One million dots, by hand: Jules Julien at the Obama Presidential Center.

Sep 22, 2026

Bonjour,

This summer, the Obama Presidential Center opened on Chicago's South Side. Its public art program is one of the most ambitious in recent memory, more than 28 site-specific commissions, from Nick Cave and Jenny Holzer to Maya Lin and Theaster Gates.

Among them: Jules Julien. Represented by Bisou. Two permanent works, two years in the making.

The centrepiece, All Together, is an immersive digital mural on a circular screen. It's built from more than a million dots, every one placed and coloured by hand. Each dot stands for a single person. As the mural shifts, they gather into images of a hopeful future, parks, businesses, families, a reminder that lasting change is built from small contributions by many.

Nothing about it is automated. That detail is what surprised President Obama most when the two met before the opening.

A few things Julien told me about the making of it:

More than 200 colours, for an artist who usually works close to monochrome. He calls the palette another way of celebrating diversity.
A circular screen with no beginning and no end. Eleven scenes appear and dissolve, and because it surrounds you, no two visits are alike. The dots move like a murmuration of birds together, like fireflies apart.
Two years spent inside a single work. Julien frames that slowness as its own kind of resistance, time to think, in a world that keeps asking for everything faster.

His own line for it says it best: a kind of Yes We Can, but on his own scale. Yes, I Can, place and colour a million dots by hand.

Read the full conversation.

He also told us new works are coming to Bisou very soon, meanwhile check out his available work right here.

Bisou,
Julien

Bisou Gallery, Levantkade 85, Amsterdam
The Gallery is open by appointment, send us an email if you would like to come by and see specific works in person.

Bisou Gallery