Artists

Arthur Jafa, Richard Prince

Press release

Helter Skelter constitutes a dialogue between two prominent visual artists curated by Nancy Spector. Born a decade apart, Arthur Jafa and Richard Prince share an ethos of lawlessness when it comes to the appropriation and manipulation of images siphoned from movies, pulp novels, comic books, YouTube videos, sci-fi stories, album covers, record sleeves, rock 'n' roll posters, first-edition Beat volumes, news reels, celebrity memorabilia, and social-media posts. Trafficking heavily in American popular culture, they expose its grit and grift, while embracing many of its myths and perversions. Both artists chart peculiar topographies specific to the United States: Jafa's reflecting his identity as an African American man coupled with a mission to invigorate Black cinema and art; Prince's hovering between a self-conscious critique of white masculinity and a fascination with the underbelly of American culture. The installation will unfold through a series of thematic juxtapositions, combinations of works by both artists that illuminate each of their practices and tease out shared subject matter and mutual obsessions. Helter Skelter will reveal a long creative conversation between Jafa and Prince that, until now, has never been examined.