The article is a personal tribute by curator Erin Christovale to the late artist Ulysses Jenkins (1946–2026), chronicling their decade-long friendship and collaboration. Christovale recounts how she first encountered Jenkins's video work at the William Grant Still Arts Center in Los Angeles, and how a conversation with Otolith Group's Kodwo Eshun led to her curating Jenkins's work. She describes key moments including Jenkins's video "Planet X" (2006) about Hurricane Katrina, his 1979 work "Two-Zone Transfer" featuring Kerry James Marshall in blackface masks, and the 2021 retrospective "Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation" co-curated with Meg Onli at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, which later traveled to the Hammer Museum and Julia Stoschek Foundation.
This tribute matters because Jenkins was a pioneering figure in Black experimental video art and Afrofuturism, whose work critiqued racial stereotypes in media and explored Black radical imagination. The article highlights how Jenkins mentored a generation of curators and artists, and how his retrospective institutionalized his legacy after decades of underrecognition. His death marks the loss of a vital voice whose practice connected video art, performance, and social commentary, influencing contemporary conversations around race, representation, and experimental film.