Edited by Flora Katz, Vassilis Oikonomopoulos. Text by Norman Ajari, Tina M. Campt, Liam Gillick, Ernest Hardy, Saidiya Hartman, R.A. Judy, Nathaniel Mackey, Fred Moten, Julian Myers, Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Peter Saville, James A. Snead, Greg Tate, Peter Watts.
An expansive survey of video, installation and more from Arthur Jafa, whose practice is "a counterpunch to anyone who wants to put people of color in their place" (Wes Hill)
Published with LUMA Arles.
Over several decades, American filmmaker and artist Arthur Jafa has constructed a compelling body of work that defies categorization. Both powerful and lyrical, his practice combines a profoundly unsettling blend of images and histories. Bringing together affective memories that touch on US history, violence, repression, modalities of survival and how these exist in the production and dissemination of images, music, sound and time-based media, Jafa reflects on the ontology of race and Blackness. This richly illustrated catalog reproduces key works from Jafa's wide-ranging oeuvre and explores the philosophical, historical and artistic implications of his practice, featuring essays and a series of conversations between Jafa and key practitioners working in the fields of cinema, arts and theory. Arthur Jafa (born 1960) grew up in Mississippi, where his lifelong fascination with found imagery manifested in his childhood hobby of assembling binders of photographs culled from various sources. As a cinematographer and director of photography, Jafa has collaborated with Stanley Kubrick, Solange Knowles and Spike Lee, among many others. His work on Julie Dash's 1991 film Daughters of the Dust won him the Best Cinematography award at Sundance. At the 2019 Venice Biennale, he was awarded the Golden Lion for The White Album. Jafa lives and works in Los Angeles.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Arthur Jafa: Live Evil,' Walther König, Köln / LUMA Arles.
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Saturday, August 23, from 4 to 6 PM, Arcana presents Los Angeles artist Arthur Jafa to celebrate the release of his new publication, Live Evil. In addition to signing copies, he will engage in a discussion of the book and his work with art historian Julian Myers. continue to blog
Featured images are from new release Arthur Jafa: Live Evil, the highly anticipated, 360-page artist’s book / catalog expanding upon the Los Angeles artist’s major recent survey at LUMA Arles. Heavily illustrated by full-page details in Jafa’s inimitable lyrical, confrontational and juxtapositional style, the book also contains essays by some of today’s most powerful writers on art, film, theory and race, alongside several deep interviews with Jafa. In conversation with Saidiya Hartman, Jafa states: “Someone I love said, ‘Hey, Black culture perpetually operates in a state of emergency.’ And I think about that statement over and over again because of the duality of the term “emergency.” On one hand, it means, obviously, that Black cultures operate in a constant state of crisis. And that crisis undergirds the character of so many things we do, the intensity with which we do them, including the way that improvisation— which is just structured accident—is such a singular aspect of what we do in all these spheres. That sense of improvisation involves taking the idea of crisis and formalizing it, making it a formal component. You have to do it now. When it’s time for you to improvise, everybody points to you, you got to go. When it’s time for you to freestyle, you got to go. You can’t refer to your notes, you can’t compose yourself. You just have to do it. But at the same time, I’m starting to think of “emergency” as perpetually in this state of emergence, ontologically speaking, as a way to try to understand how it is that Black Americans function, and I guess I’m specifically thinking about Black Americans in the US right now, even though I think this quality is characteristic of Black folks across the diaspora. I was recently asked to write an introduction to this book on one of my mentors. I said one of the things that he taught me was how contingent our craft was and how for us, the question of who you modeled yourself on wasn’t just the difference between succeeding and failing, but it was the difference between life and death. You know what I mean? This sense of life-and-death intensity means that for us, invention is not a matter of simply getting a patent; it’s the difference between surviving and not surviving.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9 x 12 in. / 360 pgs / 157 color / 98 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $59.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $84.95 ISBN: 9783753307916 PUBLISHER: Walther König, Köln AVAILABLE: 9/9/2025 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA ASIA AU/NZ
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Flora Katz, Vassilis Oikonomopoulos. Text by Norman Ajari, Tina M. Campt, Liam Gillick, Ernest Hardy, Saidiya Hartman, R.A. Judy, Nathaniel Mackey, Fred Moten, Julian Myers, Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Peter Saville, James A. Snead, Greg Tate, Peter Watts.
An expansive survey of video, installation and more from Arthur Jafa, whose practice is "a counterpunch to anyone who wants to put people of color in their place" (Wes Hill)
Published with LUMA Arles.
Over several decades, American filmmaker and artist Arthur Jafa has constructed a compelling body of work that defies categorization. Both powerful and lyrical, his practice combines a profoundly unsettling blend of images and histories. Bringing together affective memories that touch on US history, violence, repression, modalities of survival and how these exist in the production and dissemination of images, music, sound and time-based media, Jafa reflects on the ontology of race and Blackness. This richly illustrated catalog reproduces key works from Jafa's wide-ranging oeuvre and explores the philosophical, historical and artistic implications of his practice, featuring essays and a series of conversations between Jafa and key practitioners working in the fields of cinema, arts and theory.
Arthur Jafa (born 1960) grew up in Mississippi, where his lifelong fascination with found imagery manifested in his childhood hobby of assembling binders of photographs culled from various sources. As a cinematographer and director of photography, Jafa has collaborated with Stanley Kubrick, Solange Knowles and Spike Lee, among many others. His work on Julie Dash's 1991 film Daughters of the Dust won him the Best Cinematography award at Sundance. At the 2019 Venice Biennale, he was awarded the Golden Lion for The White Album. Jafa lives and works in Los Angeles.
