PRESS RELEASE
DECADENCE
– HAMMER MUSEUM, LOS ANGELES
New York-based artist and filmmaker Jordan Strafer’s (b. 1990, Miami) LOOPHOLE (2023) and DECADENCE (2024) are the first two chapters of a planned trilogy of videos set against the backdrop of a fictionalized high-profile rape trial in 1990s-era Florida. Pulling from the genre of erotic thrillers and televised court cases from the period, the project hinges upon the speculative love affair between the lead defense attorney and the jury foreman responsible for an unnamed rapist’s acquittal. Using both film scripts and publicly sourced courtroom documents, the videos are influenced in part by the artist’s mother’s role in the legal defense team in a rape trial that took place in 1991. This Hammer Project is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles.
Hammer Projects: Jordan Strafer is organized by Aram Moshayedi, interim chief curator, with Nyah Ginwright, curatorial assistant.