BALLROOM MARFA PRESENTS The Way You Make Me Feel Artists’ Film International 2018 – Jibade Khalil Huffman
November 16, 2018 – February 18, 2019
Opening Reception: Friday, November 16, 6–9pm
MARFA, TX– Ballroom Marfa is pleased to announce The Way You Make Me Feel: AFI 2018 – Jibade Khalil Huffman, on view in Marfa, Texas from November 16, 2018 – February 18, 2019. The exhibition features new and existing work from artist and writer Jibade-Khalil Huffman, including First Person Shooter, the video nominated by Ballroom Marfa for the 2018 season of Artists’ Film International (AFI). AFI is an international collaboration organized by Whitechapel Gallery, London, that showcases emerging artists working in video and animation. Huffman’s film will be complemented by newly-commissioned sculptural work, paintings, and video in Ballroom’s galleries.
First Person Shooter (2016) is a complex visual collage that layers stock digital animation, video shot by the artist, bold text, and multichannel audio. Overlaid onto the imagery, a libretto-like text inflects the video’s barrage of stimuli, applying lyricism to episodes that intentionally frustrate conventional narrative expectations. Stock audio and digital animation combine with Huffman’s footage of actors who can’t help but fall asleep mid-sentence. The artist calls into question the labor of consciousness and the anxious ennui of the internet age. The piece continues Huffman’s exploration into the formal qualities of video as a medium while weaving together themes of anxiety, race, violence, overstimulation, and boredom from a fractured palette of source material.
Each of the seventeen international venues that participate in AFI nominate an artist who lives and works in their country. The artist’s work is then exhibited at all the other participating venues around the world. As part of AFI, First Person Shooter will screen internationally and Ballroom will, in turn, exhibit videos from artists selected by these partner institutions in Marfa. The artists and partners for AFI 2018 include:
John Skoog – Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm
Vladimir Nikolić – The Cultural Centre of Belgrade
Robertas Narkus & Jokūbas Čižikas – The Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius
Lê Xuân Tiền – DocLab, Hanoi
Juan Sorrentino – Fundacion PRÓA, Buenos Aires
Elena Mazzi – GAMeC, Bergamo
Danielle Dean – Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Pelin Kirca – Istanbul Modern
Musa Paradisiaca – Museum of Art, Architecture & Technology (MAAT), Lisbon
Mikołaj Sobczak – Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw
Rosa Barba – Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), Berlin
Yim Sui Fong – Para Site, Hong Kong
Munem Wasif – Project 88, Mumbai
Ørjan Amundsen – Tromsø Kunstforenig, Tromsø
Patrick Hough – Whitechapel Gallery, London
Tom Ireland – The Whitworth, Manchester
Huffman has been commissioned to create two new artworks and two new installations for Ballroom’s presentation of AFI. In addition to embedding First Person Shooter into a new installation, Huffman will realize an original sculpture for Ballroom’s courtyard: a large-scale lightbox that employs the sun as light source, illuminating an iconic film still and throwing the image over the viewer and the ground.
The Way You Make Me Feel will include a new video/sound work that plays with the notion of foley. Foley is sound effects produced manually for films and added into the edit after recording. Huffman will also compose a text-based installation that experiments with the conventions of museum didactics and situates the other AFI videos within the logic of his visual, poetic and critical language.
On Friday, November 16th, Ballroom will host an opening reception and a free concert to celebrate the exhibition. These events are free and open to the public.
Ballroom Marfa’s fall exhibition is organized by director & curator Laura Copelin.
Jibade-Khalil Huffman (b. 1981, Detroit) is an artist and the author of three books of poems. His recent and forthcoming exhibitions include The Kitchen; Locust Projects; the Hammer Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; MOCA Detroit; Portland Institute of Contemporary Art; The Jewish Museum; Atlanta Contemporary; Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; The Studio Museum in Harlem; and Swiss Institute. Educated at Bard College (BA), Brown University (MFA, Literary Arts), and USC (MFA, Studio Art), his awards include the Grolier Poetry Prize, the Jerome Foundation Travel Grant and fellowships from the Lighthouse Works, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Huffman was a 2015-16 Artist in Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem and lives and works in New York.
The Way You Make Me Feel is made possible by the generous support of Kenneth Bauso; The Brown Foundation Inc.; City of Marfa; Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles; Kristina & Jeff Fort; George S. Loening; Max Mara; National Endowment for the Arts; Texas Commission on the Arts; the Ballroom Marfa Board of Trustees; the Ballroom Marfa International Surf Club; and Ballroom Marfa members.
For further information about the exhibition or to schedule interviews, please contact Ballroom Marfa at [email protected] or (432) 729-3600.
About Ballroom Marfa
Founded in 2003 by Virginia Lebermann and Fairfax Dorn, Ballroom Marfa is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and a dynamic, contemporary cultural arts space housed in a converted dancehall that dates to 1927. Ballroom Marfa’s mission is to serve international, national, regional, and local arts communities and support the work of both emerging and recognized artists working across all media: visual arts, film, music, and performance.
Location, Hours, Admission
Ballroom Marfa is located at 108 E. San Antonio St. / Highway 90 West, and open Wednesday through Saturday, 10am-6pm, and Sunday, 10am-3pm. Admission is free.