Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony, on view at the New Museum from September 25, 2026, to January 4, 2027, marks the first US museum survey exhibition of the work of Arthur Jafa to encapsulate the full breadth of his practice. Named for the pioneering jazz drummer Tony Williams, the exhibition presents video installations, paintings, photographs, and sculptures across two floors of the recently expanded New Museum. Renowned for his trenchant explorations of race and American culture, the artist premieres new works alongside searing video montages including Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death from 2016 and The White Album from 2019, as well as early works such as the photograph Monster from 1988, an unflinching self-portrait of the artist as a young man.
Over a nearly forty-year career, Jafa has sought to find new visual forms to capture the rhythm and realities of Black life in America. Often placing the nation's growing awareness of the history of institutional violence directed toward the Black community against the backdrop of the ascension of Black culture, music, and entertainment in American national identity, Jafa's work turns an unflinching eye toward the past while embodying and mirroring our contemporary obsession with masses of images or content. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1960, Jafa studied architecture and film at Howard University before moving to Los Angeles to focus on filmmaking. His first feature as a cinematographer, Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust from 1991, won him Best Cinematographer at the Sundance Film Festival. He went on to shoot films for directors Stanley Kubrick, Spike Lee, and Ava DuVernay.
I Am Tony charts Jafa's work from his earliest films to recent video installations, mapping the evolution of his filmic language whose syncopations and textures match the aspirations of Black popular music. The exhibition features Jafa's most celebrated works, including the Golden Lion-winning The White Album, which uses found video clips from CCTV, cell phones, documentaries, and more to explore whiteness and racism in the United States. Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death, set to Kanye West's Ultralight Beam, juxtaposes footage of Black joy, creativity, and resilience with scenes of police brutality and systemic oppression. The show also includes recent paintings, large-scale video and film installations, and a range of sculptural and photographic objects. Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Toby Devan Lewis Director, and Gary Carrion-Murayari, Kraus Family Senior Curator, with Calvin Wang, Curatorial Assistant, the exhibition spans two floors of the newly expanded OMA-designed building. The New Museum is located at 235 Bowery in Manhattan. Admission is $18 for adults, $12 for students and seniors, and free for members and children under 12. The museum is closed on Tuesdays. The exhibition remains on view through January 4, 2027, offering visitors a chance to encounter the practice of one of the most influential artists of his generation.
Image: Arthur Jafa, Pledge of Allegiance, 1899, 2017 Courtesy the artist and Gladstone
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