Arthur Jafa

The American artist, film-maker, cinematographer, and musician Arthur Jafa has developed a multidisciplinary artistic practice in the last 30 years that includes film, installations, and performance along with happenings and sculpture. In his works Jafa highlights the living conditions and life experiences of the black population in American society, closely linked to aspects of violence, inequality and feelings of alienation.
Starting from African American music’s crucial significance in the cultural history of the USA, Jafa pursues in his oeuvre the question of how a comparable aesthetic can be created as its equivalent in film. A selection of his exhibitions includes the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebæk, the Brooklyn Museum, New York, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin (all 2021), the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2020), the Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2019), and LUMA Arles (2018). Arthur Jafa also participated at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), where he was awarded the Golden Lion for best artist for his work ‘The White Album’.