Arthur Jafa, Ex-Slave Gordon, 2017

Arthur Jafa
b. 1960, Tupelo, MS; lives in Los Angeles, CA

Ex-Slave Gordon, 2017
Vacuum-formed plastic
Gift of R. H. Defares

Artist and filmmaker Arthur Jafa (b. 1960, Tupelo, MS; lives in Los Angeles, CA) has spent decades accumulating an extensive archive of imagery culled from a wide range of historical and contemporary sources. Using artistic techniques such as collage and montage, Jafa composes this imagery into films, videos, sculptures, and photographs. His unique approach to visual culture and image making blurs the lines between the personal and the political and between popular and high culture.

Jafa’s work seeks to encompass what he describes as “the full complexity, specificity, beauty, and potentiality of what Black folks have made and continue to make out of the bleak existential circumstance we’ve attended to over the past several hundred years.”

Most recently exhibited this year as part of the MCA exhibition Arthur Jafa: Works from the MCA Collection, Jafa’s work Ex-Slave Gordon renders a well-known photo as a sculptural object. As exhibition curator Jack Schneider writes in the text below, Jafa’s work—which entered the MCA Collection in 2018—emphasizes the contrast between the horror and humanity of the image:

Ex-Slave Gordon is a sculptural rendition of a famous 1863 photograph depicting a man named Peter (formerly identified as Gordon) with his back turned to the camera, revealing gruesome scars left behind by the whips of his former enslavers. Jafa first encountered this haunting image as a teenager and was struck by the dissonance between the man’s dignified pose—“the way he’s carrying himself, the way his hand is on his hip, his elbow out high, almost like an aristocrat”—and the horrific indignities to which he was subjected. For Jafa, this display of strength and grace amid torment exemplifies how Black people have resisted racist atrocities and dehumanization.

—Jack Schneider, Assistant Curator