Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston

Sun, Feb 12, 2023 | 1–3 pm
Leslie Cheek Theater
Looking for Langston: A black-and-white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. A wake is going on, and downstairs is an elegant bar where tuxedoed men dance and talk. One of them has a dream in which he comes upon Beauty, who seems to reject him, then he awakes, Beauty is sleeping beside him. Voices read from the poetry and essays of Langston Hughes. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually. Directed by Isaac Julien. (1989; 45 min; Rated R)
Special Guest speaker: Valerie Cassel Oliver, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, who organized the exhibition Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass for VMFA..
$8 (VMFA members $5)
Tickets for this film are also valid for Young Soul Rebels on February 10.