Isaac Julien

Isaac Julien
CBE
Born 21 February 1960 (age 57)
East End of London, England
Nationality British
Occupation Installation artist and filmmaker
Known for Looking For Langston (1989)

Isaac Julien, CBE (born 21 February 1960)[1] is a British installation artist and filmmaker.[2]

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".[3] He received a BA in fine-art film from Central Saint Martins School of Art, London (1984), and completed his postdoctoral studies at Les entrepreneurs de l'audiovisuel européen, Brussels (1989).

Career

Julien came to prominence in the film world with his 1989 drama-documentary Looking for Langston, gaining a cult following with this poetic exploration Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. This following was expanded when his film Young Soul Rebels won the Semaine de la Critique prize for best film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991.

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]

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, which tells the story of Frantz Fanon, the theorist and psychiatrist from Martinique.[5]

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 Schools of Afro-American and Visual Environmental Studies, and is currently 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. In 2018, Julien joined UC Santa Cruz as a professor of film and digital media.[6] Julien is a patron of the Live Art Development Agency.[7]

Selected bibliography

Installation pieces

Playtime at the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in the Netherlands
  • PLAYTIME (2013)
  • TEN THOUSAND WAVES (2010)
  • Te Tonga Tuturu/True South (Apparatus) (2009)
  • Dungeness (2008)
  • WESTERN UNION: Small Boats (2007)
  • Fantôme Créole (2005)
  • Fantôme Afrique (2005)
  • True North (2004)
  • Radioactive (2004)
  • Baltimore (2003)
  • Lost Boundaries (2003)
  • Paradise Omeros (2002)
  • Vagabondia (2000)

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)

Journal articles

  • Julien, Isaac; hooks, bell (1991). "States of desire". Transition. Indiana University Press on behalf of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University via JSTOR. 53: 168–184. doi:10.2307/2935186. JSTOR 2935186.
"Critic bell hooks and British filmmaker Isaac Julien on sex, style, and cinema."
  • Julien, Isaac (2007). "Cinematic rearticulations". Anglistica Aion: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 11 (1–2): 63–71. Pdf.

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[8]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Annette Kuhn, "Julien, Isaac (1960–)", BFI Screen Online.
  2. 1 2 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.
  3. ↑ "Sankofa Film and Video Collective". Wikipedia. 23 April 2017.
  4. ↑ "No. 61962". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2017. p. B9.
  5. ↑ Julien, Isaac (June 2015). "Muse: Stuart Hall". Art in America (June/July Issue): 48–49.
  6. ↑ "New faculty to advance campus teaching, research". UC Santa Cruz News. Retrieved 2018-09-26.
  7. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 October 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
  8. ↑ "Isaac Julien to deliver the James R. Brunder '83 Memorial Prize Lectures | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies". lgbts.yale.edu. Retrieved 2018-09-03.

Further reading

*Craine, Debra (24 September 2007). "Dance: A marriage of jigs and reels". The Times. London: News UK. Retrieved 3 October 2007. (Subscription required (help)).
  • Cariello, Marta (2007). "Movement in between: the difference this time". Anglistica Aion: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 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.
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