How the Whitney Museum Brought Alvin Ailey’s Legacy to Life

When curator Adrienne Edwards began conceptualizing an exhibition concerning the late choreographer Alvin Ailey (which additionally, surprisingly, occurs to be the first-ever present devoted to the groundbreaking artist) six years in the past, she sought to push the bounds of what folks sometimes expertise in a museum. “What are the thrilling new ways in which we would current dance in a visible artwork context?” she puzzled. The result’s “Edges of Ailey,” on view at New York Metropolis’s Whitney Museum till February 9.

A method she did this was by taking part in with scale and proportions. Whenever you first enter the area, you’re met with an enormous panoramic display screen that wraps round a lot of the room. There, you discover footage of some key Ailey moments: actress Cicely Tyson honoring him on the Kennedy Heart Honors in 1988; panorama scenes from his hometown of Rogers, Texas; varied ballets from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which he based in 1958, like Blues Suite and Revelations.

“I simply didn’t suppose little screens would work,” she says. “Oftentimes, these movies are placed on small screens or we depend on pictures, and there’s a case to be made for all of these completely different selections, however I wished to experiment with a distinct method that felt cinematic. Ailey’s work is about being seen. It’s about glamour. It’s about magnificence. So scale was a strategy to meet his sparkle, to satisfy him on his personal phrases.”

For the heavier work, Edwards created pyramidal buildings for them to reside on. Set up view of “Edges of Ailey” (Whitney Museum of American Artwork, New York, September 25, 2024–February 9, 2025). Alma Thomas, Mars Mud, 1972.

Picture: Jason Lowrie/BFA.com © BFA 2024

Having an open ground for the work to unfold was additionally crucial to Edwards, as she was curious about presenting Ailey to new and outdated audiences in a distinct gentle. Paintings and sculptures from outstanding Black artists together with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Religion Ringgold, Mickalene Thomas, Betye Saar, and Romare Bearden are displayed alongside a number of the choreographer’s notebooks, sharing area on scattered crimson islands positioned all through the exhibition that mimic oceanic eddies. The concept to create islands got here from Ailey’s love of water and, extra particularly, his dance Archipelago. “I like an openness in order that connectivities may be made,” Edwards provides. “It’s a really completely different expertise to implicate the physique in area in that method. The islands are a method of taking these concepts that circulation all through his dances and put them within the precise design of the area itself.”

By displaying Ailey’s private results all through the area (like his choreography notes, postcards written to his pricey pal Langston Hughes, and sketches of dance costumes), Edwards supplies company with an intimate take a look at the person behind the world-renowned dance firm. “For those who had not been in these notebooks, you wouldn’t have identified about his love of the visible arts,” she insists. “You wouldn’t have identified he was a poet and a brief story author. You’ll solely know him as a choreographer. Many individuals know the corporate, however not many know concerning the man who began it. The first thrust of the present was about his curiosity, his world of wonders, what a polymath he was, and the way various his pursuits have been. In some methods, Ailey was the determine that no person noticed coming who was excellent for a museum exhibition.”