The Portico Hall at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum will be displaying the Calparsoro Foundation’s poetic video installation by British artist and film-maker, Isaac Julien, for the first time in Spain, addressing the debates on the restitution of artwork pillaged in Africa by European settlers. It can be visited from 10 February to 29 March.
The installation consists of two screens portraying the contribution of African art to the artistic avant-garde movements of the early 20th century in Europe, ranging from the Harlem Renaissance movement to the black queer culture, exploring the real genealogy of many western collections and museums.
The narrative rebuilds imagined dialogues between the philosopher Alain Locke, one of the fathers of the Harlem Renaissance movement, and the collector and philanthropist, Albert C. Barnes, performed by André Holland (Moonlight) and Danny Huston (Succession).
The exhibition is accompanied by the screening of the films Looking for Langston (1989), by Julien, and Les Statues Meurent Aussi (1953), by Chris Marker, Alain Resnais and Ghislain Cloquet in the Cine Doré at the Filmoteca Española, as well as a conversation between Isaac Julien, Gabriel Calparsoro and Bartomeu Marí, scheduled for 7 March.
This project, which is also supported by the British Council, marks a milestone for the Calparsoro Foundation, recently set up by the collector and businessman, Gabriel Calparsoro, who has brought together 170 works (photographs, sculptures, paintings and video-art) by consolidated and emerging artists with a clear social, political and experimental context, as is the case of Isaac Julien.
