Arthur Jafa’s seven-minute-long video work, Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death, features a blend of found footage that traces African-American history and identity through a spectrum of contemporary imagery.
Employing his “Black visual intonation” methodology, imagery of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr; Barack Obama singing “Amazing Grace” at the funeral of Reverend Clement Pinckney; helicopter views of the LA Riots; and a crowd of bodies dancing “The Dougie” play out against the highs and lows of Kanye West’s gospel-inspired hip-hop track, “Ultralight Beam.”
Arthur Jafa, Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death (film still), 2016. Courtesy the artist, Gladstone Gallery, New York and Warrnambool Art Gallery, Victoria
Warrnambool Art Gallery
20 December 2022 to 19 March 2023
Victoria
