Isaac Julien's First Italian Retrospective 'Museum Dreams' Opens at gres art 671 in Bergamo

The first Italian retrospective of British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, titled 'Museum Dreams', is on view at gres art 671 in Bergamo until October 4, 2026. Curated by Nathan Ladd, the exhibition presents five video installations spanning 30 years of Julien's career, arranged as independent 'islands' that radiate from a central viewpoint, encouraging visitors to move freely as 'mobile spectators'. The show includes works such as 'The Long Road to Mazatlàn' (1999), 'Once Again… (Statues never die)' (2022), 'Baltimore' (2003), and 'Lina Bo Bardi: A Marvellous Entanglement' (2019). The installation features a hole in the wall echoing the windows of Lina Bo Bardi's SESC Pompeia in São Paulo, and a nine-screen projection. The exhibition also displays Kodak film rolls, magazines, African statuettes and masks, drawings of Black people from 1918 by Walter von Rucketschell, historical photographs of the British siege of Benin City in 1897, and bronzes by Richmond Barthé. The curatorial concept draws on José Esteban Muñoz's notion of 'decomposition and recomposition' as a queer process, central to Julien's exploration of Blackness and identity.