The Museum of Modern Art is opening its doors to Arthur Jafa—Less Is Morbid, a landmark exhibition by Arthur Jafa that run in New York from November 19th, 2025 to July 5th, 2026. In introducing the show, the museum emphasises how Jafa’s practice, which is rooted in montage, collage and Black visual culture, creates a vivid space for reexamining history through images and emotions. The project brings together over 80 pieces from the MoMA collection to create an ambitious dialogue spanning generations, media, and cultural perspectives.
Reexamining history through Jafa’s visual language
At the heart of the exhibition is Jafa’s belief that images hold an “affective power” capable of reshaping how we read the world. Instead of presenting works in isolation, he constructs unexpected alignments that challenge viewers to rethink conventional hierarchies. Pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat sit beside quiet photographs by Roy DeCarava, revealing how expressive intensity and contemplative subtlety can speak to one another. A steel column by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe becomes a conceptual anchor, prompting reflection on the modernist dictum “less is more” and the cultural exclusions it historically concealed.
Inside the Arthur Jafa exhibition
Among the several standout selections is a quilt by Lutisha Pettway, whose patterning and materiality bring the lived histories of Black women into the museum’s central discourse. Another key inclusion is a vivid work by Ming Smith, where photographic lyricism transforms everyday Black life into something cosmic and expansive. Jafa also highlights a piece by Cy Twombly, using its swirling mark-making to illustrate how abstraction can mirror emotional or political turbulence.
Together, these works form an immersive landscape of connections that are rarely acknowledged in formal museum spaces. The artist’s approach blurs the boundaries between minimal and maximal, rational and expressive, and individual and collective. Throughout the exhibition, Jafa emphasises that coexistence, not exclusion, is the path towards cultural understanding.
By the time visitors exit Arthur Jafa—Less Is Morbid, they have encountered an exhibition that not only surveys modern and contemporary art but also reframes its narrative. The project makes a persuasive case for rewriting how museums tell stories, especially those rooted in Black experience. In doing so, it reaffirms Arthur Jafa’s role as one of today’s most incisive voices in art, film, and cultural thought.
Installation view of Artist’s Choice: Arthur Jafa—Less Is Morbid on view at The MUSEUM OF MODERN ART from November 19, 2025 through July 05, 2026.
The MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, New York. Photography by JONATHAN DORADO
