Curatorial Statement
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?
Love is the Message, the Message is Death
Content warning: This video contains footage of actual, graphic violence and includes strong language.
I am thrilled for the opportunity, finally, to have as many people as possible see ‘Love is the Message, The Message is Death.’
– Arthur Jafa
Resources
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Watch: A conversation between artists Arthur Jafa and Dallas’s own Ja’Tovia Gary
A rapid-fire mash-up of images meant to suggest the brutalities and beauties of American, specifically African-American, life, is a powerful thing, on every level a tour de force. . . . It’s a work that should be discussed, analyzed, argued with—respected that way.
– The New York Times
Images: Arthur Jafa, Love is the Message, The Message is Death, 2016, video, color and black-and-white, sound, running time: 7 minutes, 30 seconds, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Marguerite Steed Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz, 2017.31, courtesy of Arthur Jafa and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York/Rome
Organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, the event includes the DMA; Glenstone Museum; High Museum of Art in Atlanta; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Studio Museum in Harlem; Julia Stoschek Collection Berlin; Luma Arles and Luma Westbau; Pinault Collection in Paris and Palazzo Grassi in Venice; Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; and Tate in London.
Truth: 24 frames per second is organized by the Dallas Museum of Art. Generous support provided by Marguerite Steed Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz; TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; and Culture Ireland. Air transportation provided by American Airlines. The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Members and donors, the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
