{"id":376232,"date":"2019-04-19T11:57:32","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T15:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=376232"},"modified":"2019-04-25T15:31:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T19:31:12","slug":"lessons-of-the-hour-frederick-douglass-mag-376232","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/lessons-of-the-hour-frederick-douglass-mag-376232\/","title":{"rendered":"Immersive installation brings Frederick Douglass to life"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Robin L. Flanigan<\/em><\/p>\n

Clocks ticking, trains whistling, doors creaking, ropes whipping.<\/p>\n

Those are the gripping sounds in Isaac Julien\u2019s visionary 10-screen film installation Lessons of the Hour\u2014Frederick Douglass<\/em>,<\/a> a meditation on the life, words, and actions of the former slave, abolitionist leader, and internationally recognized statesman who made Rochester his home, his final resting place, and by his own account, the place where he accomplished his most important work.<\/p>\n

\"art
(Isaac Julien, Lessons of the Hour<\/em>, 2019. Courtesy the Artist, Metro Pictures New York, and Victoria Miro London\/Venice)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Those sounds are equally as commanding as the images\u2014or lack thereof. There are moments each screen is blank. Sometimes one image occupies them all, sometimes multiple images play at once.<\/p>\n

The immersive montage technique \u201cis an aggregate form of storytelling, not a linear form of storytelling,\u201d Julien says from his home in the United Kingdom. \u201cI try not to treat audiences in a patronizing manner. I think they enjoy putting things together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lessons of the Hour\u2014Frederick Douglass<\/em>, on view through May 12 at the Ä¢¹½´«Ã½\u2019s Memorial Art Gallery, <\/a>is the second exhibition in MAG\u2019s \u201cReflections on Place\u201d series of media art commissions informed by the history, culture, and politics of the City of Rochester, New York. The work, also recently on view at the Metro Pictures Gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, will next be shown in October at the Yale Center for British Art, and in summer 2020 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.<\/p>\n

\"still
(Isaac Julien, Lessons of the Hour, 2019. Courtesy the Artist, Metro Pictures New York, and Victoria Miro London\/Venice)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The installation is named after one of Douglass\u2019s most important speeches, on slavery and human rights, and was created on 35mm black-and-white and color film using both analogue and digital technologies. It is a staging, according to the artist, of history seen through a contemporary lens, with actors portraying Douglass and other personalities of his time, including his wives and friend and suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony, another Rochesterian.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no artist working today who makes such compelling and powerful statements about global forces shaping history and our world,\u201d says project curator John Hanhardt, a renowned authority on the moving image.<\/p>\n

Shown in a dark exhibition space, the panoramic Lessons of the Hour\u2014Frederick Douglass <\/em>draws on others among Douglass\u2019s best-known speeches, including \u201cWhat to the Slave is the 4th of July?\u201d and \u201cLecture on Pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one montage, Douglass addresses his audience:<\/p>\n

It is said that the best gifts are the most abused, this among the rest. Conscience itself is misdirected: shocked by delightful sounds, beautiful colors and graceful movements\u2014but sleeps amid the ten thousand agonies of war and slavery.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His words are followed by a low buzz, then the sound of a whip cracking, rhythmically, as one screen after another flashes\u2014and rests\u2014on the same scene from a cotton field.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertain parts need an emphasis,\u201d explains Julien. \u201cThey are devices to direct the spectator\u2019s attention to certain sounds or images that feel important. There\u2019s a kind of musical notation approach to the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"portrait
British installation artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien. (Courtesy Isaac Julien\/Metro Pictures, photography by Thierry Bal)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The work was filmed in multiple settings, including in Washington, D.C., where Douglass lived late in life and where he delivered Lessons of the Hour<\/em>, his final speech; in Scotland, where Douglass was an active member of the \u201cSend Back the Money\u201d movement and where he delivered a number of anti-slavery speeches; and in London, inside the Royal Academy period rooms, where he also delivered lectures on his struggle for equality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time the spirit or ethos of Frederick Douglass has been brought to life through the moving image,\u201d says Jonathan Binstock, the Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director of MAG. Referring to scenes of Douglass walking a black stallion through the meadows of Arthur\u2019s Seat, an ancient volcano in Edinburgh, Binstock adds that the installation \u201cevokes not only his life\u2019s work, words, and actions but also his sense of self\u2014who he dreamed of being\u00a0had he not been born into the situation he was born into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julien draws from paintings, historical footage, architecture, photography, performance and sound to construct poetic narratives of hybrid scenes. He came to prominence in the film world with his 1989 drama-documentary Looking for Langston<\/em>,<\/a> gaining a cult following with his exploration of author Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance.<\/p>\n

The work seeks to enthrall curious audiences who want to examine art in unconventional, forward-thinking ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a kind of multisensory experience to some extent,\u201d says Julien. \u201cThere are screens everywhere. So how do we distinguish them? How do we communicate in an age where we\u2019re overstimulated? All these questions are questions in my work.\u201d<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

\n

Read more<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
\"Jonathan<\/a>
\nMuseum launches Media Arts Watch project<\/a>
\nRenowned curator John Hanhardt \u201967 will lead an effort to build a collection featuring the aesthetics of film, video, and other technologies.<\/span><\/div>\n
\"archival<\/a>
\n\u2018A great gift to the city\u2019<\/a>
\nDedicated in memory of a beloved son, the Memorial Art Gallery marked its centennial celebration in October 2013 as a community landmark and resource for the arts.<\/span><\/div>\n
\"a<\/a>
\nTribute to Frederick Douglass in word and song<\/a>
\nThe sheet music of a rediscovered song honoring Frederick Douglass has a new home in River Campus Libraries, and the song was performed for the first time in a century at an event celebrating the bicentennial of his birth.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British filmmaker and artist Isaac Julien\u2019s visionary 10-screen film installation is the second in a series of media art commissions at the Memorial Art Gallery devoted to the history and culture of the city of Rochester.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1112,"featured_media":376272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13092],"tags":[14,27352,936],"class_list":["post-376232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-arts","tag-events","tag-frederick-douglass","tag-memorial-art-gallery"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nImmersive installation brings Frederick Douglass to life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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