Arthur Jafa (b. 1960) is an American artist and filmmaker whose work spans video, installation and photography, interrogating the complexities of Black identity, culture and representation. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Jafa studied architecture at Howard University before establishing a reputation as a visionary cinematographer, notably for Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991). Over the decades, he has developed a singular visual language rooted in the rhythms, ruptures and emotional intensity of Black life in the United States.
Jafa’s breakthrough as a visual artist came with Love is the Message, The Message is Death (2016), a searing video montage set to Kanye West’s Ultralight Beam. Collaging historic footage, viral clips and scenes of protest, it became an iconic meditation on the beauty and brutality of the Black experience. The work’s rapid cuts, scored to gospel and hip-hop, evoke a visceral, almost musical editing style that has become Jafa’s hallmark.
His practice draws upon both high and vernacular culture, from civil rights archives to YouTube, always with the aim of forging what he calls a ‘Black visual intonation’. Jafa has exhibited internationally, including solo shows at the Serpentine Galleries, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. His work continues to reshape the landscape of contemporary moving image.