Jibade-Khalil Huffman
Jibade-Khalil Huffman is an artist and writer who uses found, archival material, and contemporary ephemera to address slippage in memory and language, particular to race and visibility. Often working site-specifically, his work takes the form of installation, video, projections, photographic light boxes, and photo collages printed on layered transparencies and paper. Foregrounding the materiality of digital media and its degradation over time, Huffman’s approach dissolves explicit meaning in order to reconstitute it as objects in perpetual flux. Through projection and repetition, his work evokes the untranslatable, ruminating on the liminal qualities of singular experiences through the flattening of symbolic and semiotic hierarchies.
Huffman derives much of his practice from the intersection of writing, poetry, found media and common speech, often cutting, sampling and shifting bits of video and excerpts of text into new formats. The idea of erasure—of certain voices, people, and ideas—as subject matter and as technique is central to his practice, in building up and removing layers of material in his videos and two dimensional collages. While almost completely eliding language as a response to various traumas within this current body of work, Huffman continues to source his subject matter from an endless array of TV Guides, abstracted maps, classic television stills, icons of technology, charts, diagrams, staircases, tunnels, markers, indices, arrows, annotations, advertisements, often leaving only the stray and fleeting fragments of a phrase left to parse.
Jibade-Khalil Huffman’s recent solo institutional exhibitions include Brief Emotion, Frac Bretagne, Rennes, FR; You Are Here, Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art Charleston, SC; and Now That I Can Dance, Tufts University Art Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, MA. Huffman’s work has also been exhibited at museums and institutions including Wexner Center for the Arts, Ballroom Marfa, The Kitchen, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, MoCA Tucson, Swiss Institute, New York, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, The Jewish Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Hammer Museum. Huffman was 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 Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, 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. His work is in the permanent collections of the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum, Shoreview, MN; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Kadist, San Francisco, CA/Paris, FR; Pierce & Hill Harper Arts Foundation, Detroit, MI; Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, NY; and Tufts University Art Collection, Medford, MA.
Born in 1981 in Detroit, MI
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA
Education
2013
MFA, Roski School of Fine Arts, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
2005
MFA, Graduate Program in Literary Arts, Brown University, Providence, RI
2003
BA, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, NY
Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions, Performances, and Screenings
2024
(FORTHCOMING) Anat Egbi, Los Angeles, CA
Dream Sequence, Lighthouse Works, Fishers Island, NY
2023
The Double, Magenta Plains, New York, NY
2022
Brief Emotion, Frac Bretagne, Rennes, FR
Parallax Distance, Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT
2021
You Are Here, Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC
An Evening with Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Modern Mondays Series, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
2020
Total Running Time, Magenta Plains, New York, NY
Now That I Can Dance, Tufts University Art Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, MA
Action Painting, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, Tucson, AZ
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
Art Basel OVR:2020, with Anat Ebgi, Miami, FL
DAATA Fair, with Magenta Plains, Miami, FL
2019
Confessional Poetry, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Cleveland, OH
Confessional Poetry, curated by Lumi Tam, Frieze Los Angeles, CA
Human For Scale, Art Space Gallery, Fresno City College, Fresno, CA
Confessional Poetry, KADIST, San Francisco, CA
2018
Tempo, The Kitchen, New York, NY
The Way You Make Me Feel, Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX
___ Means I Love You in Italics, Locust Projects, Miami, FL
Poems For Every Occasion, KMAC Museum, Louisville, KY
EXPO Chicago, with Anat Ebgi, Chicago, IL
We Don’t Need Another Mural, KMAC Museum, Louisville, KY
Stanza, curated by Daniel Fuller, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA
Black Twitter in the Hour of Chaos, HOUSING, Brooklyn, NY
Nightschool/Schoolnight, Swiss Institute, New York, NY
Defending Kanye West, KADIST, San Francisco, CA
A Tondo For Rajon Rondo, curated by Julie Dickover, Crisp-Ellert Museum, St. Augustine, FL
2017
Solo Presentation, Art Basel Miami Beach, with Anat Ebgi, Miami, FL
Figuration, Downstairs Project, Brooklyn, NY
Kush is my Cologne, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
2016
Verse Chorus Verse, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA
What Can I Say About This Suit (That Hasn’t Already Been Said About Afghanistan?), LAXART, Los Angeles, CA
2015
Come and Go: Jibade Khalil Huffman, MANTRA (commissioned by A.L. Steiner), Blum and Poe, Los Angeles, CA
Jibade-Khalil Huffman in collaboration with Claudia Rankine: The Discrepancies, Museum as Retail Space, Los Angeles, CA
Anthony Pearson and Jibade-Khalil Huffman: Third Person, Marianne Boesky East, New York, NY
We Don’t Believe You, You Need More People, Marianne Boesky East, New York, NY
2013
The Four People You Meet At Every Drug Deal, Samuel Freeman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Lake Overturn, Pacific Standard Time Presents: The Machine Project Field Guide to L.A. Architecture, The Santa Monica Screening Room, Santa Monica, CA
Niagara, USC Roski Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
A Novella and Stories, Machine Project, Los Angeles, CA
2012
The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley: A Reading, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
We Don’t Believe You, You Need More People (with Martine Syms), Public Fiction, Los Angeles, CA
Cameron Crawford and Jibade-Khalil Huffman: Double Jointed, curated by Megha Ratapali, Scaramouche, New York, NY
2011
Teen Wolf/Teen Wolf Too, Mt. Tremper Arts, Mt. Tremper, NY
NOWHERE, The Home Of, Brooklyn, NY (with Eliza Newman-Saul)
Slow Reveal, or, Negro Twist Ending Where You Are Really A Negro, The Tank, New York, NY
2010
Monster Island Czar, MoMA/P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, NY
2008
Xaviera Simmons and Jibade-Khalil Huffman: Oscillations (For A Minute There I Lost Myself), Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
2003
You Just Have To Go Down A Flight of Stairs, Woods Gallery, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Select Group Exhibitions
2024
(FORTHCOMING) Digital Witness: Revolutions in Design, Photography, and Film, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE, a High Line Channel, The Highline, New York, NY
2022
If I Had a Hammer, FotoFest Biennial 2022, Houston, TX
The Painter’s New Tools, Nahmad Contemporary, New York, NY
Reckoning and Resilience: North Carolina Art Now, NASHER Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC
Twenty-first Century Occupational Adjustments and Considerations, Episode 6: OK Computer, Gallery Kendra Jayne Patrick, New York, NY and Basel, CH
2021
Radical Empathy, Compound, Long Beach, CA
Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment, Wexner Center For The Arts, Columbus, OH
2020
TENET, Swiss Institute, New York, NY
IN LIEU OF AN OCEAN (SEND FLOWERS), Time Based Art Festival 2020, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR
5–7–5, curated by Andrew Berardini, Rita Gonzalez, Joseph Mosconi, and Warren Neidich, The Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, CA
Frieze Projects LA 2020, curated Rita Gonzalez and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, Los Angeles, CA
2019
Smoke and Mirrors, there-there Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
To Sight’s Limit, Woodland Pattern, Milwaukee, WI
Representation and Poetics (in Double Takes: Historic and Contemporary Film + Video), Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Cleveland, OH
C.R.E.A.M. (curated by Sable Elyse Smith), The Highline, New York, NY
I Don’t Believe in Art, I Believe in Artists, LX Arts, New York, NY
The Conversation, Anat Ebgi at Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA
2018
Re:Framed, Re: Art Show, Brooklyn, NY
A Recounting: Data, Disinformation & Black Experience, Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Moving Body, Moving Study, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY
Screenscapes, Galeria Nara Roesler, Sao Paolo, BR
Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA
WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER MURAL (public art project), KMAC Museum/The Wheelhouse Project, Louisville, KY
Lunar Intervals (performance), Swiss Institute, New York, NY
Defending Kanye West (performance), Poetry Project, New York, NY
2017
Speech/Acts, ICA, Philadelphia, PA
Sonic Rebellion: Music as Resistance, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI
To A Body, Shoot the Lobster, New York, NY
Now More Than Always (Gimme Gimme The Money Please Please I Want the Money Please), Gildar Gallery, Denver, CO
COMM/ALT/SHIFT, Aljira, Newark, NJ
Storefront: THIS KNOWN WORLD: Spontaneous Particulars of the Poetic Research Bureau, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
I can call this progess to halt, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA
Art Los Angeles Contemporary, with Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, CA
2016
Tenses: Artists-in-Residence 2015-16, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Against the Romance of Community, Swiss Institute, New York, New York
Take Me (I’m Yours), The Jewish Museum, New York, NY
Dead End Looped: Emily Davidson, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Pilot Projects, Philadelphia, PA
Beware of a Holy Whore, Ida Schmid, New York, NY
2015
The Vault: Deeper Structures, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland, OH
This Sentence, China Art Objects, Los Angeles, CA
On Discipline (LA), 356 Mission, Los Angeles, CA
Pictures of the Moon With Teeth, TBA:15, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR
Edible Planets/Soylent Dialogues, The Pit, Los Angeles, CA
Altarations: Built, Blended, Processed, Ritter Art Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
2014
Made in L.A. 2014, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Step and Repeat, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Rhetoric, Aran Cravey, Los Angeles, CA
Rockaway!, MoMA/P.S.1/Rockaway Surf Club, New York, NY
The Machine Project Guide to the Gamble House, Pasadena, CA
2013
The Reanimation Library, Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles, CA
The Stand In, Public Fiction, Los Angeles, CA
2012
New Wight Biennial 2012, UCLA New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Act 2: The Props, Public Fiction, Los Angeles, CA
2011
Pixelating: Black in New Dimensions, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, Brooklyn, NY
Le Mots et Les Choses (Words and Things): An Evening With Future Plan and Program, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
So Much I Want to Say: Future Plan and Program, Houston Museum of African-American Culture, Houston, TX
The Collector’s Guide to New Art Photography Vol. 2, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, NY
2010
I Forgot My Mantra, Brooklyn Fireproof, Brooklyn, NY
Manual Transmission, Bush Gardens Rooftop, Brooklyn, NY
2009
Wrong: A Program of Text and Image, Eighth Veil, Los Angeles, CA (curator)
2007
Game Bird Sampler, White Box Annex, New York, NY
Awards / Residencies
2021
MacDowell Fellowship, Peterborough, NH
2020
Residency, Bemis Center For Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE
2019
Residency, Surf Point Foundation, York, ME
2018
Residency, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA
Residency, Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY
2017
Fellowship, The Lighthouse Works, Fishers Island, New York, NY
2015
Artist-in-Residence, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
2014
Emerging Artist Fellowship, California Community Foundation
2010
Artist-in-Residence, Workspace, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY
Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant
2009
Jerome Foundation Fellowship/Residency, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Red Wing, MN
2008
Residency, Ucross Foundation for the Arts, Clearmont, WY
2007
Residency, Millay Colony for the Arts, Austerlitz, NY
2004
Grolier Poetry Prize
2001
Photography Advisory Board Scholarship, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Collections
Cafesjian Art Trust Museum, Shoreview, MN
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Kadist, San Francisco, CA / Paris, France
Pierce & Hill Harper Arts Foundation, Detroit, MI
Studio Museum in Harlem, Harlem, NY
Tufts University Art Collection, Medford, MA
