Essex Hemphill: Take care of your blessings at The Phillips Collection

The Phillips Collection presented Essex Hemphill: Take care of your blessings, the first exhibition to chart the interdisciplinary relationship between poet, writer, and activist Essex Hemphill (1957–1995) and contemporary visual art. The exhibition presents the work of artists who knew or collaborated with Hemphill during his lifetime, alongside those who found inspiration in his artistic and political vision decades later. The result is in an intergenerational dialogue that spans time, media, and place. The exhibition includes a new short work by Isaac Julien, Portrait in Blue. 

Portrait in Blue is a visual documentation of filming Essex Hemphill and visual artist and painter Wayson Jones. The footage was recorded in Washington, D.C. in 1988 during the production of Julien’s seminal film Looking for Langston (1989) and documents the voice recording that Essex Hemphill and Wayson Jones did for Looking for Langston. Super8 black and white footage which has been superimposed and poetically intertwined with the archival sound to create a visual medley.

Essex Hemphill (1957–1995) was a prominent Washington, DC, poet, performer, editor, and activist whose work engaged themes of race, gender, sexuality, love, and community during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Take care of your blessings explores the interdisciplinary relationship between Hemphill’s writing—raw, politically charged, and deeply personal—and contemporary visual art.