One of the most influential artists working across film, photography and installation today will be the subject of his largest museum survey to date when the New Museum presents Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony this autumn.
Opening 24th September 2026, the exhibition will span two floors of the museum’s newly expanded building, bringing together more than four decades of Jafa’s work, from his earliest films to new installations, paintings, sculptures and photographic works. Alongside the premiere of new commissions, the exhibition will include some of his most celebrated moving-image works, including Love is the Message, The Message is Death (2016) and the Golden Lion-winning The White Album (2019).
Over a career spanning nearly forty years, Jafa has reshaped the language of contemporary art through a practice that combines cinema, music, photography and found imagery to examine Black life in America. Originally recognised as a cinematographer working with filmmakers including Julie Dash, Spike Lee and Stanley Kubrick, he has become one of the defining artists of his generation, creating works that confront the histories and contemporary realities of race, identity and image-making.
Named after legendary jazz drummer Tony Williams, I Am Tony explores the visual rhythms that have come to define Jafa’s practice. Drawing on an expansive archive of images gathered from social media, film, popular culture and historical records, the exhibition reveals how the artist assembles what he has described as “affective proximities”—unexpected juxtapositions that expose the ways race is represented, experienced and circulated through contemporary media.
The survey will include early works such as Monster (1988), a self-portrait that foreshadows many of the themes running throughout Jafa’s career, alongside recent large-scale installations that continue his exploration of image culture and collective memory. Together, the exhibition offers the most comprehensive presentation of the artist’s practice to date.
Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director, and Gary Carrion-Murayari, Kraus Family Senior Curator, the exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published with Phaidon, featuring new essays by Judith Butler, Ekow Eshun, Martine Syms and others, as well as an interview between Jafa and Gioni.
Running from 24th September 2026 to 4th January 2027, Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony also marks one of the first major exhibitions to occupy the New Museum’s newly expanded OMA-designed building, reinforcing the institution’s commitment to presenting ambitious surveys of leading contemporary artists.
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