What's on my art agenda: Isaac Julien RA

By Isaac Julien RA

Published on 20 March 2023

As he prepares for his solo show at Tate Britain, the pioneering filmmaker and installation artist reveals his current cultural interests.

From the Spring 2023 issue of RA Magazine, issued quarterly to Friends of the RA.

Nina Simone plays piano during the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, June 15, 1986 — Photo: Jose Galvez for the Los Angeles Times. Collection: Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection / OpenUCLA Collections. Image under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Nina Simone's fearlessness

The title of my Tate show, What Freedom is to Me, comes from a quote by Nina Simone. During an interview with documentary maker Peter Rodis she says, “I’ll tell you what freedom is to me. No fear!” It was the late sixties, and she had this kind of persona; she was someone who was able to be herself. But at the same time, through her work and her songs, you see her struggling towards that concept of freedom. When I think about her fearlessness, I think about questions central to my own work – about human struggle but also aesthetic struggle, the creative struggle with artistic form.

Isaac Julien, O que é um museu? / What is a Museum? (Lina Bo Bardi – A Marvellous Entanglement) — Endura Ultra photograph facemounted. 180 x 240 x 7.5 cm
Edition of 6 plus 1 artist's proof. © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro

Art's entanglements

My 2019 film A Marvellous Entanglement, about the Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi, includes a quote where she says, “time is not linear; it is a marvellous entanglement, where at any moment points can be chosen and solutions invented without beginning or end.” I see it as a call for an interdisciplinary approach to art-making, an approach which is central to my own art.

Gallery view of the William Kentridge exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from 24 September - 11 December 2022 — © William Kentridge. Photo: © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry

Visitors' paths through an exhibition

The RA’s recent William Kentridge show was exciting in how it utilised architecture and exhibition scenography – it created a dialectic between his moving image works and works in other mediums that is quite rare to see. I want the show at Tate to have something of that, though it will be different, of course. I am collaborating with architect David Adjaye RA on the design of the exhibition, and we have been thinking about ways to encourage people to become ambulatory spectators, moving back and forth between works, perhaps following themes they pick up on. I want to move away from the notion of chronology or a linear path.

Akram Khan’s 'Jungle Book Reimagined' — Photo: Ambra Vernuccio

Music's centrality

I studied contemporary dance when I was young and I’m often thinking about choreography and movement. I’m looking forward to seeing Akram Khan’s Jungle Book Reimagined at Sadler’s Wells this spring. Music is integral to all of my work, and sound and the sonic aspect of my films is always important. But at Tate, I am interested too in creating a space for contemplation as a central part of the show.

Sphere of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, 2021 — Photo: courtesy of downtowngal / Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)

California's love of moving images

I split my time between London and the West Coast of the US, where I teach at the University of California Santa Cruz. I am always struck by the concentration of collections specialising in the moving image on the West Coast. This is unique I think, and part of why I wanted to spend time there. In San Francisco there is the Kramlich Collection, and in 2025 the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, co-founded by George Lucas, is due to open in LA. There is also the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LA, which is showing a 2003 work of mine, Baltimore, as part of their show Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971.

The Lehman Trilogy, West End, 2023. L-R Hadley Fraser, Nigel Lindsay, Michael Balogun — Image courtesy of National Theatre. © Mark Douet

London's love of live theatre

London is home, and when I am away, I appreciate certain aspects more – the city’s live theatre scene, for instance. I am keen to see The Lehman Trilogy at the National Theatre, which is directed by Sam Mendes. It’s about the economic crisis, which my 2014 film Playtime also considered. Deutsche Bank’s art museum, the PalaisPopulaire in Berlin, is showing that film this spring. That period of history is obviously on people’s minds again.

As told to Imogen Greenhalgh, Deputy Editor of RA Magazine.

Join Isaac Julien at the Royal Academy on 6 September 2023 for his special lecture on the art of film – part of our Artists on Art series.

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