SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY.- The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College is presenting Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour. The critically acclaimed film installation features scenes from the life of former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, often considered the most photographed man of the nineteenth century. The exhibition will be on view February 3 through May 19, with a public reception on February10 at 5 pm.

Artist Isaac Julien’s breathtaking film shows open-ended narrative vignettes in the life of Douglass (played by actor Ray Fearon) set in Washington, DC, London, and Edinburgh, often with influential women of his time—including Susan B. Anthony (Amanda Lawrence) and Ottilie Assing (Cara Horgan)—dramatizing ideas of racial and gender equality. The 28-minute film also features Douglass reciting passages from three of his most famous speeches: “Lessons of the Hour” (1894), “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (1852), and “Lecture on Pictures” (1861).

“We are thrilled to present Isaac Julien’s powerful, immersive film experience Lessons of the Hour,” said Dayton Director Ian Berry. “Frederick Douglass’s belief in the importance and power of photography and picture-making in advocating for social justice is brought vividly into the twenty-first century through Julien’s poetic vision. The work rewards repeat viewings, telling us that the hour is now, and lessons still need to be learned.”

The installation will be in the Tang Museum’s Malloy Wing, which has been specially transformed into a screening room. The ten screens of varying dimensions are hung salon-style, referencing a popular nineteenth-century method of arranging a group of images. The multiple screens allow for dynamic juxtapositions of images of Douglass’s life in public and in private. The film’s vibrant colors reflect a modern aesthetic that, in conjunction with the period set, costumes, and salon-style screens, unites past and present.

Lessons of the Hour comes to the Tang after successful runs at museums across the U.S. and in Europe, including the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon; Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts; National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh; SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia; and the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York, which commissioned the film and held its world premiere in 2019.

Responses to Lessons of the Hour have been overwhelmingly positive. Art Forum praised the installation as “a deeply thoughtful and meticulously rendered consideration of Douglass and his relationship to photography, [which] brought the activist and statesman to vivid, high-definition life.” The New York Times says the “gorgeous panorama honors his subject’s status as the most photographed American of the 19th century.” Art in America writes that Douglass’s “eloquence came from hard experience: as an enslaved child, an abolitionist activist, and finally an elder facing the intractability of American racism. His voice is as needed as ever today, and Julien delivers it with stirring power.”

Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour is organized by Dayton Director Ian Berry, who will give a curator’s tour of the exhibition on Thursday, March 28, at noon.