Isaac Julien
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Isaac Julien CBE RA | |
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Born | East End of London, England | 21 February 1960
Nationality | British |
Education | Central Saint Martins |
Occupation | Installation artist and filmmaker |
Employer | Goldsmiths, University of London Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design |
Known for | Looking for Langston (1989) |
Website | https://www.isaacjulien.com/ |
Isaac Julien CBE RA (born 21 February 1960)[1] is a British installation artist, filmmaker,[2] and distinguished professor of the arts at UC Santa Cruz.
Early life[]
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.[1] 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,[1] and was a founding member of Normal Films in 1991.
Education[]
In 1980, Julien organised the Sankofa Film and Video Collective with Martina Attille, Maureen Blackwood, Nadine Marsh-Edwards, and Robert Crusz in response to the social unrest in Britain. Sankofa was "dedicated to developing an independent black film culture in the areas of production, exhibition and audience". He received a BA in fine-art film from Central Saint Martins School of Art, London (1984) where he worked alongside artists including Sandra Lahire, Malcolm Le Grice, Lis Rhodes, Vera Neubauer, Adam Finch, and Tina Keane, and completed his postdoctoral studies at Les entrepreneurs de l'audiovisuel européen, Brussels (1989).
Career[]
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. 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.[3]
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),[2] including issues of class, sexuality, and artistic and cultural history. He 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 is also a documentary filmmaker – his work in this genre includes BaadAsssss Cinema, a film on the history and influence of blaxploitation cinema.
Julien was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to the arts.[4]
Julien was elected a Royal Academician in 2017.[5]
Collaborations[]
Julien readily 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[6], which tells the story of Frantz Fanon, the theorist and psychiatrist from Martinique.[7] 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."[8]
Personal life[]
Julien currently divides his time, living and working in London, England and Santa Cruz, California.
He 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 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. In 2018, Julien joined UC Santa Cruz where he is the distinguished professor of the arts.[9] Julien is a patron of the Live Art Development Agency.[10]
Selected bibliography[]
Installation pieces[]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Playtime_%282013%29.jpg/220px-Playtime_%282013%29.jpg)
- 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)
Filmography[]
- Who Killed Colin Roach? (1983)
- Territories (1984)
- The Passion of Remembrance (1986)
- This is Not an AIDS Advertisement (1987)
- Looking for Langston (1989)
- Young Soul Rebels (1991)
- Black and White in Colour (1992)
- The Attendant (1992)
- Darker Side of Black (1993)
- The Question of Equality (senior producer) (1994)
- Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (1996)
- Three (1999)
- The Long Road to Mazatlan (1999)
- Paradise Omeros (2002)
- BaadAsssss Cinema (2002)
- Baltimore (2003)
- Derek (2008)
- Ten Thousand Waves (2010)
- Kapital (2013)
- Playtime (2014)
- Stones Against Diamonds (2015)
- Lessons of the hour (2019)
Awards[]
- Young Soul Rebels, Semaine de la Critique Prize at the Cannes Film Festival (1991).
- Looking For Langston, Teddy Award for Best Short Film at the Berlin International Film Festival (1989).
- 2016–2017 Brudner Prize at Yale University[11]
References[]
- ^ a b c Annette Kuhn, "Julien, Isaac (1960–)", BFI Screen Online.
- ^ a b Rich, B. Ruby (14 May 2002). "Still a soul rebel: the work of Young Soul Rebels director Isaac Julien, from his films to his video installations, is honored with a retrospective". The Advocate. Archived from the original on 12 February 2007. Retrieved 1 April 2007.
- ^ "Artworks". Isaac Julien. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
- ^ "No. 61962". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2017. p. B9.
- ^ "Isaac Julien – Artist". London: Royal Academy of Arts.
- ^ Weston, K. (Jan., 2018). "Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask". Sight & Sound. 28(1): 100–103 – via International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance. Check date values in:
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(help) - ^ Julien, Isaac (June 2015). "Muse: Stuart Hall". Art in America (June/July Issue): 48–49. Archived from the original on 3 June 2015. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
- ^ Shail, Robert. (2007). British film directors : a critical guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748629688. OCLC 430823389.
- ^ "New faculty to advance campus teaching, research". UC Santa Cruz News. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 October 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2016.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ^ "Isaac Julien to deliver the James R. Brunder '83 Memorial Prize Lectures | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies". lgbts.yale.edu. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
Further reading[]
- Craine, Debra (24 September 2007). "Dance: A marriage of jigs and reels". The Times. London. Retrieved 3 October 2007.
- Cariello, Marta (2007). "Movement in between: the difference this time". Anglistica Aion. 11 (1–2): 55–61. PDF, ISSN 2035-8504 (www.anglistica.unior.it)
- Also published in: "The Other Cinema, The Cinema of the Other", UNOPress, Napoli.
External links[]
- Official website
- Isaac Julien's page at the Victoria Miro Gallery, London
- Isaac Julien biography and credits at the BFI's Screenonline
- Isaac Julien in the Video Data Bank
- Isaac Julien at Women Make Movies
- Living people
- 1960 births
- 21st-century male artists
- Alumni of Saint Martin's School of Art
- Black British academics
- Black British artists
- British expatriate academics in the United States
- British expatriates in Germany
- British experimental filmmakers
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- English contemporary artists
- English installation artists
- English people of Saint Lucian descent
- Gay artists
- Harvard University faculty
- LGBT artists from the United Kingdom
- LGBT Black British people
- LGBT film directors
- LGBT people from England
- Gay academics
- Black British filmmakers
- Royal Academicians