Arthur Jafa Uses the Screen as a Funeral Bier for America

Arthur Jafa’s survey I Am Tony has opened at the New Museum, and it is the largest exhibition of his work to date. The show fills two levels of the Manhattan institution with video art, sculpture, and photography spanning four decades of his inquiries into Black culture, religion, virality, and racial violence in America.

The show’s ambitions are big, and they achieve them with mixed results. Jafa’s signature gallows humor cuts through even the most grim images, bringing out the solemnity of low culture. But some pieces, as Stephanie Wambugu writes, favor “the esoteric, cryptic, and obscure at the expense of something grander.”

Survey Themes

Jafa’s work here ventures beyond video art, which made him one of America’s most important living artists. The exhibition engages with the same themes he has mined throughout his career — Black music, religion and secularity, American cinema, political violence, popular culture, and the Internet — but pushes toward more idiosyncratic and brash territory.

Wambugu’s review flags the tension between the show’s density and its accessibility. Some pieces demand more context than they offer, she argues, which can leave viewers grasping for meaning rather than finding it.

The Fairs Last Week

For those who worked the art fairs in NYC last week, there is now a chance to catch up on the coverage:

1. Jasmine Weber’s feature on a tribute to Black Soho at Independent 20th Century
2. Lakshmi Rivera Amin’s report on the ever-political New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1
3. Rhea Nayyar’s look at the Spring Break Art Show
4. Aaron Short’s rundown of what galleries say sold at the Armory Show

The book fair, in particular, drew attention for its playful currents of politics and queer culture, marking its 20th anniversary edition.

The Event This Week

Those in NYC have another reason to mark their calendars. On Wednesday, September 30, Hyperallergic is hosting a special event with artists at the International Studio & Curatorial Program.

The event is open to members, who get the chance to mingle with their peers and, as Valentina Di Liscia puts it, “maybe have a little wine.”

A Note on the Review

Wambugu’s review is careful in its praise. She acknowledges Jafa’s importance while noting that the show’s most opaque moments sacrifice comprehension for obscurity.

That tension is worth holding. Jafa’s work has always asked viewers to sit with discomfort, and the survey extends that project across decades of his career.

What to Make of It

The survey is a significant moment for Jafa’s career, and it arrives with real ambition. It is also dense, demanding, and uneven.

That unevenness is part of the point. Jafa’s work has never been neat, and a show this large will necessarily have highs and lows.

The show runs at the New Museum, and it is worth seeing for anyone trying to understand where Jafa’s thinking sits now.

The survey is a serious subject presented plainly.

Source material: “Arthur Jafa’s Elegy to America,” Hyperallergic.

art survey · Arthur Jafa · Black culture · New Museum · video art