Still from 'Looking for Langston.' Image courtesy of Isaac Julien.
Summer Film Series for ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection’: ‘Looking for Langston’ & ‘Derek’
On the occasion of ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection,’ join us for a double feature of two films by renowned British filmmaker and artist Isaac Julien. Featuring ‘Looking for Langston’ (1989), which reflects on the life and legacy of poet and activist Langston Hughes, and ‘Derek’ (2008), which looks back at the life and work of pioneering experimental filmmaker and artist Derek Jarman.
Combining archival newsreel footage and photographs of 1920s Harlem with original scripted scenes, ‘Looking for Langston’ is a black-and-white, fantasy-like retelling of the private world of poet and activist Langston Hughes and the Black artists and writers of the Harlem Renaissance. It reimagines the speakeasies of the period as safe havens for Black queer men, where they could dance, drink, and express themselves freely. The film also features voiceover narration by poet and activist Essex Hemphill and novelist Toni Morrison.
Narrated by Jarman’s frequent collaborator, actress Tilda Swinton, Julien’s ‘Derek’ is a tribute to one of Britain’s most important independent filmmakers, whose films reimagined narrative and played a key role in shaping contemporary queer cinema. The film was featured in ‘Derek Jarman: Brutal Beauty,’ an exhibition on Jarman curated by Isaac Julien for Serpentine Gallery in 2008. The exhibition also featured original works by Julien on Jarman, including ‘Derek: Still Life Study Series, No. 5 (Maquette),’ which is currently on view in ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection.’
These films were selected by Camm Harrison, founder of Black Revivalist, a screening series project which showcases an array of underrated and overlooked gems within Black cinema, in collaboration with Ingrid Schaffner, Curatorial Senior Director at Hauser & Wirth.
Looking for Langston (45 minutes)
Brief Intermission (15 mins)
Derek (76 minutes)
Arrive early to join the Fresh Takes tour of ‘Destiny Is a Rose,’ led by Art Division’s next-generation creatives from 1 – 1.45 pm.
The program is free to attend, however, reservations are recommended. Click here to register.
Installation view, ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection,’ Hauser & Wirth Downtown Los Angeles, 24 February –16 August 2026. Photo: Jeff McLane
About ‘Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection’
Marking fifty years since Eileen Harris Norton’s first acquisition, 'Destiny Is a Rose’ presents more than 80 works that together reflect Harris Norton’s prescient vision and commitment to social justice and learning.
Titled after a painting by Kerry James Marshall, ‘Destiny Is a Rose’ includes work by such artists as Mark Bradford, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon Marshall, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Betye Saar, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Jack Whitten, among others. In conjunction with ‘Destiny Is a Rose,’ Hauser & Wirth Publishers will release a catalogue featuring text by Dr. Kellie Jones and curator Ingrid Schaffner, celebrating a collector who continues to be an agent of cultural change and growth.
About Ingrid Schaffner
Internationally admired as a curator, art critic, writer, and educator with nearly four decades of experience in the field of contemporary art, Schaffner is known for her generative and original scholarship focused on themes of archiving and collecting, photography, feminism, and alternate modernisms. Her 2013 exhibition ‘Jason Rhoades, Four Roads’ was the first American museum presentation of the sculptor’s work and was accompanied by a catalogue publication (Prestel); following its presentation at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, the exhibition traveled to Kunsthalle Bremen and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Schaffner was the curator of the 57th Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in 2018. where she presented major installations by El Anatsui, Alex Da Corte, Zoe Leonard, Postcommodity and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, among others. From 2020 to 2023, she was the curator at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.
About Black Revivalist
Black Revivalist is an ongoing film screening series founded by film curator Camm Harrison, specializing in showcasing underseen and underrated Black cinema from across the diaspora. Presented at various art and cinema spaces throughout the Los Angeles area, the series highlights the rich diversity of Black filmmaking over the past two centuries, finding films' connective threads and connecting them to new and diverse audiences.
