Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony, 2026. Exhibition view: New Museum, New York. Courtesy New Museum. Photo: Dario Lasagni
text by Hank Manning
From a young age, Arthur Jafa recognized the power of context and organization. He cut out and rearranged images from magazines and catalogs, now collected in binders. Clearly, their previous presentation was not the only one possible. This remains a core habit throughout his career, which he began as a cinematographer before gaining recognition as an editor. He moves from photography to sculpture to video to readymades: re-sorting items and images, many of them highly familiar, in a new and critical order. These rearrangements provoke changes in our patterns of thought. Uncanny at first, we then wonder: is Facebook or Google or any other giant conglomerate any more deserving of determining what we see than Arthur Jafa? In I Am Tony, the artist has put this to the test across two floors of the New Museum, curating a parallel universe encompassing the full breadth of his practice, and suggesting a cultural zeitgeist that could emerge from it.
Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony, 2026. Exhibition view: New Museum, New York. Courtesy New Museum. Photo: Dario Lasagni
Throughout, there is an assertive, unsubtle portrayal of an American racial dichotomy. Each wall is painted either entirely white or black, just as scenes of white and Black faces seem to exist in entirely separate planes of reality. Jafa describes his art as “super Black,” but notes that his idea of Blackness is expansive. This view is strongly supported through the exhibition, which centers the building of Black identities through music, sports, and popular culture, as well as the deeper influence of African traditions. Uplifting scenes blend with comic relief, but also an ever-present specter of violence, leading to a sense of unease.
Specific resolutions from his work—what to think or what to do—remain elusive. Many rooms are so dark that explanatory texts are difficult to read, as if to intentionally limit our ability to understand. Thus, in the mazelike floorplan, we have to find our own way, balancing consumption of the works with attempts to make sense of them. Again, this reflects the real world, where influences—sometimes at the periphery, others in focus—compete and may overwhelm us.
Through his ten films on display, extreme strategies attempt to capture ever-dwindling attention spans. The White Noise, a 30-minute collage of memetic videos from the past twenty years, a perfect match for an audience accustomed to rapid-fire scrolling, never sits too long on a single clip, shifting between race-based rants, menacing displays of weaponry, and jubilant dance. Others test our patience a bit. BEN GAZARRA, for which Jafa re-edited the final scene of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, replaces characters at a brothel with Black actors, as the screenplay—and common stereotypes—originally demanded. The sequence repeats a dozen times, presenting different ways the finale could have centered and reframed these characters. Another hour-long film, AGHDRA, features repetitive dark rolling waves and slowed-down soul music that could supplement meditation.
Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony, 2026. Exhibition view: New Museum, New York. Courtesy New Museum. Photo: Dario Lasagni
The pieces directly impact and complement one another. Although each film has its own room, their sounds echo far and wide. The faces of Black musicians dominate the exhibition. (Its name derives from Tony Williams, drummer for Miles Davis.) Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, and Michael Jackson appear throughout. They are a reminder that redefining popular culture does not require any additions; it can result from a shifted perspective alone. Just as well, they reveal how one type of art, or even one facet of society, impacts another. Jafa notes with pride the diverse range of music his heroes developed: gospel, jazz, blues, reggae, hip hop; and his goal of bridging such diversity to the visual arts.
With Travis Bickle’s status as an iconic anti-hero, and even inspiring the attempted assassination of a US President, we consider the butterfly effect that depictions of race in the arts have on broader events. If Bickle’s racism had been that much more obvious, as originally intended, would discussions around the film have changed, would societal conversations have adapted? This is just a single work of art, while Jafa rethinks our entire collective memories, although generally with the same ingredients. At first, this feels confusing. We are often left, metaphorically and physically, in the dark. But we can’t help but consider just how arbitrary our ordinary sense of comfort is: just outside the exhibition, other forces have determined our normal.
Arthur Jafa, APEX, 2013.
Video, color, sound; 8:12 min. © Arthur Jafa.
Courtesy the artist and Gladstone.
Image: NASA, ESA, L. Calçada, Solar Dynamics Observatory
By making himself our authority on the presentation of so many common sights, and in the process disorienting us, we necessarily scrutinize the authorities outside the museum. Thus, Jafa has delivered a powerful anti-authoritarian message. His manifesto assembles piecemeal throughout the exhibition: “America is a Satanic cult,” “Jafa is the death wish of white supremacy.” At least he’s honest and consistent in his goals. We can’t say the same for the real-world corporate mantra, “Don’t be evil.”
Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony is on view through January 3 at the New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York
