A gust of fresh air is blowing through the art world. A brand-new outfit called Ruby/Dakota has opened on the supercool strip of East 2nd Street. A whole new scene has formed around 56 Henry’s two gallery spaces in Chinatown, and solo shows there by Laurie Simmons and Richard Tinkler promise to scintillate.
Just north of the Whitney, Fort Gansevoort Gallery regularly showcases undiscovered artists, including, in September, 84-year-old quilt-maker extraordinaire Yvonne Wells. A gaggle of established artists are also exhibiting — Kara Walker, Simone Leigh, Nick Cave, and the still under-known Denzil Forrester among them. And the museums will have their fair share of thrilling exhibitions, too: The Whitney will feature American national treasure Alvin Ailey, MoMA will peer deep into its own brilliant bellybutton in a show about the woman who helped make the museum, and the Brooklyn Museum will give us an enormous show of artists based in its borough.
Movement and dance have always existed at a slight remove from the art world. This show — a full-on retrospective of the late dancer-director-choreographer and poet of the body — should abolish that notion once and for all while revealing his enormous creativity and psychic energies. In addition to the work of more than 80 artists influenced by Ailey, there will be dance classes, archival information, snippets of interviews, monthly performances, video, and more.
Raised in the strictly segregated South, Ailey and his mother, abandoned by his father, picked cotton. Being queer added to his estrangement. While still young, he was drawn to the body and Black vernaculars of motion, ultimately creating a language that incorporated ballet, tap, and contemporary dance.
He worked with everyone from Langston Hughes and Pink Floyd to the Metropolitan Opera and Duke Ellington. His dynamism and grace were magisterial, evident in the giant dashes he made across the stage peppered with little sexy twists. In carving out a space for himself, Ailey opened up a whole world for his art.
In a giant leap of artistic freedom and vision, Simmons will present wall-mounted boxes containing doll houses and cutouts of cars, swimmers, and furniture — amalgamations that produce alien-looking still lifes. Jackson was a breakout artist of the recent Whitney Biennial. She will present multicolored, layered paintings, one shaped like an altar, another made from acrylic paint, canvas, paper, linen, tissue, nursery burlap, orange mesh, and wood.
Prepare to have your retinas tickled by the figurative quilts of Wells, who in this show pivots to the abstract, from a queasy whorl of stained fabric fragments to a tablecloth her church used during Thanksgiving. One of the great encyclopedic art treasure houses of New York will strut its stuff, lean into its name, and give us a sprawling exhibition of artists who live or work in this most amazing city-within-a-city. The Grenada-born Forrester, 68, is known for kaleidoscopic paintings of London’s reggae and dub nightclub scene in the 1980s.
In this two-gallery show, we’ll be treated to new works of urban dance halls and disturbing pictures of social injustice as well as older paintings. The 54-year-old MacArthur winner will unleash her powers in her 14th solo exhibition, featuring works on paper that confront the demons of the past (and present). Leigh transformed the American Pavilion at Venice two years ago into a huge thatched structure that functioned as a searing comment on colonialism in Africa.
Her first show since then will feature new ceramic and lace sculptures as well as one large reclining figure made of bronze. Cave creates glittering, feathered, and beaded sculptures called “Sound Suits.” Here, he presents one that stands over 25 feet tall and features allusions to nature, culture, and history alongside new needlepoint portraits.
A revelatory dive into the collection of Lillie P. Bliss, coinciding with the release of a book exploring the work and dedication of the many women — among them curators, preparators, patrons, and prime movers — who helped forge this apex museum of modernism. Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism .
If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the August 26, 2024, issue of New York Magazine. Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the August 26, 2024, issue of New York Magazine.
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