By 1958, Ailey had established a dance company to celebrate Black culture in America which he led for more than three decades. AIDS killed him, along with many other members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, memorialized here in an early section of the Quilt.
Studio 54 probably was the only place where our paths might have crossed. Antonio Lopez designed sexy costumes for Ailey's dancers to wear the night the club opened in 1977.
While the exhibit includes filmed and live performance, the Whitney has plumbed its collection for art that inspired Ailey, or was inspired by him. The curators really pulled out the stops, going all the way back to a Thomas Nash illustration of "Emancipation," published in an 1863 edition of Harper's Weekly, as well as commissioning some new works.
They've also organized the works thematically. Judith Jamison, who died the day after my visit to the Whitney, succeeded Ailey after his death in 1989. The company thrived under her leadership for more than two decades.
"Dear Mama" by Karon Davis (2024)
Carmen de Lavallade and Ailey were both born in 1931. His early dance partner, who married Geoffrey Holder, her House of Flowers cast mate, remains alive at 93, more than three decades longer than Ailey, a powerful reminder of how much life he lost.
Portrait of Carmen de Lavallade by Geoffrey Holder (1976)
At the age of five, Ailey began picking cotton with his mother--who had been gang raped by four white men after his father left them--in a rural area of east Texas. In 1941, they moved to California as part of the great migration seeking a better life.
Lena Horne was among the African Americans he saw perform in Los Angeles before moving east, eventually joining her on the stage in the cast of another Broadway musical.
A few years after Ailey arrived in New York, Marian Anderson became the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. His timing was perfect: high culture doors had finally begun to open.
Marian Anderson by Beauford Delaney (1965)
During the last decade, I have become a great admirer of many of the artists whose works are included in the exhibit
Catching up at the Met is always fun despite the summer crowds. This Surinamese immigrant, a model and musician who led bands in both Europe and America, couldn't be more dapper. It's my favorite work from The "Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism" which includes a dozen artists unknown to me previously, a refrain that I sing more and more in these posts now that the museum world is finally making up for lost time and exhibiting works by marginalized groups, including women, far more frequently.
Louis Richard Drenthe/On The Terrace by Nola Hatterman (1930)
Howard University professor Alain Locke preached a simpatico gospel more than a century ago, urging African Americans to look to their own culture and past for edification and artistic inspiration.
Romare Bearden depicted an entire Harlem block in this remarkable painted collage.
"The Block" (detail, 1971)
The Costume Institute knows how to pack 'em in, that's for sure. Winding through a narrow white labyrinth, visitors to Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion sniff their way (yes, you read that right) through themed displays like this one for roses. Isaac Mizrahi is a more interesting dressmaker than memoirist, that's for sure.
"The Nightingale & the Rose" Necklace by Simon Costin (partial, 1989)
No swallows had to die to make this Alexander McQueen jacket and the Met's "Savage Beauty" exhibit didn't have to rely on olfactory tubes to draw enormous crowds.
This "Nautiloid" dress by Iris von Herpen from 2020 looked like no other.
Graffiti crudely scrawled by children on desks in the former Yugoslavia inspired "Abetare," the Met's Roof Garden Commission. Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj lost not one but two homes in the regional war during the late 90s. The New Museum also has exhibited his work.
Petrit, who is gay, likened his childhood displacement to the feeling brought by the awakening of his sexual orientation.
The repetitive images he found in the graffiti--both artistic and expressive of pop culture (find Messi below)--brought him a sense of connection which he deftly conveys through his unusual and moving work, once you know his backstory.
But like all remarkable art, it can be appreciated simply for the joy it brings. I'm just surprised there aren't any penises!
