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The video art of Arthur Jafa: a counterpunch to anyone who wants to put people of colour in their place
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Magazine article
The video art of Arthur Jafa: a counterpunch to anyone who wants to put people of colour in their place
The Conversation
19/02/2024
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31 Record Views
Abstract
Arthur Jafa’s Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death (2016) is, essentially, a music video. Currently on show at the Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brisbane, it is also one of only a handful of video works in the world that could be called a masterpiece with a straight face.
Set to the booming rhythms of Kanye West’s Ultralight Beam (2016), Jafa’s work is seven-and-a-half-minutes of impeccably edited montages, most appropriated from the internet.
Black bodies in the turmoils and exultations of American life are shown striving, shuddering, dancing, fleeing, falling and in moments of reclaimed grace. Subtle repetitions – such as alien movie excerpts, police officers abusing their authority, the blistering surface of the sun – function as through-lines, grounding it in unconventional thematic registers.
Jafa elevates the music video while emulating the tenor of sports brand advertising. Sequences alternate between the prosaic and the universal; political reality and spirituality.
Details
- Title
- The video art of Arthur Jafa: a counterpunch to anyone who wants to put people of colour in their place
- Creators
- Wes Hill - Southern Cross University, Creative Arts
- Publication Details
- The Conversation
- Publisher
- The Conversation Media Group Ltd
- Identifiers
- 991013180412902368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Business, Law and Arts; Creative Arts
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Magazine article