'Lessons of the Hour' West Coast première

The ten-screen film installation Lessons of the Hour: Frederick Douglass had its première in March 2019 at the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery and Metro Pictures New York. Even since, and particularly with the prominence of the debates around racial inequality, the piece has been widely reviewed by the specialised media.

Presenting the immersive installation along photography artworks from the series, the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts' exhibition is the first opportunity given to viewers from the West Coast of the USA to see the series at length. Accompanying Julien’s tintype portraits and photographs is a complementary grouping of works from the McEvoy Family Collection, selected in collaboration with curator Mark Nash. 

The exhibition is developed in association with the Isaac Julien Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where Julien is a Distinguished Professor of the Arts, to give a community of postgraduate students a practicum experience in curation, installation, and production of moving-image works. An extensive programme in conjunction with the exhibition is to be announced.