Arthur Jafa

Jafa was born on November 30, 1960, in Tupelo, Mississippi, and raised in Clarksdale, Mississippi, which was highly segregated at the time. His parents were both educators and Jafa was raised Catholic.{{Cite web|last=Lopez Sanchez|first=Jose|date=2017-11-15|title=Arthur Jafa Interview Hirshhorn|url=https://brightestyoungthings.com/articles/byt-interviews-arthur-jafa|url-status=live|access-date=2021-03-22|website=Brightest Young Things|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807174647/https://brightestyoungthings.com/articles/byt-interviews-arthur-jafa |archive-date=2020-08-07 }}

As a child, Jafa assembled binders full of found images in collections he called "the books."{{Cite web |last=Freeman |first=Nate |date=2018-03-27 |title=The Messenger: How a Video by Arthur Jafa Became a Worldwide Sensation—and Described America to Itself |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/icons-arthur-jafa-9971/ |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}} He also grew up watching television shows like I Spy, and science fiction programs.{{Cite web|url=https://www.modernamuseet.se/stockholm/en/exhibitions/arthur-jafa/biography-arthur-jafa/|title=Biography Arthur Jafa|website=Moderna Museet i Stockholm|language=en-US|access-date=2019-11-12}}

Jafa studied architecture and film at Howard University, including with professor Dr. Abiyi Ford, before moving to Atlanta, Georgia.{{Cite web|url=http://bcrw.barnard.edu/event/dreams-are-colder-than-death-screening-talk-with-arthur-jafa/|title=Dreams are Colder than Death: Screening & Talk with Arthur Jafa|date=2016-09-08|website=Barnard Center for Research on Women|language=en-US|access-date=2019-02-26}}

The science fiction programs Jafa watched as a child have informed his artistic practice as an adult, as seen in his self-portrait LeRage (2017). His work is also inspired by his interest in jazz musician Miles Davis.

He has exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Julia Stoschek Collection, as well as many others.{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/filmmaker-arthur-jafa-makes-his-hirshhorn-debut-with-a-stunning-video-installation/2017/11/15/77337900-ca0f-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html|title=Filmmaker Arthur Jafa makes his Hirshhorn debut with a stunning video installation|last=Hornaday|first=Ann|date=2017-11-15|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=2018-06-01|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.moca.org/exhibition/arthur-jafa-love-is-the-message-the-message-is-death|title=Arthur Jafa: Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death|website=The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles|access-date=2018-06-01}}{{Cite news|url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/arthur-jafa-julia-stoschek-collection-1227422|title='Black People Figured Out How to Make Culture in Freefall': Arthur Jafa on the Creative Power of Melancholy {{!}} artnet News|date=2018-02-21|work=artnet News|access-date=2018-06-01|language=en-US}} He has worked as a cinematographer with directors Julie Dash and Spike Lee. His work on Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991) won the "Best Cinematography" Award at Sundance.{{Cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0415409/awards|title=Arthur Jafa|website=IMDb|access-date=2018-08-11}}

His seven-minute video essay Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami,{{Cite web |title=Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death • Pérez Art Museum Miami |url=https://www.pamm.org/en/artwork/2017.218 |access-date=2023-08-11 |website=Pérez Art Museum Miami |language=en-US}} the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the High Museum of Art.{{Cite magazine|last=Scott|first=Andrea K.|date=2017-01-12|title=Arthur Jafa's Crucial Ode to Black America|language=en-US|magazine=The New Yorker|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/23/arthur-jafas-crucial-ode-to-black-america|access-date=2021-09-03}} Set to Kanye West's song Ultralight Beam, the work consists of a series of found images and video clips depicting a range of Black American experiences throughout history which establishes that the black experience is not monolithic, every experience is unique. Among many other clips exploring African American life and resiliency, the video essay juxtaposes recordings of police violence and footage from the Civil Rights Movement with clips of Black artistry, pop culture, celebration, and creativity.{{Cite web|url=https://www.moca.org/arthurjafaessay|title=Arthur Jafa: Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death • MOCA|website=The Museum of Contemporary Art|access-date=2019-03-03|archive-date=2019-03-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190306043313/https://www.moca.org/arthurjafaessay|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|title=Arthur Jafa's Cinematography and Music Videos: How a Foundational Artist First Became a Sensation in the Film World|first=Alex |last=Greenberger|date=July 1, 2020|work=ARTnews|url=https://www.artnews.com/feature/arthur-jafa-cinematography-best-music-videos-1202693151/}} Jafa himself has connected the ethos of the work with his Catholic roots and Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. On Friday, June 26, 2020, 13 museums in 7 countries pledged, with Jafa's blessing, to stream the work for free on their respective websites for 48 hours.{{Cite news|last=Smee|first=Sebastian|date=June 26, 2020|title=One of the most powerful works of video art will be available free online this weekend. Here's why you must watch.|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/one-of-the-most-powerful-works-of-video-art-will-be-available-free-online-this-weekend-heres-why-you-must-watch/2020/06/25/941d5d36-b71c-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200626185330/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/one-of-the-most-powerful-works-of-video-art-will-be-available-free-online-this-weekend-heres-why-you-must-watch/2020/06/25/941d5d36-b71c-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html |archive-date=2020-06-26 |access-date=June 27, 2020|newspaper=The Washington Post}}

Jafa also has worked on a number of music videos and was the director of photography on videos for Solange's Don't Touch My Hair and Cranes in the Sky.{{Cite news|url=https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/arthur-jafa|title=Arthur Jafa and the Future of Black Cinema|date=2017-01-11|work=Interview|access-date=2018-11-26|language=en-US}}{{cite magazine|title=The Profound Power of the New Solange Videos|first=Cassie |last=da Costa|date=October 24, 2016|magazine=The New Yorker|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-profound-power-of-the-new-solange-videos}} He was included in the 2017 ArtReview Power 100 list.{{Cite web|url=https://artreview.com/power_100/arthur_jafa/|title=Art Review Power 100|website=ArtReview}}

Jafa co-founded TNEG along with Malik Hassan Sayeed, a "motion picture studio whose goal is to create a black cinema as culturally, socially, and economically central to the 21st century as was black music to the 20th century".{{Cite web|url=http://tneg.us/ethos|title=TNEG|website=TNEG|access-date=2018-11-26}} TNEG has produced a number of works such as Dreams Are Colder Than Death and the music video for Jay-Z's song 4:44.{{cite web|title=Arthur Jafa Directed the New JAY-Z Video|first=NATE |last=FREEMAN|date=July 10, 2017|work=ARTnews|url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/arthur-jafa-directed-the-new-jay-z-video-8662/}}

In 2018, Jafa released the approximately forty-minute-long video essay entitled The White Album, which uses found video clips from CCTV, cell phones, documentaries, and more to explore whiteness and racism in the United States of America.{{Cite web|url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-black-cinema-pioneer-arthur-jafas-new-film-dissects-problems-whiteness|title=Black Cinema Pioneer Arthur Jafa's New Film Dissects the Problems of "Whiteness"|last=Sargent|first=Antwaun|date=2018-12-28|website=Artsy|language=en|access-date=2019-03-03}}{{Cite web|url=https://bampfa.org/program/arthur-jafa-matrix-272|title=Arthur Jafa / MATRIX 272 {{!}} BAMPFA|website=bampfa.org|date=19 October 2018 |access-date=2019-03-03}}{{cite web|first1=Antwaun|last1=Sargent|access-date=2021-12-07|title=Black Cinema Pioneer Arthur Jafa's New Film Dissects the Problems of "Whiteness"|url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-black-cinema-pioneer-arthur-jafas-new-film-dissects-problems-whiteness|date=28 December 2018|website=Artsy}}{{cite web|title=Arthur Jafa's The White Album|first=MAX |last=LEVIN|date=Sep 4, 2022|url=https://www.screenslate.com/articles/arthur-jafas-white-album|work=Screen Slate}} He was awarded the Golden Lion for best artist at the 2019 Venice Biennale for The White Album.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/11/arts/venice-biennale-winner.html|title=Venice Biennale's Top Prize Goes to Lithuania|date=2019-05-11|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-05-11|language=en-US}}

In 2020, he produced a music video for Kanye West's single Wash Us in the Blood.{{cite web|title=Artist Arthur Jafa Directed Kanye West's Searing New Music Video|first=Alex |last=Greenberger|date=June 30, 2020|work=ARTnews|url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/arthur-jafa-kanye-west-wash-us-in-blood-video-1202692840/}}

As of 2021, the artists's work is represented by Gladstone Gallery. He is currently{{When|date=December 2021}} working on a project that is a feature film that focuses on how black music has greatly influenced American culture.

In 2023, Jafa was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize for his 2022 exhibition Live Evil at LUMA Arles in Arles, France. His work was featured alongside fellow Prize nominees Bieke Depoorter, Samuel Fosso, and Frida Orupabo at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, which opened in March 2023.{{Cite web|url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/deutsche-borse-photography-foundation-prize-2023-nominees-2269840|title=Four Artists Have Been Shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. See How Their Works Unpack Themes of Identity and Power|last=Dafoe|first=Taylor|date=2023-03-13|website=artnet|language=en-US|access-date=2023-05-19}}{{Cite web |title=DBPFP 2023 : Arthur Jafa {{!}} The Photographers Gallery |url=https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/dbpfp-2023-arthur-jafa |access-date=2023-08-25 |website=thephotographersgallery.org.uk |language=en}}

While working on a film with Charles Burnett in 1980, Jafa met the director Julie Dash. Dash and Jafa married in 1983 and had a daughter, N'Zinga in 1984.{{Cite magazine|last=Tomkins|first=Calvin|date=2020-12-14|title=Arthur Jafa's Radical Alienation|magazine=The New Yorker|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/arthur-jafas-radical-alienation|access-date=2021-09-03}} The couple later separated, after collaborating on the film Daughters of the Dust.{{Cite magazine|last=Tomkins|first=Calvin|date=2021-08-02|title=The Epic Style of Kerry James Marshall|magazine=The New Yorker|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/the-epic-style-of-kerry-james-marshall|access-date=2021-09-03}}

• Apex (2013)
• Dreams Are Colder Than Death (2014)
• Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death (2016){{cite web|access-date=2021-12-07|title=Arthur Jafa: Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death|url=https://www.moca.org/exhibition/arthur-jafa-love-is-the-message-the-message-is-death|website=www.moca.org}}
• The White Album (2018)
• akingdoncomethas (2020)

• Solange Knowles, "Don't Touch My Hair" (2016) — cinematographer
• Solange Knowles, "Cranes in the Sky" (2016) — cinematographer
• Jay-Z, "4:44" (2017) — director
• Kanye West, "Wash Us in the Blood" (2020) — director

• Daughters of the Dust (1991) — director of photography
• The Darker Side of Black (1993) — cinematography
• Crooklyn (1994) — director of photography
• A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (1995) — cinematography
• Rouch in Reverse (1995) — camera
• W.E.B. DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices (1996) — cinematography
• Bamako Sigi-Kan (2003) — director of photography
• Conakry Kas (2004) — director of photography
• Seven Songs for Malcolm X (2009) — cinematography
• In The Morning (2011) — producer; director of photography
• Shadows of Liberty (2012) — cinematography
• Roomieloverfriends (2012) — director of photography
• The Start Up (2013) — cinematography
• Florida Water (2014) — cinematography
• Killing Me Softly: The Roberta Flack Story (2014) — director of photography

{{Reflist}}

• {{imdb name|0415409|Arthur Jafa}}

• [https://sova.si.edu/details/NMAAHC.A2012.79.AV?s=0&n=10&t=C&q=bowser&i=0#ref29 Audio interview with Arthur Jafa Fielder, circa 1994], recorded by Pearl Bowser and part of the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

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Category:1960 births

Category:Living people

Category:American video artists

Category:African-American cinematographers

Category:American cinematographers

Category:Artists from Mississippi

Category:People from Tupelo, Mississippi

Category:20th-century American artists

Category:21st-century American artists

Category:African-American Catholics

Category:Howard University alumni

Category:20th-century African-American artists

Category:21st-century African-American artists