Just checking out La Bourse’s presentation of two Arthur Jafa works, and I have now seen my first disclaimer about the musician whose work appears in Love is the Message, the Message is Death:
Love is the Message, the Message is Death is considered one of Arthur Jafa’s key works. Dating from 2016, it represents for the artist the affirmation of an African American identity, one of solidarity and confidence, while also showing and denouncing the violence that it has often faced.
It includes a piece of music titled Ultralight Beam from Kanye West’s album The Life of Pablo, which was released that same year. This composition, which combines gospel and R&B sounds, is an ode to spirituality, reconciliation, and the search for light, and it was praised as such by critics and a very wide audience upon its release. Arthur Jafa specifically chose this song for the values of hope and peace that it promotes.
Pinault Collection condemns Kanye West’s recent statements and actions in the strongest possible terms.
Are there others I have just not noticed? I confess, I had not looked. In any case, additional disclaimers will be documented here as they turn up.
OK, not quite a disclaimer, but an extraordinary curatorial statement at the Dallas Museum of Art from the Summer 2020, multi-institution streaming event, acknowledging local police violence, including a racist incident depicted in the work:
Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, The Message is Death (2016) was the centerpiece of the DMA’s 2017 exhibition Truth: 24 frames per second. A survey of our film and video collection, Truth explored the role of the moving image in framing our lived experiences and forcing us to reckon with what we see.
The film hit home for us in North Texas: among the footage Jafa repurposed was that of a white police officer violently pushing a 15-year-old Black teenager to the ground during a 2015 pool party in McKinney. Since the work was created, 15-year-old Jordan Edwards was murdered by a Balch Springs police officer, and Botham Jean and Atatiana Jefferson were killed in their homes by Dallas and Fort Worth police, respectively. We currently find ourselves in another reckoning with our continued inaction in keeping Black Americans safe from state-sponsored violence and domestic terrorism.
In his seven-and-a-half-minute work, Jafa presents an expansive view of history: the video flickers between some of the earliest filmed moments of the US civil rights movement, contemporary clips, and dystopian futures depicted in science fiction films. Will 2020 mark a turning point in our local and national history of racist discrimination and violence? What role does each of us play in creating a future where our racial identities do not impact our health and safety?
They added a content warning in 2021: “Content warning: This video contains footage of actual, graphic violence and includes strong language.”
Tate Modern also had a content warning from the June 2020 streaming: Content warning: This film includes footage of racist violence against Black people