New York may never sleep, but summer feels like nap time. At least in the art world. Culture shakes off the doldrums following Labor Day, roaring into fall, its busiest time of year.
The highlight of the season feels like the Whitney Museum of American Arts’ celebration of artist and choreographer Alvin Ailey (b. 1931, Rogers, TX; d. 1989, New York, NY). “Edges of Ailey” marks the first large-scale museum exhibition celebrating his life, dances, influences, and enduring legacy.
The landmark showcase brings together visual art, live performance, music, a range of archival materials, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater repertory to explore the full range of his personal and creative life. The exhibition centers on the man himself, capturing his full range of passions, curiosities, and creativity as revealed in his archives, across his dances, and within a continuum of other artists spanning nearly two centuries.
Those other artists include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Thornton Dial, Rashid Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Glenn Ligon, Loïs Mailou Jones, Archibald Motley, Jr., Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Faith Ringgold, Lorna Simpson, Alma Thomas, Kara Walker, and Carrie Mae Weems. Not bad.
A dynamic montage of Ailey’s life and dances will play on loop across an 18-channel video installation, created by filmmakers Josh Begley and Kya Lou, along with curator Adrienne Edwards. This film is composed of newly digitized performance documentation, dances made for the camera, animated archival images, televised broadcasts, and contextual footage of cultural, social, political, and social events of the time. Visitors also encounter intimate displays of never-before-seen selections from Ailey’s personal archive, providing a foundation for understanding everything from his daily routine and artistic thinking to the demands of touring and his grappling with being gay.
