Artistic Career

The science fiction programs Jafa watched as a child has informed his artistic practice as an adult, as seen in his self portrait "LeRage" (2017). His work is also inspired by his interest in jazz musician Miles Davis.He has exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Julia Stoschek Collection, as well as many others. He has worked as a cinematographer with directors Julie Dash and Spike Lee. His work on Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991) won "Best Cinematography" Award at Sundance. His seven-minute video essay Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the High Museum of Art. Set to Kanye West's song "Ultralight Beam", the work consists of a series of found images and video clips depicting a range of Black American experiences throughout history which establishes that the black experience is not monolithic, every experience is unique.

Among many other clips exploring African American life and resiliency, the video essay juxtaposes recordings of police violence and footage from the Civil Rights Movement with clips of Black artistry, pop culture, celebration, and creativity.Jafa himself has connected the ethos of the work with his Catholic roots and Gian Lorenzo Bernini's "Ecstasy of Saint Teresa". On Friday, June 26, 2020, 13 museums in 7 countries pledged, with Jafa's blessing, to stream the work for free on their respective websites for 48 hours Jafa also has worked on a number of music videos and was the director of photography on videos for Solange's "Don't Touch My Hair" and "Cranes in the Sky." He was included in the 2017 ArtReview Power 100 list. Jafa co-founded TNEG along with Malik Sayeed, a "motion picture studio whose goal is to create a black cinema as culturally, socially, and economically central to the 21st century as was black music to the 20th century". TNEG has produced a number of works such as Dreams Are Colder Than Death and the music video for Jay-Z's song "4:44". In 2018, Jafa released the approximately forty minute-long video essay entitled The White Album, which uses found video clips from CCTV, cell phones, documentaries, and more to explore whiteness and racism in the United States of America.He was awarded the Golden Lion for best artist at the 2019 Venice Biennale for The White Album. vIn 2020, he produced a music video for Kanye West's single "Wash Us in the Blood". He is currently working on a project that is a feature film that focuses on how black music has greatly influenced American culture. His work is represented by Gavin Brown's Enterprise.