Reopen and extended – Isaac Julien features in Masculinities: Liberation through Photography at the Barbican

This major exhibition (now extended to 23 August 2020) considers how masculinity has been coded, performed, and socially constructed from the 1960s to the present day.

Examining depictions of masculinity from behind the lens, the Barbican brings together the work of over 50 international artists, photographers and filmmakers including Laurie Anderson, Sunil Gupta, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Isaac Julien and Catherine Opie.

Works on view by Isaac Julien include his seminal 1989 film Looking for Langston and selections from the series After Mazatlàn III, 1999/2000. Reviewing the exhibition in the Guardian, Sean O'Hagan writes, 'If you have time to linger, be sure to watch Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston, an intoxicating meditation on gay desire, black identity and literary reputation that also works here as an interregnum between the rich overload of imagery elsewhere.'

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Image: Isaac Julien, from After Mazatlàn III, 1999/2000