New York, New York—April 17, 2025—Art21 announced the release of “Arthur Jafa: Sequencing the Notes,” a new film premiering Wednesday, April 30, at 12:00 p.m. ET on Art21.org and YouTube. In this installment of Art21’s Extended Play digital series, Jafa explores the rich landscape of Black cultural production by identifying and utilizing Black methodologies and aesthetics, uncovering the nuances of Black identity.
At 52 Walker, a gallery in New York City, photographs of iconic figures including Miles Davis, Adrian Piper, and Michel Foucault are carefully arranged to form artist Arthur Jafa’s Large Array II (2024), a collage of aluminum cutouts highlighting unexpected relationships between Blackness and punk rock, critical theory, comic books, and more. Throughout his practice, Jafa appropriates materials mined from the entirety of American culture, ranging from iconic films and photographs to videos posted on social media, sequencing and juxtaposing them to reveal qualities, connections, and absences that otherwise remain unseen.
“A lot of what I do is structured reassociation,” says the artist. “That’s a fundamental thing I’m interested in. That very specific and local ‘Big Bang’ that happens when you put one Black being next to another Black being. What is engendered by that?”
“AJ’s practice refuses easy description or analysis: it taps into so many complex visions of Black life and what Blackness is and can be,” says Jurrell Lewis, director of the film and Art21’s Associate Curator. “So, throughout the making of this film, the challenge was always: how do we show the breadth and depth of this investigation without flattening it by pretending that there is a single, easy explanation of what a given work means or does?”
Tune in to the digital premiere of “Arthur Jafa: Sequencing the Notes” on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. ET at Art21.org and on Art21’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/art21org.
For an advance screening or to learn more, email Art21 Associate Director of Communications, Hannah DeGarmo, at [email protected].
Art21’s Extended Play digital series provides unmediated, behind-the-scenes access to today’s leading artists. Through process-revealing footage and intimate interviews, these curatorially driven films chronicle a diverse scale of international projects, ranging from major commissions to exploratory sketches. Produced in close collaboration with artists, Extended Play uncovers provocative ideas, timely cultural influences, and biographical anecdotes that inspire the artists featured throughout the series.
Extended Play is presented by the Marina Kellen French Foundation, with support from Vicente Madrigal and Ann Harrison, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the Henry Nias Foundation, and individual contributors.
Art21 is the world’s leading source to learn directly from the artists of our time. The mission of Art21 is to educate and expand access to contemporary art through the production of documentary films, resources, and public programs. The organization recently embarked on capacity-building efforts to grow its operations and services to bring more artists to more audiences worldwide. Art21 opens the world of art to everyone. Learn more at Art21.org.
