Once Again... (Statues Never Die) in The New Yorker Magazine

Isaac Julien's latest artwork Once Again... (Statues Never Die) on view at the Barnes Foundation until 4th of September was featured in the New Yorker Magazine in a text A Black British Artist asks, "What was Africa to the Harlem Renaissance?" written by Julian Lucas. 

"Set around 1924", writes Lucas, "on the eve of the Harlem Renaissance, it’s a mesmerizing portrait of the philosopher, critic, and queer cultural visionary as a roving eye, determined to liberate the Black imagination through the alchemy of art. A five-channel black-and-white film follows Locke (played by André Holland, of “Moonlight”) through a series of vignettes that dramatize the complex entanglement of aesthetics and racecraft."

"Julien’s installation is a dream space all its own", continues Lucas, "playing on five double-sided screens in a darkened gallery with mirrored walls, the thirty-minute film is visible no matter where you look. Reflections interpolate visitors into the play of gazes; watching others, and being watched, in encounters with art, one becomes intimately aware of how aesthetic categories creep into the assessment of other human beings."