Emerging from the United Kingdom’s vibrant film scene in the early 1980s, Julien was already a well-known figure in Black and queer independent cinema when he released Looking for Langston. Many of the film’s scenes take place in a clandestine 1920s nightclub where men drink and dance, while other vignettes focus on sexual encounters in various private and public spaces. Archival footage from the Harlem Renaissance is overlaid with voiceover narration by Julien’s peers, including British scholar Stuart Hall and American writers Essex Hemphill and Toni Morrison. Constructing an alternative history, the work brings together themes of racial identity, queer desire, artistic expression, and beauty.
Gallery label from 2024