08 october 2021, Flor Linckens
Isaac Julien: “I always view making works as an act of reparation, aesthetically”
Until 17 October, a spectacular solo exhibition by Isaac Julien will be on show in Galerie Ron Mandos in Amsterdam. In this exhibition, the renowned British artist, who was previously nominated for a prestigious Turner Prize, honours a pioneering historical figure, while also delving deeper into the complex relationship between photography and people of colour.
Isaac Julien, The North Star (Lessons of the Hour), 2019, Galerie Ron Mandos.
A central figure in this exhibition is the famous American abolitionist Frederick Douglass: an enslaved man who managed to escape his captivity. He became a celebrated author and philosopher, a poetic speaker and an inspired activist who campaigned for equal human rights — including women's suffrage — and fiercely opposed slavery. Douglass became a leader within the abolitionist movement and gained fame as a result of the many gripping speeches that he gave in America and Europe. In this exhibition, you can see what happens when you put such a remarkable life story in the hands of an acclaimed artist.
Galerie Ron Mandos is currently showing his stunningly beautiful and compelling film “Lessons of the Hour”. In it, Julien shows a reconstruction of various speeches that Douglass gave, but also various insights into his personal life and the time (or more specifically: the Zeitgeist) in which he lived. Occasionally, Julien plays with transhistorical elements, for example when the audience of the speech consists of both contemporary and 19th century listeners. In any case, the speeches make it painfully clear which lessons still haven’t been learned. For the texts, Julien collaborated with professor and Douglass-expert Celeste-Marie Bernier, who is affiliated with the University of Edinburgh. Together, they created what Julien describes as a series of 'tableaux vivants'. Julien filmed “Lessons of the Hour” in several locations that have been of interest to Douglass, including his home in Washington DC and the Royal Academy of Art in London.
Isaac Julien, J. P. Ball Salon, 1867 (Lessons of the Hour), 2019, Galerie Ron Mandos.
In the film, significant roles are reserved for a number of important women in his life, including his first wife Anna Murray Douglass, to whom he was married for 44 years, until her death. Anna was a freedom fighter, activist and political thinker herself, and she was closely involved in the famous Underground Railroad, a network that brought runaway slaves to safety. Julien: “In my work I decided to foreground her portrait in a kind of more historically revisionist manner, to bring her to the foreground.” Julien also features Douglass' second wife Helen Pitts, a women's suffrage activist, alongside British abolitionists Anna and Ellen Richardson. They raised money to officially free Douglass after his escape, allowing him to return to America a free man. You will also see Ottilie Assing, whose German translations ensured that Douglass' work gained fame beyond the English-speaking borders. In addition, famous and befriended activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Ida B. Wells are shown. There is also a lot of attention for J.P. Ball, a pioneering African-American photographer whose studio features heavily in the film. The tintype photos that were taken by the characters on set become part of the wider artwork. In addition, the exhibition at Galerie Ron Mandos shows original 19th-century photography, alongside a series of breathtaking images from the film that, compositionally, clearly refer to famous and less famous paintings from the same time period — but now with black protagonists.
Isaac Julien, Rapture 1846 (Lessons of the Hour), 2019, Galerie Ron Mandos.
But Julien did not only consider Douglass as a formidable speaker and writer, but he also discovered that Douglass had interesting ideas about the power of photography. He regarded photography as a liberating and empowering tool, that can offer an alternative to the ubiquitous and degrading caricatures of black people that were made by white people. At the same time, he said: "Language is cold, valueless and lifeless when it comes to remembering the realities of slavery.” Photography was able to offer a more powerful alternative. Julien: “Douglass was the most photographed man of the 19th century, more so than President Lincoln, in fact. He was interested in photography because of the role of autonomy it gave him over his own self-representation, as opposed to the ones that were being captured and stereotyped; black men and women were being presented in derogatory imagery. He saw photography as a savior of representing a regime of truth or person.” Douglass became so famous because of all those photos that, given his past, it became necessary to leave America temporarily. He would spend two years in Edinburgh. Julien: “One of the unique things about working on ‘Lessons of the Hour’ has really been the opportunity to look at the way in which Douglass wrote about photography. I mean, I was really quite astonished. It pre-dates Walter Benjamin in relationship to aesthetic theory, around photography, in a way I think this was something of a kind of link to my own practice. Because I’m involved in both photography and image-making and I’m really attracted to it in a both aesthetic and philosophical sense.”
Incidentally, several academics have later concluded that the relationship between photography and people of colour is in fact quite complicated, and not necessarily positive. In 2016, Julien noted: "When we’re thinking about the industries of film and photography, we know that we’re dealing with a technology that is particularly non-neutral in the way in which black subjects, specifically, have been treated. Not only by the technologies themselves, which were aligned to lighter skin tones, but we know that the rules of representation—and the technologies of representation—have to be rewritten if you want to articulate a certain aesthetic. So, I always view the making of works as an act of reparation, aesthetically. It’s the undoing of a very forceful regime of dominant effects, which are quite a bombardment for any person of colour growing up or being part of a generally dominant white culture, particularly in the photographic and cinematic industries.”
Isaac Julien, Serenade (Lessons of the Hour), 2019, Galerie Ron Mandos.
The film “Lessons of the Hour” resonates, especially at a time when systemic racism and Black Lives Matter are more prominent in the political and social discourse. In the exhibition, you can also see Julien's first film “Who Killed Colin Roach?” (1983), a film that he made during his studies. In it, he reflects on the death of the 23-year-old black man Colin Roach, who was shot in 1982 at the entrance of a police station in East London. The neighborhood refused to believe the shady official story of the police and revolted—a painful parallel to the present, nearly forty years later.
Isaac Julien is known for his (multi-screen) film installations and photographs, that he uses as a means of delving deeper into topics such as race, representation, diaspora, decolonisation, queer experiences and the ways in which we (collectively) remember events. Julien blends different artistic disciplines in his work, including dance, music, theatre, painting and sculpture. He studied painting and film at Saint Martin's School of Art in London and gained fame for his work “Looking for Langston” (1989), a poetic drama documentary about the queer African-American poet and activist Langston Hughes, an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the twenties. Julien's award-winning work has been included in the collections of museums such as the Guggenheim, MoMA, Tate, the Royal Academy, the Louis Vuitton Art Foundation and Centre Pompidou. His work was also shown during Documenta XI. In 2017, Julien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and he received several awards, including The Royal Academy of Arts Charles Wollaston Award.
The exhibition 'Lessons of the Hour' can be seen at Galerie Ron Mandos until 17 October.
