Walk down the street in any metropolitan city and you’re likely to find someone, a lot in fact, talking into their phone, abruptly slipping in and out of character as if their digital life takes priority over reality. This premise constitutes one of the central axes of the American artist and writer Jibade-Khalil Huffman. Born in Detroit and currently based in Los Angeles, Huffman is currently presenting a new solo exhibition titled Control at Anat Ebgi Gallery, unveiling a new series of cinematic installations, inkjet collages and his very first screen-printed works.

Huffman has long been fascinated by doppelgangers and reinvention in the face of trauma. Using the current social and political climate as a subject, IRL features two performers who, for three hours, perform a mock rehearsal against rotating sets and lighting with live and pre-recorded sound. As a live cinematic performance within a film, the meta-installation explores the nature of our digital lives today – periodically breaking into moments of monologue, to mirror the moment when a character in a musical suddenly starts singing or how a person can build an alternative existence online. .

Further in the gallery, Monodrama (2024, 18 minutes) reflects the endless stream of information that floods an average social media feed, featuring found materials that Huffman pasted into a “rage-filled stream of consciousness,” wrote a statement from Anat Ebgi. “Drawing on a non-exhaustive list of sources – from maps and diagrams to classic still images and television commercials, Huffman’s attention to poetic language and semiotics addresses how meaning is shaped and constantly evolving,” adds the gallery.

Control will be on view in Los Angeles until November 16, 2024.

Anat Ebgi
6150 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California. 90048