Arthur Jafa: Pioneering a New Era of Video Art and Cinematography

Arthur Jafa — Transformative Contributions to Contemporary Art

Born: November 30, 1960 (Tupelo, Mississippi). American video artist and cinematographer whose work fuses cultural history with cutting-edge montage to reshape contemporary image-making.

Arthur Jafa

Early Influences and Education

Raised in Clarksdale during segregation, Jafa collected found images into “the books,” an early archive that shaped his montage practice. At Howard University he studied architecture and film; mentors such as Abiyi Ford sharpened his visual literacy and ethics of representation.

Groundbreaking Works

Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death (2016) — a seven-minute video essay set to Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam” — assembles found footage spanning joy, invention, and state violence to compress the Black American experience into visceral counter-cinema. Now held by major museums including the Met and MOCA LA.

The White Album (2018) investigates whiteness through CCTV, phone and documentary clips; it earned the Golden Lion for Best Artist at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Music and Popular Culture

Jafa’s visual grammar extends to music videos: Solange’s “Don’t Touch My Hair” and “Cranes in the Sky,” and Jay-Z’s “4:44,” where lyrical pacing meets documentary intensity.

TNEG and Black Cinema

With Malik Hassan Sayeed, Jafa co-founded TNEG to build a Black cinema as central to the 21st century as Black music was to the 20th — e.g., Dreams Are Colder Than Death and Jay-Z’s 4:44.

Recognition

• ArtReview Power 100 (2017)
• Golden Lion for Best Artist, Venice Biennale (2019)
• Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize nomination (2023)

Selected Filmography

Personal Projects

• Apex (2013)
• Dreams Are Colder Than Death (2014)
• Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death (2016)
• The White Album (2018)
• akingdoncomethas (2020)

Music Videos

• Solange — “Don’t Touch My Hair” (2016)
• Solange — “Cranes in the Sky” (2016)
• Jay-Z — “4:44” (2017)
• Kanye West — “Wash Us in the Blood” (2020)

Other Credits

• Daughters of the Dust (1991) — Director of Photography
• Crooklyn (1994) — Director of Photography
• A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (1995) — Cinematography
• Seven Songs for Malcolm X (2009) — Cinematography

Legacy

Through radical montage, scale and sound, Jafa reframes spectatorship and the politics of seeing. His influence bridges museum galleries, cinema, and popular culture, shaping how moving images carry memory and power.

See also: contemporary art · video art · thinkism · Arthur Jafa · TNEG