Arthur Jafa's RhamesJafaCoseyJafaDrayton at OGR Torino

Arthur Jafa's exhibition at OGR Torino, organized in collaboration with Serpentine Galleries, London, presents a labyrinthine corten steel structure lined with disturbing prints from his Picture Books series, which he began collecting in the mid-1980s. The show culminates in his 2021 video animation Aghdra, an 85-minute loop of an eternal sunset periodically obscured by surging magma, accompanied by a vibrating bass and distorted Black popular music, including a slowed-down 1978 R&B track by Rose Royce. The exhibition's title, RhamesJafaCoseyJafaDrayton, references three 1970s funk/jazz/soul guitarists: Arthur Rhames, Pete Cosey, and Ronny Drayton. Through Black music, Jafa aims to deepen understanding of racial identity, or Blackness. The work evokes a sense of traumatic repetition rather than salvation.