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,.