Sir Isaac Julien KBE RA is a visionary filmmaker and installation artist who explores the complex intersections between identity, culture, history, and desire. Julien’s work draws from a range of artistic traditions. He crafts painterly images of movement on film that are then projected onto screens, creating a sculptural presence in theater-like installations. Lyrical and political, his works often blur the boundaries between fiction and documentary, creating portraits of influential figures such as Langston Hughes and Frantz Fanon that reflect on race, sexuality, and cultural displacement. His immersive five-screen installation Once Again… (Statues Never Die), 2022, in Glenstone’s collection, engages with contemporary debates about the collecting and reparation of African art via its depiction of the relationship between Alain Locke, often referred to as the “Father of the Harlem Renaissance,” and Albert C. Barnes, a white American collector of African material culture in the early twentieth century.

–Daniel Mauro, from the Glenstone Field Guide