Bay Area museums reach beneath the surface for Black History Month
By
Feb 02, 2021
If you ve taken a stroll down Fulton Street anytime since this past June, odds are you ve seen the bold yellow letters reading Black Lives Matter. A collaborative effort between the African American Art and Culture Complex and the Bay Area Mural Program, the community-made street art spans several blocks you can t miss it. The slogan for the Black Liberation Movement is everywhere lately. From T-shirts to email signatures, the once-radical phrase is now plastered on nearly every surface. As Black History Month is here, I find myself wondering, as cultural critic and author of
Isaac Julien judges Wallpaper Design Awards 2021
Isaac Julien judges Wallpaper Design Awards 2021
The work of trailblazing installation artist, filmmaker and educator Isaac Julien explores identity, representation and cultural history. Here, he discusses his nuanced criteria for judging our annual honours
Artist Isaac Julien photographed via Zoom.
Photography: Larry Fink
One of the most compelling works at the recent Summer/Winter Exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts was Isaac Julien’s photographic collage suite,
Who Killed Colin Roach?. It brings together rediscovered images from his first film, produced when he was an art student and reflecting on the death of a Black man who was shot at the entrance of a police station in east London in 1982. Presented in a year when outrage at continued racial injustices reached a tipping point following the murder of George Floyd, Julien’s project took on new urgency. ‘It certainly resonated differently in the
Growing up, Leila Weefur knew of Frederick Douglass, the writer, activist, and former slave turned abolitionist.
“As a child, my mother put me in an all-Black elementary school in Oakland,” Weefur, a UC Berkeley lecturer and a member of artist network The Black Aesthetic said.
“In kindergarten we were learning to read on [Douglass’] slave narratives. We recited the Black National Anthem every morning and we were practicing Kwanzaa principles. It was a very Black cultural experience.”
As part of a larger exhibition inspired by the life of Douglass, Weefur has curated a program of short films called “New Labor Movements” that “seeks to engineer a gender diverse, intergenerational dialogue amongst Black filmmakers,” according to the website of San Francisco’s McEvoy Foundation, which is sponsoring the show. The first two installations, or “movements,” in Weefur’s series are available to view online via the Roxie Theater through December 24th.