What Freedom Is To Me
September 23, 2023–January 14, 2024
Grabbeplatz 5 + Ständehausstr. 1
Düsseldorf 40213 + 40217
Germany
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K21 presents the first survey exhibition in Germany dedicated to the British artist Isaac Julien (b. 1960 in London, lives and works in London and Santa Cruz/California). It is a groundbreaking body of work that pushes the boundaries of film and art through expansive cinematographic installations. Julien’s cinematic imagination, critical thinking and activist engagement with decolonial aesthetics are expressed both in his early films of the 1980s as well as in the exceptional cinematic images of his large, internationally acclaimed film installations of the last twenty years. At once radically political and highly aesthetic, the works bring to the fore overlooked issues and restore forgotten archive material. Using poetry, dance, aesthetics, architecture, and music, Julien explores the possibilities of film as a medium and disrupts traditional notions of linear history, space, and time. At the heart of his pioneering work is the demand for equality, and his work remains as fiercely experimental and politically charged as it was forty years ago. “I’ll tell you what freedom is to me. No fear”—this quote by the American jazz singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone inspired Isaac Julien’s subtitle for this exhibition.
The exhibition shows the following films by the artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien: Who Killed Colin Roach? 1983; Territories 1984; This Is Not An AIDS Advertisement 1987; Lost Boundaries 1986; Looking for Langston 1989; Western Union: Small Boats 2007; Ten Thousand Waves 2010; Lessons of The Hour 2019; Lina Bo Bardi – A Marvellous Entanglement 2019; Once Again... (Statues Never Die) 2022
The exhibition was conceived in cooperation with the Tate Britain, London, where it was shown from April 26 to August 20, 2023. Following the station at K21, the exhibition will travel to the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, where it will be on view from March 8 to August 18, 2024.
Curator: Isabella Maidment (previously at Tate Britain); Nathan Ladd (Tate Britain). Curator of the exhibition at K21: Doris Krystof. Organised in conjunction with Isaac Julien Studio in London (Juanita Boxill, James Keith, Vladimir Seput, Paul Smith). Exhibition design Adjaye
Associates.
With the generous support of Victoria Miro.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in English published by Tate and a catalogue in German published by Hirmer Verlag (edited by Isabella Maidment in collaboration with Vladimir Seput). With contributions by Caleb Azumath Nelson, Maria Balshaw, Celeste-Marie Bernier, Adam Finch, Jack Halberstam, Isaac Julien, Nina Kellgren, Nathan Ladd, Luigia Lonardelli, Isabella Maidment, Mark Nash, Irit Rogoff, Wole Soyinka, and Bradford Young. With forewords by Susanne Gaensheimer and Doris Krystof (in the german editon only) as well as by Alex Farquharson. 207 pp., numerous illustrations, price: 46 EUR
Stay connected: Please check our website for regular updates on our program. For further information please contact: presse@kunstsammlung.de
