Review: “Edges of Ailey” at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Just outside Manhattan, in an 18,000-square-foot gallery on the fifth floor of a bright, asymmetrical building, is the first large-scale exhibition on the life and work of groundbreaking black American choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-1989). ). This show has been a long time coming, both for Engell Speyer Family Senior Curator Adrienne Edwards (who has worked on the show for about six years) and for fans of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, founded by Ailey in 1958 ( For my part, I had been impatiently waiting for it for months).

An art museum exhibit about dance is the kind of thing I live for. But when I first walked into “Edges of Ailey” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, I was surprised. The walls are a deep red, the space is not calm and the materials are not arranged chronologically. To be honest, there’s not a lot of dancing on display. It wasn’t at all what I expected and I’m very happy about it.

What I quickly realized as I walked through the immense, immersive exhibition – which Edwards delightfully calls an “extravaganza” – is that this is not a solo retrospective. It is a collective exhibition. An overall performance. A jam session. It is less a biographical film than an avant-garde film, more of a poem-ode than a biography. It contains works by eighty-two visual artists, a wide range of archival materials about Ailey’s personal and creative life, and a multi-screen video installation drawn from interviews and performance footage.

What this collage of art forms and artifacts does so well is place Ailey and his work in a broader artistic and social context. Ailey once said, “I wanted to paint…I wanted to sculpt.” I wrote poetry. I wanted to write the great American novel. For him, dance contained all these things. “Edges of Ailey” also has all of these things.

The exhibition is organized into sections inspired by Ailey’s life and work: Southern Imaginary (he was born in Rogers, Texas in 1931 and said: “I am a black man whose roots are in the sun and the dirt of the South”), Black Spirituality (“My roots are also in the Evangelical Church”), Black migration (he moved from Texas to Los Angeles then to San Francisco before settling in New York in 1954), Black liberation (Edwards said, “For Ailey…the body becomes the vehicle through dance to express that freedom, practice that freedom, embody that freedom…”), black women (he surrounded himself with strong black women , including her mother Lula Cooper and close friend Carmen de Lavallade), Ailey’s collaborators (among them, Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes), Black Music (Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker were favorites), Ailey’s Influences (ranging from Martha Graham to Katherine Dunham to Jack Cole) and After Ailey (he died of AIDS-related complications in 1989 at age 58, leaving behind a significant legacy and an internationally renowned business).

The works on display span from 1851 to 2024. In some cases, contemporary works were created specifically for this exhibition. Some pieces relate specifically to Ailey and her business, such as a large portrait of de Lavallade painted by her husband Geoffrey Holder in 1976 and the painting by Ralph Lemon in 1999. Alvin Ailey Dance Revelations #3. Others have no direct connection to Ailey but are in conversation with his aesthetic and ideas, such as Norman Lewis’s 1943 lithograph. Untitled (Jazz) and the 2012 Terry Adkins sculpture Other Bloods (of the Principalities). Edwards explains that “there are many ways in which there is some sort of tendon, obvious or not, between Ailey and these different artists on the show.” Other artists who have worked in the exhibition include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, Alma Thomas, Jacob Lawrence, Rashid Johnson, Kevin Beasley and Kara Walker.

Throughout the gallery you will find selections from the Alvin Ailey archival materials and the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation archival collection housed at the Library of Congress. These include pages from his numerous notebooks (choreographic notes and lists as well as his own poems and short stories); performance programs, posters and images; and recorded interviews.

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The three visualized data animations tracing Ailey’s impact on dance across time and space are an unexpected delight. Researchers Harmony Bench and Kate Elswit spent nearly three years combing through more than thirty thousand documents in the archives to create them. The animations are fascinating, quite beautiful and worth seeing.

One of the most powerful parts of “Edges of Ailey” is the montage of Ailey’s life and dances that plays on loop over an 18-channel video installation created by filmmakers Josh Begley and Kya Lou with Edwards. At one point I was in awe of the center of the piece while several versions of Revelations broadcast simultaneously on screens. Later, I looked at Lawrence’s 1942 painting Tombstones when I heard a voice say, “We hope you feel better soon!” ​​” I looked up at the screens to see a series of video messages to Ailey from members of his company in the late ’80s. “We love you!… See you soon, Alvin!… Come back. “

The exhibit itself is only part of “Edges of Ailey.” The extravaganza also includes extensive live programming: more than ninety dance performances, classes, and lectures will take place throughout the building over the coming months.

This impressive series of performances draws inspiration from Ailey’s commitment to creating a platform for modern Black dancers and choreographers. Upcoming highlights include a dance by Ailey Company Acting Artistic Director Matthew Rushing to songs omitted from the original production of Revelations (Sacred songs: a spiritual journeyNovember 1-3), a performance by Bill T. Jones followed by a conversation between Jones, artist Glenn Ligon and Edwards (Memory Piece: Mr. Ailey, Alvin…the non-Ailey?November 16) and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Program II: Excerpts from new works (January 22-25). The lineup also includes Trajal Harrell, Ralph Lemon with interdisciplinary artist Kevin Beasley, Sarah Michelson, Okwui Okpokwasili with Peter Born, Will Rawls, Yusha-Marie Sorzano and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.

“Edges of Ailey” is best experienced in its entirety. I recommend visiting on a day when there is a dance performance. Walk through the exhibit, see a dance, and if time permits, return to the show to better understand what you just experienced.

Edwards says: “If you watch Ailey dance, there’s something so visceral and vital about the way he held a stage. » He held a stage, and he also owns this space. If you go there, you will feel it: it is there.

“Edges of Ailey» is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art until February 9, 2025.