Unrest brings together two of the 21st century’s most powerful works of art.
Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, The Message is Death (2016), collages Jafa’s own footage with internet video samplings from a range of sources. ‘These images traverse the twentieth century, focusing on the lives of Black people set against the backdrop of systemic racism and White supremacism.’
In Jafa’s The White Album (2018), ‘the flow of seemingly disparate video clips conveys a charged, raw yet occasionally tender image of white visual culture. It is a portrayal of a group of people, which takes its status for granted and whose identity and gaze are shaped by centuries of supremacy. The work reflects whiteness as a structural norm, the hierarchical order that makes it possible to reject cultural expressions of others – or to appropriate them.
Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery
Curator
David Sequeira
Opening event | Thursday, 6th April 2023, 5 – 7:30 PM
More information on Arthur Jafa's Love is the Message, The Message is Death in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection
More information on Arthur Jafa’s The White Album in the Moderna Museet Collection