Arthur Jafa

Arthur Jafa (b. 1960, Tupelo, Mississippi) is an artist, filmmaker and cinematographer. Across three decades, Jafa has developed a dynamic practice comprising films, artefacts and happenings that reference and question the universal and specific articulations of Black being. Underscoring the many facets of Jafa’s practice is a recurring question: how can visual media, such as objects, static and moving images, transmit the equivalent “power, beauty and alienation” embedded within forms of Black music in US culture?

Jafa’s films have garnered acclaim at the Los Angeles, New York and Black Star Film Festivals and his artwork is represented in celebrated collections worldwide. Select recent institutional solo exhibitions include MCA Chicago, Illinois (2024); OGR Torino, Italy (2022); LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2022); Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland (2021); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebæk, Denmark (2021); Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2020); Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Canada (2020); and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2019). In 2019, he received the Golden Lion for the Best Participant of the 58th Venice Biennale “May You Live in Interesting Times.”