Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour – Frederick Douglass at Tang Museum

Isaac Julien’s film installation Lessons of the Hour features actor Ray Fearon in the role of Frederick Douglass, the nineteenth-century abolitionist, writer, and freed slave.

Open-ended narrative vignettes set in Washington, DC, London, and Edinburgh portray Douglass with various influential women of his time—including Susan B. Anthony and Ottilie Assing—dramatizing ideas of racial and gender equality. Julien’s work reiterates Douglass’s belief in the importance and power of photography and picture-making in advocating for social justice. Julien conjures Douglass’s role in the abolitionist movement, powerfully emphasizing its relevance to contemporary social justice struggles. 

Lessons of the Hour features ten screens of varying dimensions hung salon-style—referencing a popular nineteenth-century method of arranging a group of images. The vibrant colors of the film have a modern aesthetic that, in conjunction with the period set, costumes, and salon-style screens, unites past and present.

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Image: Isaac Julien, North Star (Lessons of the Hour), 2019