Still from Love is the Message, the Message is Death by Arthur Jafa. Image provided courtesy of the artist and the Douglas Hyde Gallery.

 

“We must disrupt the assumption that the assertion of love is something that does not need to be disrupted.”

– Traci C. West.

US American artist and filmmaker Arthur Jafa’s seminal work, Love is the Message, the Message is Death, opened at the Douglas Hyde Gallery on the 8th of October. Love is the Message, a 2016 multi-media film, combines pre-existing images, videos, and sounds to create a striking and poignant picture of Black American culture, identity, trials and triumphs.

 

Born and raised in Tupelo, Mississippi, Jafa’s work primarily focuses on expressions of Black identity and culture. A careful and delicate consideration of Black experiences has always been the focus of his work, using mediums ranging from sculpture to film. Throughout his decades-long career as a cinematographer and visual artist, Jafa has worked with directors such as Spike Lee, Julie Dash, and Stanley Kubrick, as well as artists like Solange and Kara Walker. 

 

Love is the Message is presented simply in the gallery. The roughly seven minute film plays on a continuous loop in a dark and open room. The eeriness of the space effortlessly captivates audiences, a state well-suited to the tone of the film. 

 

From the moment the video begins, the contrast and affective proximity of the images and clips make the viewer sit up straighter. Rapid cuts between moments of joy and horror, community and solitude, beauty and destruction draw the viewer in, begging them to understand that Black experiences are not parallel lines of jubilation and sorrow. Rather, they are intersections. They have their own character, but systemic racist oppression has rendered it certain that these paths inevitably cross.

 

Together each of the found footage clips Jafa compiled and set to Kanye West’s Ultralight Beam take on new meaning. By using found footage Jafa highlights that being Black and creative within a white supremacist society leads to the exploitation of the art and the creator. Simultaneously, found footage also offers a note on continuity. It is striking to see an image of violence from fifty years ago mimic one from ten years ago. On the other end of the spectrum, a moment of joy unknowingly recreated decades later is captivating. Jafa’s virtual collage is transcendent of a single time. 

 

The sun reappears as a visual motif throughout the film, spelling out a key message. Culture, much like the sun, is a giver of life, inseparable from human flourishing. Jafa expertly illustrates this connection, Black culture, and the work of Black artists as fulfilling the role of the sun. The world loves Black culture, but at the cost of Black lives. A world without the gift of Black culture would lack vibrancy and humanity, becoming lifeless itself. 

 

Jafa began his work on Love is the Message in 2014, before premiering it for an American audience  two years later. Is there any kind of footnote required for a 2022 viewing in a more global context? The answer is yes and no. A viewing of Love is the Message considering recent events like George Floyd’s murder and the horrifyingly inequitable treatment of Black Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic is paramount. Furthermore, while Jafa uses images primarily from American settings, it is evident that the exploitation of Black culture is a global phenomenon. Love is the Message is relevant viewing for any audience. And yet, the patterns from any time or place would likely mimic each other again and again. Love is the Message, The Message is Death is a call to end the cycle. 

 

“Love is the Message, The Message is Death” has a run at the Douglas Hyde Gallery from 8th of October until the 6th of November. Image provided courtesy of the artist and the Douglas Hyde Gallery.