Gates, Borders, Barriers: Julian Louis Phillips

Artist Julian Louis Phillips presented if they started the rhythm, how do we keep the beat?—a site-specific performance activating Fred Wilson’s public art project Mind Forged Manacles / Manacle Forged Minds. Opening Julian’s performance was a live instrumental jazz ensemble featuring students from the New School of Performing Arts with Kal Ferretti on trumpet, Jackson Trout on percussion, and Jasper Grigsby-Shulte on upright bass.

The performance was a loosely scripted work that combines speeches from African and Black revolutionaries and the laws and policies that excluded Black people from land and property throughout American history. The performance took the point of view of someone who is aware of the omnipotent eye of neo-colonialism and who is struggling to escape it. These passages acted as a soundtrack to Phillips’ performance while he moved around the sculpture evoking “ring shouts,” which is a collective transcendent dance performed throughout the African Diaspora. Flags of colonized and colonizing countries from around the world—including Ghana, Algeria, Haiti, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the UK, and the USA—were used as a headdress and props as Phillips cleaned the pavers around the base of Fred Wilson’s sculpture.

This event was part of “Gates, Borders, Barriers,” a series of public programs in connection with Fred Wilson’s year-long installation Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds. This program was presented in partnership with Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the Dumbo Business Improvement District, DTBK + Dumbo Art Fund, New York State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative, VIA Art Fund, and Pace Gallery.