#52 walker

[flytohurt]

here is the NYT article about 52W Hardway for those who were blocked by the paywall 🥰

you can also find it here in PDF form.

[longlistshort]

It’s easy to become a bit overwhelmed at Arthur Jafa’s exhibition BLACK POWER TOOL AND DIE TRYNIG at 52 Walker. His latest show includes a large installation, photography, sculpture, painting and a new film. Passing the reflective black surface and walking through his sculptural installation, Picture Unit II, you’ll find portraits of bikers, a photo from the Manson murders, a subway car, and a stripper at a club next to a photo from a Rwandan genocide memorial. Next to where a video plays a collage of clips, an installation of cut out figures includes himself, Miles Davis, The Sex Pistols, and artists Cady Noland and Adrian Piper.

Death plays a large part in the show, as does personal and collective history. His best friend of forty years, cultural critic Greg Tate, recently passed away, also contributing to the heaviness of this recent work.

From the press release-

Lauded for his achievements as a filmmaker and cinematographer as well as a visual artist, Jafa has developed an incisive, chameleonic practice, through which he seeks to unravel the cultural significance and strictures ascribed in tandem upon Black existence in the Western world. In BLACK POWER TOOL AND DIE TRYNIG, Jafa invokes the body’s personal, political, and industrial guises in one fell swoop, deftly interweaving images and objects to create a forceful and maximal space that beckons toward engulfment and revelation alike.

Jafa’s exhibition at 52 Walker brings to the surface questions of form, force, and resistance— in addition to tensions that result from common slips and errors. The title of the show, BLACK POWER TOOL AND DIE TRYNIG, applies strategies of sequencing and juxtaposition, channeling various meanings in its wordplay—including political ideologies, industrial terminologies, and the specter of death—while also nodding to the complexities of the word “black” and its many inflections. Favoring intuitive arrangement over uniformity, the artist eschews traditionally monolithic modes of presentation and instead coheres multiple simultaneous events, applying a decidedly Black and non-Western viewpoint that confronts twentieth-century art historiography and museology’s indebtedness to African aesthetics.

In the video below, also on the 52 Walker website, Jafa discusses the show with screenwriter Judnick Mayard and is worth watching for additional insights.

This exhibition closes 6/1/24.

[jgthirlwell]

Beautifully bombastic installation by Nora Turato at 52 Walker

[lovehigher]

Tau Lewis: Vox Populi, Vox Dei Installation view, 2022 52 Walker New York, NY 10013

[gregdotorg]

Here is a bunch of stuff I looked at while trying to make sense of a harsh review of Arthur Jafa's current show at 52 Walker, which includes Large Array II (above), including links and references and past variations of the piece.

[g3nd3rv01d]

my phone: is at 52%

me: dont u fuckin dare-

vanessa babyryanross: smashes into my window

vabnessa: More Like 52 Walker Am I Right Kiddos

[possessedcoast]

memories by jon walker is so fucking joncer like pleeeaasseee

[attractiveugly]

This one is for you babyryanross