Trained as an architect and cinematographer, and celebrated for his work in collage, montage and installation, Arthur Jafa is the latest guest in MoMA’s prestigious “Artist’s Choice” series. He presents a striking exhibition titled Less Is Morbid, which the artist himself describes as “a counter-wish against death.”
A High-Impact Collection of Connections
For the show, Jafa selected more than 80 works from the Museum’s collection. By placing them side by side, he creates unexpected and powerful relationships between them. The selection brings together artists from different disciplines and eras: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Cy Twombly; Lygia Clark, Roy DeCarava, Kase2 and Ming Smith; Piet Mondrian and Lutisha Pettway, among many others.
Jafa points out that most of these works share an “allover” compositional approach that spills beyond the physical frame of the painting. The installation dismantles hierarchies born of binary thinking by juxtaposing ideas and practices usually seen as opposites (minimalist/maximalist, sparse/dense, atomic/cosmological, individual/collective).
Challenging the “Less Is More” Axiom
The exhibition title, Less Is Morbid, is a deliberate play on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s famous modernist maxim “Less Is More.”
Jafa argues that throughout the 20th century this axiom governed how institutions like MoMA collected and displayed art. By equating simplicity with beauty and order, it privileged supposedly rational cultural disciplines while marginalising forms and ways of life imagined as “excessive and chaotic” — notably Black and women’s cultures.
In response, Jafa declares: “The answer to disorder in the universe is not genocide. The answer is how we coexist.” With this statement, he turns the exhibition into a philosophical manifesto on co-existence.
Events & Support
The exhibition is accompanied by the film series Carte Blanche: Arthur Jafa. Curatorial organisation was a collaboration between Jafa, Thomas Lax and specialists from various MoMA departments.
The show is generously supported by the Agnes Gund Artist’s Choice Fund and MoMA’s Black Arts Council.
Artist Talk: 22 January 2026, 6:00 pm
Exhibition on view through 5 July 2026
