Kahlil Joseph

Who is Kahlil Joseph?

Kahlil Joseph is a filmmaker, video artist and music video director. Born in Seattle to Keven Davis, a prominent sports and entertainment attorney, Joseph studied film and other subjects at Loyola Marymount University. After university he studied under the tutelage of Malik Sayeed and Arthur Jafa. His first foray into the entertainment industry happened in the mid-2000s when he was hired to be a production assistant for the music video director Hype Williams. Joseph resides and works in Los Angeles.

What are some of the defining characteristics of Joseph's creative practice?

Kahlil Joseph has firmly established himself in the art world for his “intellectually and emotionally dense” short films that draw their aesthetic and narrative substance from the African-American experience. Influenced by the disjointed narrativity of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's films – with which he became acquainted during a course on Asian cinema during his studies – Joseph detached himself from prevailing Western notions of storytelling. Weerasethakul's novel handling of narrative encouraged Joseph to develop his own cinematic syntax, one which foregrounds his own experience and that of the Black community.

The fragmentary nature of his filmic narratives, coupled with visual lyricism and oneiric sequences, imbue Joseph's creations with an emotional depth and cultural resonance. His works traverse the expanse between music video and art installation, lending his art a unique voice. An avid cinephile, Joseph references the films of others in his works, e.g. in his 2013 short film Until the Quiet Comes in which he quotes from the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Spike Lee.

Where have Joseph's works been exhibited?

Joseph's work has been shown in many museums, galleries and art spaces. His debut exhibition Ruffneck Constructivists, curated by celebrated artist Kara Walker, opened at ICA Philadelphia in 2014.

Other exhibitions include: MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles; Frye Art Museum, Seattle; Southbank Centre, Hayward Gallery, London; New Museum, New York; Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague; Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève; Officine Grandi Riparazioni, Turin; Copenhagen Contemporary; Bonnefanten Masstricht, the Netherlands; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Tate Modern, London; Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam; and many others.

What awards has Joseph received?

For his exploration of the multiple facets of Black experience, Kahlil Joseph has been nominated and/or won a series of awards and fellowships throughout his career. These include the following: Short Film Special Jury Prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival; 2016 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship; BET Award for Video Director of the Year in 2017 (together with Beyoncé); nominated for Best Music Video at the 59th Grammy Awards; 2017 Los Angeles Artadia Award; 2020 Eye Film Prize; and the 2021 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts.

What projects is Joseph involved in?

Since 2018, Kahlil Joseph has been deeply involved in developing and expanding BLKNWS, a two-channel video installation. Joseph weaves together videos from YouTube, social media, actual news footage, and excerpts from film and music videos to create an uninterrupted and highly curated broadcast that uncovers the expansiveness of the Black experience. BLKNWS represents a fictionalized look at what a news organization run from a Black perspective would be, while simultaneously satirizing the “news-creation industrial complex.”

BLKNWS was featured at the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, Geneva (2018), the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), and at multiple other events and venues. Joseph has teamed with the independent entertainment A24 to produce a feature-length film adaptation of BLKNWS, which was released in January 2025 as BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions and featured at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Where can I find out more about Kahlil Joseph?

Joseph is represented by Creative Artists Agency and Somesuch in the UK and the Netherlands.