Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony

Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony is the catalogue for the first full US museum survey of the American artist Arthur Jafa (b. 1960). It accompanies an exhibition at the New Museum, New York, running September 25, 2026 to January 4, 2027.

Published by Phaidon in association with the New Museum, the 260-page hardcover surveys nearly four decades of Jafa's work across more than twenty-five pieces. It is illustrated with 165 images spanning his films, video installations, photographs, and sculpture, including key works such as Love is the Message, the Message is Death (2016) and the Golden Lion-winning The White Album (2019). The book adds an interview with Jafa by curator Massimiliano Gioni, a roundtable with Gary Carrion-Murayari, Ekow Eshun, Martine Syms, and Hamza Walker, and new essays by Judith Butler, Mark Godfrey, J. Hoberman, Kara Keeling, Lawrence Rinder, and Simone White.

Jafa, born in Tupelo, Mississippi, first built his visual language as a cinematographer before moving into installation, video, and sculpture. He cuts and layers found and original footage into what he calls "affective proximities," pairings that track how Black life is represented and consumed across American media. The exhibition is titled after the jazz drummer Tony Williams and is curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Gary Carrion-Murayari with Calvin Wang.