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Thursday, 18 March 2021

Artlyst - Arthur Jafa: The Art Of Cutting And Pasting

My latest article for Artlyst is a preview of Arthur Jafa: MAGNUMB at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark: 

"Jafa’s concepts of Black Visual Intonation, Black potention and Black sociality draw significantly on the practices of Black Pentecostal churches while also preceding and paralleling exhibitions such as Enunciated Life and Otherwise / Revival, which are inspired by Ashon T. Crawley’s Blackpentecostal Breath. In a conversation with Isis Pickens on spirituality and contemporary black life, Jafa said that, while he had gone to church with his grandmother as a child growing up in Mississippi, he was not religious as an adult but nevertheless believes in black people believing.

Formed from found footage, akingdoncomethas consists largely of footage from Black American churches, featuring sermons and gospel music and portrays those churches as a hearth of Black American culture – of music, critical thinking, the civil rights movement, and community. The film is ‘a paean to black Christian worship ceremonies, tropes, and rituals’ celebrating ‘how the tribally sanctified spaces in which those forms of worship and spirited performances (take) place, are black pocket-universes of intense energy, eloquence, and illumination.’"

This piece continues my reflections on Black Pentecostal influences in the visual arts, see particularly Blackpentecostal Breath: Spirit-Led Movement Jumps From Music To Visual Art but also my interview with Genesis Tramaine, a piece for Artlyst that covered an exhibition of work by Sister Gertrude Morgan, and my review of We Will Walk: Art and Resistance in the American South for Church Times.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -
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Al Green - Glory To His Name.

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