​Jibade-Khalil Huffman, IF THIS MEANS YOU, 2016, single channel video, color and sound, running time: 5min, 45sec, courtesy of the artist

Jibade-Khalil Huffman (b. 1981, Detroit, MI) lives and works in New York, NY. Drawing on his background as a writer, Huffman applies the framework of poetry to his video work, conveying meaning by molding cinematic languages as a poet manipulates grammar and syntax. Huffman uses slick imagery from advertising, fluid tracking shots, bold titles and sharp cuts that hit on musical cues to move the viewer into an emotive space between written, visual, and cultural languages. Huffman states: "I started making art because there were things I couldn’t articulate in writing…  I don’t want text to ever be more important than the visual. Objecthood as it relates to language is interesting to me—how do you make language as present as objects?” 

Huffman received his MFA from the Roski School of Fine Art at USC in 2013, as well as an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University in 2005. He has authored three books of poems, including, most recently, Sleeper Hold (Fence, 2015). Huffman was an artist-in-residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2015-16 and was included in the 2014 Made in L.A. Biennial at the Hammer Museum. He has presented work internationally at institutions including Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles; MoMA/PS1, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Swiss Institute, New York and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland. Huffman has exhibited work in solo and group shows at galleries including Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; LACE, Los Angeles; LAXART, Los Angeles; Marianne Boesky East, New York; China Art Objects, Los Angeles and Night Gallery, Los Angeles.