Isaac Julien - Once Again... (Statues Never Die) Photographs at Art Basel

Two photographic artworks from Isaac Julien’s Once Again… (Statues Never Die) are being exhibited at this year’s Art Basel.

The portraits of André Holland as Alain Locke and Alex Part as his alter ego in Diasporic Dream-Space No. 1 and Diasporic Dream-Space No. 2 create a stunning visual diptych of two figures suspended in time under the falling snow, and this changing weather is where ‘a culture of infinite possibility is ready to receive us. This is artistic freedom as pure and unsullied as falling snow – as snow so deep it remains undisturbed – a whiteout.’ These images encapsulate this diasporic dream-space; they are about the imaginative possibilities.

This new photographic series is inspired by Isaac Julien’s extensive research into the work and critical writing of Alain Locke (1885–1954), leader of the Harlem Renaissance, and his relationship to Albert C. Barnes, the philanthropist, pioneering art collector and founder of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.