Isaac Julien is an installation artist and filmmaker.

Biography

Julien graduated from St Martin's School of Art in 1985, where he studied painting and fine art film. He founded Sankofa Film and Video Collective, and was a founder member of Normal Films in 1999.

Julien came to prominence in the film world with his 1989 drama-documentary Looking for Langston

Looking For Langston

Looking for Langston is a 1989 British black-and-white film directed by Isaac Julien. It combines authentic archival newsreel footage of Harlem in the 1920s with scripted scenes to produce a non-linear impressionistic story line celebrating black gay identity and desire during the artistic and...

, gaining a cult following with this poetic exploration of Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

 and the Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...

. This following was expanded in 1991 when his film Young Soul Rebels

Young Soul Rebels

Young Soul Rebels is a 1991 critically acclaimed coming-of-age/drama British film written by Isaac Julien and Paul Hallam, and directed by Juilen. The film examines the interaction between youth cultural movements during the late 1970s in the UK. Namely skinheads, punks and soulboys along with the...

won the Semaine de la Critique prize for best film at the Cannes Film Festival

Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

.

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), including issues of class, sexuality, and artistic and cultural history. He was nominated for the Turner Prize

Turner Prize

The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...

 in 2001, and in 2003 he won the Grand Jury Prize at the Kunst filmBiennale in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 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

Blaxploitation

Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...

 cinema.

Julien lives and works in London. In September 2009 he became a professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design

Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design

The Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe is a Germany university founded in 1992 by Professor Heinrich Klotz, who also founded its sister institution, the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe...

.

Recent installation pieces

• 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)
• Framed Youth - Revenge of the Teenage Perverts (1983)
• Territories (1984)
• The Passion of Remembrance (1986)
• This is Not an AIDS Advertisement (1987)
• Looking for Langston
  Looking For Langston
  Looking for Langston is a 1989 British black-and-white film directed by Isaac Julien. It combines authentic archival newsreel footage of Harlem in the 1920s with scripted scenes to produce a non-linear impressionistic story line celebrating black gay identity and desire during the artistic and...
  
  (1989)
• Young Soul Rebels
  Young Soul Rebels
  Young Soul Rebels is a 1991 critically acclaimed coming-of-age/drama British film written by Isaac Julien and Paul Hallam, and directed by Juilen. The film examines the interaction between youth cultural movements during the late 1970s in the UK. Namely skinheads, punks and soulboys along with the...
  
  (1991)
• Black and White in Colour (1992)
• The Attendant (1992)
• Darker Side of Black (1993)
• The Question of Equality (senior producer) (1994)
• Frantz Fanon
  Frantz Fanon
  Frantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...
  
  : Black Skin, White Mask (1996)
• Three (1999)
• The Long Road to Mazatlan (1999)
• Paradise Omeros (2002)
• BaadAsssss Cinema
  BaadAsssss Cinema
  BaadAsssss Cinema is a 2002 documentary film, directed by Isaac Julien. Julien looks at the Blaxploitation era of the 1970s in this hour long documentary.-Plot:...
  
  (2002)
• Baltimore (2003)
• Derek (2008)

External links

• Isaac Julien's Official Website
• Isaac Julien's page at the Victoria Miro Gallery, London
• Third Pole: The Stills of Isaac Julien's True North Essay by Nizan Shaked in X-TRA : Contemporary Art Quarterly
• Isaac Julien in the Video Data Bank