Arthur Jafa began his career behind a camera. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1960, he worked as a cinematographer with Julie Dash, Spike Lee, and Stanley Kubrick before turning to his own films and art. In Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death (2016), he spliced together seven minutes of footage of Black American life—from celebrations and sporting triumphs to police violence—and set it to Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam.” In June 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests, more than a dozen museums streamed the film at once. Three years later, The White Album won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. The New Museum now looks back over nearly 40 years of Jafa’s work, from films and photographs to paintings, sculptures, and enormous video installations, with several new pieces thrown in. The title is an homage to the jazz drummer Tony Williams. —Elena Clavarino