Jr. Martin Luther King

Description

"Love is the Message, The Message is Death" offers a powerfully moving montage of original and appropriated footage that explores the mix of joy and pain, transcendence and tragedy that characterize the African American experience. The video points to the ongoing violence against Black people that is foundational to U.S. history and continues to play out in the present. It also shows how Black Americans have taken these experiences, and created cultural, political and aesthetic achievements that are intrinsic to the national identity. Set to Kanye West’s gospel-inflected song “Ultralight Beam,” the piece swells with spiritually uplifting but candid lyrics; the music occasionally recedes allowing poignant snippets of dialogue to come to surface. The precise editing echoes the intricate rhythmic structures of jazz and hip-hop. Meanwhile, the visuals selected cover the range of famous and anonymous figures, media sources, and ideological mediation through which contemporary viewers experience and understand their world. Iconic images of civil rights leaders overlaid with gettyimages® raise questions of corporate co-option. Quick cuts of viral news and sports clips reflect media constructions of Blackness. Scenes from sci-fi blockbusters and footage from outer space bring fantasy and metaphor into play. Camera-phone-recorded YouTube videos highlight how one’s most personal moments can now become shockingly public, whether through choice or necessity.Jafa organizes this material through formal and affective associations, linking images through visual resemblance or thematic resonance: President Barack Obama singing “Amazing Grace” after nine Black Americans were killed by a white supremacist in a Charleston, South Carolina, church...

Record Contributed By

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution