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Isaac Julien

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox person Sir Isaac Julien Template:Post-nominals (born 21 February 1960<ref name=BFI>Annette Kuhn, "Julien, Isaac (1960–)", BFI Screen Online.</ref>) is a British installation artist, filmmaker,<ref name="advocate">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early lifeEdit

Julien was born in the East End of London, one of the five children of his parents, who had migrated to Britain from St Lucia.<ref name=BFI /> He graduated in 1985 from Saint Martin's School of Art, where he studied painting and fine art film. He co-founded Sankofa Film and Video Collective in 1983,<ref name=BFI /> and was a founding member of Normal Films in 1991.<ref name="Barnett">Template:Cite news</ref>

EducationEdit

In 1980, Julien organized the Sankofa Film and Video Collective<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> with, among others, Martina Attille, Maureen Blackwood, Nadine Marsh-Edwards, which was "dedicated to developing an independent black film culture in the areas of production, exhibition and audience". He received a BA Honours degree in Fine Art Film and Video from Saint Martins School of Art, London (1984),<ref name="Barnett"/> where he worked alongside artists, film-makers and lecturers Malcolm Le Grice, William Raban, Anna Thew, Tina Keane, Vera Neubauer, and co-students, directors and film-makers Adam Finch, Richard Heslop and Sandra Lahire, and completed his postdoctoral studies at Les entrepreneurs de l'audiovisuel européen, Brussels (1989).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

CareerEdit

Julien achieved prominence in the film world with his 1989 drama-documentary Looking for Langston, gaining a cult following with this poetic exploration of Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His following grew when his film Young Soul Rebels won the Semaine de la Critique prize for best film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

One of the objectives of Julien's work is to break down the barriers that exist between different artistic disciplines, drawing from and commenting on film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture, and uniting these to construct a powerfully visual narrative. Thematically, much of his work directly relates to experiences of black and gay identity (he is himself gay),<ref name="advocate"/> including issues of class, sexuality, and artistic and cultural history.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Fullerton">Template:Cite news</ref>

Julien is a documentary filmmaker, and his work in this genre includes BaadAsssss Cinema, a film on the history and influence of blaxploitation cinema.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2023, the Tate Gallery in London held a major retrospective of his work titled What Freedom Is to Me.<ref name="Fullerton"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The exhibition was set to open at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastrict in March 2024.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The Pérez Art Museum Miami acquired Julien's Ogun’s Return (Once Again... Statues Never Die) (2022) for the museum collection as part of its PAMM Fund for Black Art in 2024.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In this same year, Sir Isaac Julien's films were on view at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The first, a solo presentation and multichannel installation Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass, and the latter, the cinematic installation Once Again . . . (Statues Never Die), a commentary on the life and work of Alain Locke, Harlem Renaissance philosopher, in dialogue with Albert C. Barnes about African art, at the 2024 Whitney Biennial.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

CollaborationsEdit

Julien cites cultural theorist and sociologist Stuart Hall as an important influence on his filmmaking. Hall narrates a portion of Looking for Langston. Julien involves Hall in his work once more in the 1996 film Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> which tells the story of Frantz Fanon, the theorist and psychiatrist from Martinique.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> As a member of the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, Julien made The Passion of Remembrance (1986), "which attempts to deal with the difficulties of constructing a documentary history of black political experience by foregrounding questions of chauvinism and homophobia."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 2007, Julien participated in Performa 07 creating his first evening-length production Cast No Shadow in collaboration with Rusell Maliphant.

Other activitiesEdit

Since 2018, Julien has been a member of the Curatorial Advisory Group at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> In 2019, he was a member of the jury that selected Arthur Jafa as winner of the Prince Pierre Foundation's International Contemporary Art Prize.<ref>Armstrong, Annie (17 April 2019), "Here's the Shortlist for the $85,000 Prix International d’Art Contemporain", ARTnews.</ref><ref>"Arthur Jafa Wins $83,000 International Prize for Contemporary Art", Artforum, 16 October 2019.</ref>

RecognitionEdit

Julien was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001, and in 2003 he won the Grand Jury Prize at the Kunstfilm Biennale in Cologne for his single-screen version of Baltimore.

Julien was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to the arts<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and was knighted in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to diversity and inclusion in art.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> He was elected a Royal Academician in 2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Personal lifeEdit

Julien lives and works in London, England, and Santa Cruz, California. He works with his partner Mark Nash.

Julien was a visiting lecturer at Harvard University's Departments of Afro-American and Visual Environmental Studies, and was a visiting seminar leader in the MFA Art Practice programme at the School of Visual Arts, and a visiting professor at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York City. He was also a research fellow at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and in September 2009 he became a professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 2018, Julien joined UC Santa Cruz, where he is the distinguished professor of the arts.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Julien is a patron of the Live Art Development Agency.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Selected bibliographyEdit

Installation piecesEdit

File:Playtime (2013).jpg
Playtime at the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in the Netherlands
  • Vagabondia (2000)
  • Paradise Omeros (2002)
  • Baltimore (2003)
  • Lost Boundaries (2003)
  • Radioactive (2004)
  • True North (2004)
  • Fantôme Afrique (2005)
  • Fantôme Créole (2005)
  • WESTERN UNION: Small Boats (2007)
  • Dungeness (2008)* Te Tonga Tuturu/True South (Apparatus) (2009)
  • TEN THOUSAND WAVES (2010)
  • PLAYTIME (2013)
  • A Marvellous Entanglement (2019)
  • Once Again... (Statues Never Die) (2022)

FilmographyEdit

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AwardsEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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Further readingEdit

Also published in: The Other Cinema, The Cinema of the Other, UNOPress, Napoli.

External linksEdit

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