This mesmerising image forms part of Once Again... (Statues Never Die) (2022), an acclaimed film and photographic series by Sir Isaac Julien. The work draws on Julien’s extensive research into the work and critical writing of Alain Locke (1885–1954), leader of the Harlem Renaissance, and his relationship to Albert C. Barnes, the philanthropist, pioneering art collector and founder of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.

This particular work is a reference to Black Athena histories, the African presence in ancient civilisations, and to Albert Barnes’ interest in art collecting. Greco-Roman idioms are interwoven with references to classical Nubian sculpture, speaking to the importance of ‘the spaces between’ when portraying objects and people in still life and sculpture. The figure is becoming a statue, becoming an object – also becoming a classical mythological hero. This work is a testimony to the plurality of media in the history of Black art and within Julien’s own work, in painting and sculpture, film and photography.

Commissioned by the Barnes Foundation in 2022, this series has since been presented in Julien’s major UK survey at Tate Britain, London (2023); at K21, Düsseldorf (2023); the Sharjah Biennial, UAE (2023); the Whitney Biennial, New York (2024); and in Julien’s first major U.S. survey, Isaac Julien: I Dream a World, at the de Young Museum, San Fransisco (2025).