Three-screen video installation by Isaac Julien at the de Young

Installation view of Baltimore (2003) in Isaac Julien: I Dream a World, de Young, 2025. Artwork ©️ Isaac Julien. Photograph ©️ Henrik Kam

Isaac Julien: I Dream a World

Over the last 25 years, pioneering artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien (b. 1960, London) has created immersive, multichannel video installations. Celebrated for his poetic visual narratives, Julien explores power, politics, and personal experience through the lens of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Featuring 10 major video installations made between 1999 and 2022, alongside select early single-channel films including his iconic Looking for Langston (1989), this exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of Julien’s work in a museum setting and his first retrospective in the United States. The works’ themes range from global migration to the collection and appropriation of African artists and art by Western museums to the celebration of cultural figures who overcame racial oppression. Shot across Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, and Asia, Julien’s works untangle the complex web of post-colonial conditions that has shaped the lives of individuals and societies across the globe.


Julien’s Ten Thousand Waves (2010) is on view in Wilsey Court — one of the de Young’s free public spaces.

Exhibition preview

In the news

  • History and fantasy combine with multilayered visuals turning moments into constellations.

    Sharon Anderson, The Voice of San Francisco
  • A seemingly endless bounty of thought-provoking, emotionally rapt moments.

    Veronica Esposito, KQED
  • Electrifying.

    Alex Greenberger, ARTnews

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Light + sound sensitivity

This exhibition includes moving images and loud noises. These may be disorienting to those who are sensitive to lights or sound. Noise-muffling headphones are available upon request.

Sponsors

This exhibition is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. 

Support for this exhibition has been generously provided by Bank of America.

Presenting Sponsors


Clare C. and Jay D. McEvoy Endowment Fund

Lead Sponsors

Thomas and Shelagh Rohlen Fund

Major Support
Stanlee Gatti
Rebecca and Cal Henderson
The Herbst Foundation, Inc.

Significant Support
Jeffrey N. Dauber and Marc A. Levin
Dagmar Dolby
Sakurako and William Fisher
Brook Hartzell and Tad Freese
Tara and Bryan Meehan

Joanna Miller

The Helen & Will Webster Foundation

Generous Support
William H. Donner Foundation
Jessica Silverman
Pro Av Saarikko Oy
Victoria Miro
Gwynned Vitello
Lisa and Jim Zanze

Additional support is provided in memory of Mary Beth Hagey, and by Lizelle and Martin Green, Lore Harp McGovern and Katie and Matt Paige.

Also on view