Our fellow's Jabu Arnell solo exhibition 'Turn off the Lights: Disco Ball #13 A Kind of Black' at Melly will open on 20th September, from 6 to 9 pm.


For his upcoming solo exhibition at Kunstinstituut Melly, Jabu will create a new installation entitled, Turn off the Lights 2024 Disco Ball #13: A Kind of Black, 2024. This sculpture will grow from built, ready-made, and stumbled-upon materials during the exhibition period. With Disco Ball #13 the artist digs deeper into Disco as a cultural and historical pillar for queer communities and as a pillar in his own artistic practice. Furthermore, the work questions the intuitive and etymological definitions and implications of its related forms. For the exhibition opening, Arnell will also present the accompanying work, Portrait of [Disco] [Ball] #13 in which he experiments with assumptions and responses to the idea of disco, the form of a ball, and the conceptualization and physicality of the disco ball.

Jabu's exhibition is part of the series First Double 1 & 2, which takes its title from a collaborative album by South African musicians Madala Kunene, Baba Mokoena, and Sibusiso Mndaweni. The album’s lyrics connect seemingly unrelated activities—such as a mother going to the marketplace, a father attending a racecourse, and anti-colonial resistance chants—to reflect deeper connections between everyday life and broader socio-political themes. Similarly, the five solo exhibitions in First Double 1 & 2 explore diverse yet interconnected topics, including spiritual technologies, mineral extraction, land-related issues, queer cosmologies, and the recollection of historical events. Also included within the series are solo exhibitions by Cihad Caner, Luana Vitra, Nolan Oswald Dennis, and Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide).

The exhibitions are curated by Gabi Ngcobo, Rosa de Graaf, Shana Lewis.

You can see the exhibition until 27 April 2025

Photo: The Black Outside (Shaded Feelings): Love & Death, 2023, courtesy of the artist

More info here