Kahlil Joseph: Shadow Play
September 27, 2017 - January 7, 2018

In his absorbing films, Kahlil Joseph conjures the lush and impressionistic quality of dreams with particular reverence for quotidian moments and intimate scenes. Music always figures centrally in Joseph’s works, and sounds reverberate as vital and powerful analogues for the play of images through which he chronicles the stories and rhythms of his subjects. As much as they plumb the history of cinema and moving images, Joseph’s films also find a parallel in the lyricism, complexity, and affective power of Black musical traditions.

In Shadow Play at the New Museum, his first solo presentation in New York, Joseph debuts Fly Paper (2017), a new film installation that departs from his admiration of the work of Roy DeCarava (1919–2009).

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