Acclaim for Isaac Julien: What Freedom Is To Me at Tate Britain

On view until 20 August 2023, this ambitious solo exhibition reveals the scope of Julien’s pioneering work in film and installation from the early 1980s through to the present day. The exhibition highlights Julien's critical thinking and the way his work breaks down barriers between different artistic disciplines, drawing from film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture by utilising the themes of desire, history and culture.

inews

★★★★★

‘In a career spanning 40 years, he has matched searing political conviction and intellectual heft to formal experiments in filmmaking.‘ – Hettie Judah

Evening Standard

★★★★

‘Julien is unafraid to be spectacular, lushly beautiful, even extravagant, but always with the sucker punch of his critical eye and political subject matter.’ – Ben Luke

The Guardian

★★★★

 'Isaac Julien’s film installations take you places and catch you with their innumerable details and juxtapositions.' – Adrian Searle 

ArtReview

Following conversations with Isaac Julien, an artist who has inspired him in his own life and work, Prince Shakur writes about how Julien’s transgressive reworkings of history break the boundaries of memory, genre and linear representations of Black experiences and queer desire.

The New York Times

'At Tate Britain, the artist known for sumptuous works on fraught subjects like racism and homophobia finally receives a career retrospective in his own country.' – Elizabeth Fullerton

Financial Times

The artist talks to Rachel Spence on the eve of his exhibition What Freedom Is To Me, at Tate Britain

The Guardian

'He rose to fame in the Thatcher era with his lyrical films about race, sex and politics. As he stages a major retrospective, the artist talks about Aids, migration, and Black Tory MPs' – Paul Mendez

Image: Installation view, Once Again…(Statues Never Die), Tate Britain, 2023

© Isaac Julien

Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro

Photo: Jack Hems