By The Arts Editorial Team
Co-commissioned by the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Menil Collection in Houston presents John Akomfrah: The Hour Of The Dog, an immersive six-channel video and audio installation by Ghanaian-born British artist Sir John Akomfrah. Referring to the Chinese zodiac’s twilight hour, its title, The Hour Of The Dog frames the Civil Rights era as a liminal moment empowered by youth and suspended between oppression and transformation. Through its meditation on memory, resistance, and historicity, the work affirms the Menil founders’ long‑held belief that art can initiate dialogue around social inequity and justice and serve as a vehicle for social change.
Drawing on the era following Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which dismantled the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Akomfrah’s work examines the youth-led Civil Rights movement in the American South from 1954 to 1963. While the Civil Rights movement is often contextualized through figures such as the late Martin Luther King Jr., who advocated for civil disobedience in pursuit of racial equity, it is equally critical to acknowledge other historically influential voices of the era, most notably Malcolm X. His perspectives challenged integration and nonviolence, exposing ideological tensions that would go on to shape the Civil Rights movement and its aftermath.
Installation view of John Akomfrah: The Hour Of The Dog. Courtesy of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo: Mitro Hood.
These competing philosophies of resistance inform the historical ground upon which Akomfrah assembles his structural narrative. At fifty‑one minutes in length, The Hour Of The Dog revisits archival documentary footage, oral histories, newsreels, and photography that carries a confrontational charge shaped by moments of social upheaval. This material is interwoven with newly filmed, introspective sequences in which actors appear frozen in time or absorbed in contemplation among relics of the era—televisions, cotton, oranges, flags, segregation signs, and protest posters.
Layering archival footage of the 1961 Freedom Rides, the violent suppression of protesters during the Birmingham Campaign, the Ku Klux Klan’s bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, the federal protection of the Little Rock Nine, and the 1963 March on Washington, The Hour Of The Dog depicts images of collective mourning. Taken together, these scenes trace both the courage of nonviolent resistance and the profound, lasting costs of racial terror.
Still from The Hour Of The Dog (2025), six‑channel video installation. Co‑commissioned by the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Menil Collection, Houston. © John Akomfrah. Courtesy Smoking Dogs Films and Lisson Gallery.
Still from The Hour Of The Dog (2025), six‑channel video installation. Co‑commissioned by the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Menil Collection, Houston. © John Akomfrah. Courtesy Smoking Dogs Films and Lisson Gallery.
“I’m interested in the afterlives of activism—the way resistance lingers in the body, in the landscape, in the archive,” said Akomfrah. “Activism is not confined to what happens in the streets; it's bound up with who and how we remember, who and how we mourn, and how we dream forward. The dreams and despairs of 1960s activists still pulse through our contemporary condition, waiting for new forms, new utterances. Returning to that moment, to those voices, is less about nostalgia and more about listening again—and differently.”
Concurrently on view, Photography from The Menil Collection: Curated by Wendy Watriss extends the historical and thematic concerns of Akomfrah’s installation through still images that document the Civil Rights era. Photographs of student protesters marching for voting rights, alongside an intimate portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. moments after his “I Have a Dream” speech, affirm the power of images to bear witness to history. Together, these exhibitions underscore the enduring relationship between art and activism, reflecting the museum’s long‑standing commitment to cultural engagement in Houston and beyond.
John Akomfrah: The Hour Of The Dog is on view through October 11.