gibbs will perform together, in the Duomo of OGR Turin, for an evening created by the artist.