{"id":614272,"date":"2026-09-28T12:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T12:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/614272\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T12:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T12:04:14","slug":"arthur-jafas-elegy-to-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/614272\/","title":{"rendered":"Arthur Jafa\u2019s Elegy to America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephanie Wambugu on \u201cI Am Tony\u201d at the New Museum; plus, catch up on last week\u2019s NYC fairs.<\/p>\n


\n \"Hyperallergic\"\/
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\"Arthur
\n Installation view, I Am Tony at the New Museum (photo Hakim Bishara\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

Arthur Jafa’s recently opened survey at the New Museum is the largest exhibition of his work to date. Two levels of the Manhattan institution are filled with his iconic video art, conceptual sculpture, and photography across four decades of his poetic inquiries into Black culture, religion, virality, and racial violence in America. Writing on the show today, Stephanie Wambugu, author of Lonely Crowds (2025), wonders if the oblique register of some of Jafa\u2019s work sacrifices its comprehension, favoring \u201cthe esoteric, cryptic, and obscure at the expense of something grander.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those of you who had to work the art fairs in NYC last week, I hope you\u2019re taking some time to recover. Those who aren\u2019t so jaded can catch up on our fair coverage: Jasmine Weber\u2019s feature on a tribute to Black Soho at Independent 20th Century; Associate Editor Lakshmi Rivera Amin on the ever-political New York Art Book Fair; Staff Writer Rhea Nayyar on the Spring Break Art Show; and reporter Aaron Short on what sold at the Armory Show. (Or what galleries say they sold. Ahem.)<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing I love about the Hyperallergic membership<\/a>, it\u2019s the chance to mingle with our members at our in-person events. And yes, maybe have a little wine. Those of you in NYC, join us this Wednesday, September 30, for a special event with artists at the International Studio & Curatorial Program<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u2014 Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor<\/p>\n

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\t\t\tArthur Jafa, King of Pop<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tArthur Jafa\u2019s survey I Am Tony at the New Museum in New York is full of the artist\u2019s characteristic gallows humor that ironizes even the most morbid images and brings to the surface the solemnity of low culture. <\/p>\n

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Occupying two levels of the Lower Manhattan institution, the exhibition is densely packed with work that ventures beyond the video art that has made Jafa one of America\u2019s most important living artists. The largest exhibition of his work to date, its ambitions \u2014 which it achieves with mixed results \u2014 seem to be to engage in the same themes Jafa has continually mined, this time in even more idiosyncratic and brash ways. These include the history of Black music, religion and secularity, American cinema, political violence, popular culture, and the Internet. | Stephanie Wambugu\n\t<\/p>\n

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Lisa Bradley Moves Beyond Luminosity at the Delaware Art Museum<\/p>\n

The Delaware Art Museum presents the artist\u2019s newest body of work in a solo exhibition spanning recent large-scale paintings and early works on paper.<\/p>\n


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Art Fairs\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u201cDoyle Lane: Master of Clay\u201d Now on View at The Huntington<\/p>\n

Discover the first major museum retrospective devoted to the influential Los Angeles ceramic artist.<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tA View From the Easel<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tWelcome to the 356th installment of A View From the Easel, a series in which artists reflect on their workspace. This week, Lara Saget hauls rocks into her studio and brings glass to life.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI also have a mini trampoline that I\u2019ve always had in my studio, it\u2019s a reminder to stay playful.\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n

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Hyper LinksDena Soukieh of Ceramram creates mind-boggling, hyperrealistic ceramics<\/a> of pop corn, nuts, and more \u2014 just don\u2019t try to eat them!Hyperallergic contributor Emma Cieslik interviews artist Judy Lichtman, whose aluminum signs blatantly call out authoritarianism, for White Hot Magazine<\/a>.Mayor Mamdani and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten visited the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Community Center in the West Village and engaged in some lively dialogue about the nature of art with the youth, Hell Gate<\/a> reports.Well, this is provocative. I agree with the “over-romanticization of archives as infinite sources of liberatory politics” and smiled a Salma Mousa’s statement that \u201cwe must resist the urge to historicize our struggle before it\u2019s over.” <\/p>\n

But as a professional archivist of art history, I am amused that the writer’s wrath goes further: “Archives are sexy, after all, and those who can spew its tenets and extricate its profundities are seen as practitioners of an invisible prophetic labor, or heralded as prophets of the limits and depths of our cultural horizons.” I had no idea that the mind-numbing tasks of curating, documenting, researching, and cataloging made me a rock star. I just do it because it’s a crucial and thankless commitment to preserving marginalized yet important voices. My greatest pleasure is seeing the fruit of these archives become source material for new art and interpretation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014 Lincoln Cushing on \u201cArchival Art Will Not Save Us<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

From the Archive\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n