Isaac Julien : What is Freedom to Me

Exquisite exhibition at Tate Britain of videos by Isaac Julien.

As some of you may know I'm not very keen on video art but I loved these and they were cleverly shown. At first the display felt a bit confusing as you walked into one multiscreen piece without explanation but if you made you way to the centre of the show there was an entrance to each screening which you could watch in any order and a useful indicator showing how long the piece was and how far through it was.

I dipped into all the works and spent a bit more time in some of them but I want to try to go back and watch a few of them in full. On the whole there weren't too long but I did hear someone say if you wanted to see all of them it would take 4 hours!

The works were beautiful filmed and had a gentle narrative arch while being packed with ideas. The ones I watched for longer were centred on race, history and art.

It’s well worth a trip but give yourself time to relax and enjoy it.

STOP PRESS: I’ve been back again to this show and watched two of the films “Looking for Langston” from 1989 and “Lessons of the Hour” from 2019 all the way through. It was well worth going back and I’ll be looking out for Julien’s work in the future.

Closes 20 August 2023

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