Isaac Julien True North Series, 2004. Digital print on Epson Premium Photo Glossy, 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in. (100 x 100 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Features film installations and videos made over the course of 25 years by pioneering artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, presenting a compelling fusion of fact and fiction, social critique, and aesthetic immersion.

Major multi-channel video installation – Lessons of the Hour (2019) – acquired by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (the “Fine Arts Museums”) are pleased to announce Isaac Julien: I Dream a World. Over the past 25 years, artist Isaac Julien has developed a singular, choreographic style of moving image exhibition in the form of immersive multichannel film and video installations. Distinguished by their compelling fusion of fact and fiction, social critique, and aesthetic immersion, Julien’s works offer poetic reflections on political and cultural events that have shaped the lives of individuals and societies around the world—especially for those on the margins of power.

Isaac Julien, “The North Series,” 2004. Digital print, 39 3/8 × 39 3/8 in. (100 × 100 cm). © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist

Isaac Julien, “Baltimore Series (Angela in Orange),” 2003. Digital print, 43 3/4 × 54 3/8 in. (111.2 × 138 cm). © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist

Isaac Julien, “When the Tree Blooms (Ten Thousand Waves),” 2010. Endura Ultra photograph, 70 7/8 x 94 1/2 in. (180 x 240 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

“Maiden of Silence (Ten Thousand Waves),” 2010. Endura Ultra photograph, 70 7/8 x 94 1/2 x 3 in. (180 x 240 x 7.5 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Featuring 10 major video installations made across Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Americas between 1999 and 2022 plus early films, I Dream a World is the first comprehensive survey of Julien’s work in a US museum setting and the largest exhibition focusing on Julien’s film and video installation works to date.

“Isaac Julien is one of the most influential voices in visual culture, Black cultural studies, and queer independent cinema working today, and we are honored to present his first US retrospective at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums. “In groundbreaking works such as Lessons of the Hour (2019), which we were privileged to acquire in 2023, Julien engages with the urgent social issues of our time and invites viewers to rethink the dominant historical narratives of the global north.”

Isaac Julien, “North Star (Lessons of the Hour),” 2019. Framed photograph on gloss inkjet paper mounted on aluminum, 63 x 84 in. (160 x 213.3 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Isaac Julien, “Western Union Series no. 1 (Cast No Shadow),” 2007. Duratrans image in lightbox, 47.28 x 47.28 in. (120 x 120 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Isaac Julien, “The Lady of the Lake (Lessons of the Hour),” 2019. Framed photograph on gloss inkjet paper mounted on aluminum, 63 x 84 in. (160 x 213.3 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Whether centering historical moments such as the first American-led expedition to reach the North Pole in 1908-09, or the often fateful but ongoing migration of North African refugees across the Mediterranean Sea, Julien’s subjects are never locked in one time or place. The same is true for his portraits of individuals like abolitionist Frederick Douglass and architect Lina Bo Bardi, or his subversive address of cultural institutions like Hollywood and the Museum as arbiters and archives of social ideals, constructs, and hierarchies of the West.

“Favoring nonlinear narrative techniques such as reiteration, reflection, and transposition in his orchestration of images and sounds across multiple screens, Julien folds the past onto the present and the present onto the past. In each work, Julien weaves different temporalities, ideas, and imaginations into substantiations of a multi-dimensional selfhood that is not merely in, but of this world. In doing so he allows history and memory to emerge as intimate and desirous visions of a way of being,” remarked Claudia Schmuckli, organizing curator and Holly Johnson and Parker Harris Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Fine Arts Museums.

Isaac Julien, “Before Paradise (detail right),” 2002. Pigment ink print, triptych, each panel: 39 3/8 × 39 3/8 in. (100 × 100 cm). © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, and Jessica Silverman

Isaac Julien, “Black Madonna / New Negro Aesthetic (Once Again… Statues Never Die),” 2022. Inkjet print on Canson Platine Fibre Rag, 59 x 78 3/4 in. (150 x 200 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Isaac Julien, “Western Union Series No. 2 (Flight towards other Destinies 2),” 2007. Duratrans image in light box, 47 ¼ x 118 ½ in. (120 x 300 cm). © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, and Jessica Silverman

The first major exhibition at the Fine Arts Museums dedicated entirely to an artist working with the moving image in the form of multiscreen video installations, I Dream a World will start with Julien’s groundbreaking films Looking for Langston (1989), which gave definition to the genre of New Queer Cinema, Lost Boundaries (1981-87) and This Is Not An Aids Advertisement (1987). Unfolding through the de Young’s Herbst Special Exhibition galleries, the installations will be grouped according to their thematic resonance and connected through a central nave featuring archival materials.

Isaac Julien, “Baltimore Series (Spiral),” 2003. Framed digital print on Hahnemule Photorag 308gms paper, 48.66 x 39.4 in. (123.5 x 100 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Isaac Julien, “After Mazatlán III,” 1999/2000. Color photogravure, 14 × 18 in. (35.6 × 45.7 cm). © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, and Jessica Silverman

Isaac Julien, “Pas de Deux No. 2 (Looking for Langston Vintage Series),” 1989/2016. Ilford classic silver gelatin fine art paper, mounted on aluminum and framed, 22 7/8 x 29 3/8 in. (58.1 x 74.5 cm) © Isaac Julien. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

The installations on view include Baltimore (2003), A Marvellous Entanglement (2019), Western Union: Small Boats (2007), Lessons of the Hour (2019) – a recent FAMSF acquisition, The Long Road to Mazatlán (1999), Paradise Omeros (2002), True North (2004), Fantôme Afrique (2005), concluding with Julien’s most recent work Once Again . . . (Statues Never Die) (2022). Ten Thousand Waves (2010) will be on view in Wilsey Court, one of the de Young’s free public spaces.

Isaac Julien: I Dream a World is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and curated by Claudia Schmuckli, Holly Johnson and Parker Harris Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Opening April 12, 2025 at the de Young museum, the exhibition will run through July 13, 2025.

Isaac Julien: I Dream a World
Aprril 12 – July 13, 2025 / Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
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