NEWSLETTER
Critically acclaimed film installation explores life, legacy of 19th-century orator, author, and activist Frederick Douglass
February 3–May 19, 2024
Saratoga Springs, NY (January 4, 2024) — The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College is proud to present Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour. The critically acclaimed film installation features scenes from the life of former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, often considered the most photographed man of the nineteenth century. The exhibition will be on view February 3 through May 19, with a public reception on February10 at 5 pm.
Artist Isaac Julien’s breathtaking film shows open-ended narrative vignettes in the life of Douglass (played by actor Ray Fearon) set in Washington, DC, London, and Edinburgh, often with influential women of his time—including Susan B. Anthony (Amanda Lawrence) and Ottilie Assing (Cara Horgan)—dramatizing ideas of racial and gender equality. The 28-minute film also features Douglass reciting passages from three of his most famous speeches: “Lessons of the Hour” (1894), “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (1852), and “Lecture on Pictures” (1861).
“We are thrilled to present Isaac Julien’s powerful, immersive film experience Lessons of the Hour,” said Dayton Director Ian Berry. “Frederick Douglass’s belief in the importance and power of photography and picture-making in advocating for social justice is brought vividly into the twenty-first century through Julien’s poetic vision. The work rewards repeat viewings, telling us that the hour is now, and lessons still need to be learned.”
The installation will be in the Tang Museum’s Malloy Wing, which has been specially transformed into a screening room. The ten screens of varying dimensions are hung salon-style, referencing a popular nineteenth-century method of arranging a group of images. The multiple screens allow for dynamic juxtapositions of images of Douglass’s life in public and in private. The film’s vibrant colors reflect a modern aesthetic that, in conjunction with the period set, costumes, and salon-style screens, unites past and present.
Lessons of the Hour comes to the Tang after successful runs at museums across the U.S. and in Europe, including the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon; Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts; National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh; SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia; and the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York, which commissioned the film and held its world premiere in 2019.
Responses to Lessons of the Hour have been overwhelmingly positive. Art Forum praised the installation as “a deeply thoughtful and meticulously rendered consideration of Douglass and his relationship to photography, [which] brought the activist and statesman to vivid, high-definition life.” The New York Times says the “gorgeous panorama honors his subject’s status as the most photographed American of the 19th century.” Art in America writes that Douglass’s “eloquence came from hard experience: as an enslaved child, an abolitionist activist, and finally an elder facing the intractability of American racism. His voice is as needed as ever today, and Julien delivers it with stirring power.”
Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour is organized by Dayton Director Ian Berry, who will give a curator’s tour of the exhibition on Thursday, March 28, at noon.
Also on view beginning February 3 is Studio/Archive an exhibition of work from the Tang collection—many of them recent acquisitions—that explore studio portraiture and archives. From nineteenth-century daguerreotypes and vernacular photography to contemporary portraiture and video, these diverse bodies of work explore themes of agency and visual representation as a tool for empathy and justice. Organized to complement the Lessons of the Hour, Studio/Archive aims to extend the conversation around the power of photography to (re)frame ourselves and the world around us through the photographic lens.
A public reception will be held on Saturday, February 10, at 5 pm to celebrate Lessons of the Hour, Studio/Archive and all exhibitions on view at the Tang.
A companion publication, Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour – Frederick Douglass, will also be available. Published by Delmonico Books, Memorial Art Gallery, Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, and Isaac Julien Studio, the 272-page catalogue is a visual and literary meditation that juxtaposes Julien’s artworks with archival images of Douglass and essays that consider his enduring legacy. Contributors include Kass Banning, Celeste-Marie Bernier, Jonathan P. Binstock, Warren Crichlow, Paul Gilroy, Cora Gilroy-Ware, Cora Gilroy-Ware, Jennifer A. Gonzàlez, John G. Hanhardt, Kenneth B. Morris, Jr. , Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Isaac Julien, Susan Solt, Vron Ware, and Deborah Willis.
About Isaac Julien
Isaac Julien CBE RA, born in London in 1960, makes work that focuses on themes of remembrance and social justice in contemporary and historical cultural narratives. His previous films include the 1989 documentary-drama Looking For Langston and his 1991 feature-film debut, Young Soul Rebels, which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Semaine de la Critique prize. His films and photography have been shown worldwide in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums, including Victoria Miro Gallery, London; Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town; and the 57th Venice Biennale at the inaugural Diaspora Pavilion, Venice. Julien has received numerous awards for his work, including the Charles Wollaston Award for his work in the 2017 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, an annual show at the Royal Academy of Arts, where he was named a Royal Academician. In addition to creating film, photography, and installation art, Julien has taught at the University of the Arts London and Staatliche Hoscschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe. He is currently a professor of digital arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
About Lessons of the Hour
Lessons of the Hour was commissioned by the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, where it premiered in 2019, with the partnership of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and with generous support from Mark Falcone and Ellen Bruss, the Zell Family, the Ford Foundation, VIA Art Fund, Lori Van Dusen, and Deborah Ronnen and Sherman Levey. The commission was also made possible by Barbara and Aaron Levine, the Maurice and Maxine Forman Fund, the Marion Stratton Gould Fund, the Herdle-Moore Fund, the Strasenburgh Fund, and the Lyman K. and Eleanore B. Stuart Endowment Fund at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Production of the work was generously supported by Metro Pictures, New York; Victoria Miro, London/Venice; Carol Weinbaum; Heiner Wemhoner; the Arts Division of the University of California, Santa Cruz; and Eastman Kodak Company, on whose film stock the installation was shot.
About the Tang Teaching Museum
The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College is a pioneer of interdisciplinary exploration and learning. A cultural anchor of New York’s Capital Region, the Tang’s approach has become a model for college and university art museums across the country—with exhibition programs that bring together visual and performing arts with interdisciplinary ideas from history, economics, biology, dance, and physics, to name just a few. The Tang has one of the most rigorous faculty-engagement initiatives in the nation, and a robust publication and touring exhibition program that extends the museum’s reach far beyond its walls. The Tang Teaching Museum’s award-winning building, designed by architect Antoine Predock, serves as a visual metaphor for the convergence of art and ideas. The Museum is open to the public on Thursday from noon to 9 pm and Friday through Sunday from noon to 5 pm. https://tang.skidmore.edu
Media Contact
Michael Janairo
Tang Teaching Museum | Skidmore College
518-580-5542
Caption: Isaac Julien, Lessons of The Hour, installation view at the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, photo by Henrik Kam, 2020