Isaac Julien
ECLIPSE (PLAYTIME), 2013 (detail), 2020
7569 Girard Avenue
Isaac Julien’s mural, ECLIPSE (PLAYTIME), is a still from his 2013 film Playtime in which he explores and critiques how the flow of financial capital controls the contemporary art world. Shown as a multi-screen installation, Playtime features a cast of international film stars including James Franco, Maggie Cheung, Colin Salmon, and auctioneer Simon de Pury. This particular still from the film captures the character Artist, played by Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, ruminating on his despair over his financial ruin and its devastating consequences including the loss of his wife and home. In a sparse, modernist environment, he peers out a circular, yellow-tinged window mulling over his appall at how the real estate market’s risky investments can wreak havoc on people’s lives. For Julien, the image of the artist in front of the bright yellow window is a subtle reference to the myth of Icarus and how he flew dangerously close to the sun. Part documentary and part fiction, the film unfolds as six contrasting vignettes that focus on the connections between London, Reykjavik, and Dubai and how the flow of capital and labor affects the production, dealing, and collecting of contemporary art. Playtime has been exhibited nationally and internationally including Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019); Fort Mason, San Francisco (2017); Platform-L Contemporary Arts Center, Seoul (2017); and Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2016).
Isaac Julien is a British installation artist and filmmaker. He was born in 1960 in the East End of London. He received a BA in fine-art film from Central Saint Martins School of Art, London, in 1974 and completed his postdoctoral studies at Les Entrepreneurs de l'Audiovisuel Européen, Brussels, in 1989. He co-founded Sankofa Film and Video Collective in 1983 and was a founding member of Normal Films in 1991. His work seeks to blur the barriers between differing artistic mediums. Referencing film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting, and sculpture, he creates multi-screen film installations and photographs that embody powerful visual narratives. Exploring experiences of identity, his work often includes issues of class, sexuality, and artistic and cultural history.
Julien has received numerous awards and accolades including the Charles Wollaston Award in 2017, and in 2018, he was made a Royal Academician. He was also awarded the title Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s birthday honors in 2017. His work is held in many public collections worldwide including Tate, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. He has been featured in the Venice Biennale; the Gwangju Biennial, South Korea; Prospect 1, New Orleans; Performa 07, New York; and in documenta 11, Kassel. Julien lives and works in London, England, and teaches at UC Santa Cruz.
22' x 22'
Wall Sponsors: Lisa Braun-Glazer and Jeff Glazer
Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann