“HELTER SKELTER: ARTHUR JAFA AND RICHARD PRINCE”

VENETIAN VENUE FROM, 9MAY TO 23 NOVEMBER 2026

“Helter Skelter” will reveal a creative conversation between the work of two prominent Americanartists, Arthur Jafa(b. 1960)and Richard Prince(b. 1949),thathas never been examined before. Born a decade apart, they 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 the American psyche.

The exhibition will feature more than fifty works, including photographs, videos, installations, sculptures, and paintings. It will also showcase new work by each artist and a collaboratively conceived zine, whichincorporates images exchanged between the artists during the process of making this exhibition.

“Helter Skelter”will unfoldacross the ground and first floor of the Venetian palazzo through a series of thematicand conceptualjuxtapositions, combining works by both artists to illuminate each of their practicesand tease out shared subject matter and mutual obsessions. Underlying the elective affinities between their artistic projects, “Helter Skelter” revealsa certain vernacular edge in the U.S.,whereboth artists live and work: “Acountry forever tarnished by its history of slavery; a country defined by its remarkable musical traditions rooted in Black culture; a country of doing without, but making good; a country of spirit and prayer and freedom of expression; a country of protest and subcultures and humor and celebrity,” according toNancy Spector.