Laylah Ali

{{Short description|American visual artist}}

{{distinguish|Laila Ali}}

{{Infobox artist

| name = Laylah Ali

| image =

| caption = Laylah Ali

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1968}}

| birth_place = Buffalo, New York, U.S.

| death_date =

| death_place =

| education = Williams College (BA)
Washington University in St. Louis (MFA)

| notable_works = The Greenheads Series

| style = Gouache

| awards = 2008 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant
2007 United States Artists Fellowship
2002 William H. Johnson Prize
2001 Premio Regione Piemonte (Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Per L’Arte, Turin, Italy)
2000 ICA Artist Prize (Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts)

| website =

| influences =

| influenced =

| field = Painting

| years_active =

}}

Laylah Ali (born 1968)Baker, Alex (2007) Laylah Ali: Typology. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. p. 47. {{ISBN|9780943836300}} is an American contemporary visual artist. She is known for paintings in which ambiguous race relations are depicted with a graphic clarity and cartoon strip format.{{cite news|last1=Cotter|first1=Holland|title=ART IN REVIEW; Laylah Ali|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/30/arts/art-in-review-laylah-ali.html|access-date=17 March 2015|issue=June 30|work=The New York Times|date=2000}} She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and is a professor at Williams College.{{cite web |title=Laylah Ali: The Greenheads Series |url=http://museum.cornell.edu/exhibitions/laylah-ali-the-greenheads-series.html |access-date=17 March 2015 |website=museum.cornell.edu |publisher=Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University}}

Early life and education

In her youth, Ali originally intended to be a lawyer or a doctor.{{Cite web|url=http://www.bu.edu/today/2010/laylah-ali-on-greenheads-violence-in-art-and-more/|title=Laylah Ali on Greenheads, Violence in Art, and More |website=BU Today|access-date=2016-03-05}}

Ali received her B.A. degree (English and studio art) from Williams College, Williamstown, MA in 1991.{{Cite web|url=http://www.paulkasmingallery.com/artist/laylah-ali|title=Paul Kasmin Gallery - Laylah Ali|website=paulkasmingallery.com|language=en|access-date=2018-03-03|archive-date=2018-03-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180304055011/http://www.paulkasmingallery.com/artist/laylah-ali|url-status=dead}} She participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City in 1992, and completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME in 1993. Ali received her M.F.A. degree in 1994 from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Work

In Ali's earlier work, she would draw or paint something violent. She focused more on the action than the violence itself. In her current work, there is not a lot of focus on the act; she is more attentive to what happens before and after.{{Cite book|title=Art 21: art in the 21st century 3|last=Sollins|first=Susan|year=2005|isbn=081095916X|location=Purchase College|pages=[https://archive.org/details/art21artintwenty0000soll/page/28 28]|url=https://archive.org/details/art21artintwenty0000soll/page/28}} Laylah's work had a unique feature of including a level of emotion. She uses bright colors and cartoons to portray current events and socio-political ideas. She uses this unique approach of not using a specific event, so the audience can think through the art and have their own perception.{{Cite web |title=Laylah Ali |url=https://art21.org/artist/laylah-ali/ |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=Art21 |language=en}}

The works are small scale gouache paintings and drawings on paper. She is known to prepare for many months, planning out every detail so there is no room for mistakes. Ali's work is based on life experiences. Although one may not be able to tell, she says all of her work holds meaning and that what's in her mind transcends from her hands on paper.{{cite web |title=Laylah Ali |url=https://art21.org/artist/laylah-ali/ |website=Art21.org |access-date=18 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210806191608/https://art21.org/artist/laylah-ali/ |archive-date=6 August 2021 |language=en |url-status=live}} About the performative nature of her work, Ali says, "The paintings can be like crude stages or sets, the figures like characters in a play. I think of them equally as characters and figures."{{Cite web|url=http://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/laylah-ali-bodies-in-notion/|title=Juxtapoz Magazine - Laylah Ali: Bodies in Notion|website=www.juxtapoz.com|access-date=2016-03-05}}

Ali's work included an artistic lens of caricature. According to Charlotte Seaman, "Ali’s work is not grounded in the academic tradition, however it is informed by the rich history of caricature, especially as humorous or mocking social commentary". Ali used a unique idea of caricature, Seaman states "Ali uses the visual language of cartoons, comics, and to some extent caricatures. Notably, though, her work is opposed to racial caricature in that it does not exaggerate features of an individual – rather the opposite: it turns individuals into signs or ciphers of generalized (though still racialized) human experience"{{Cite web |last=cseaman |title=Laylah Ali: Drawing Power, Play, and Violence {{!}} Drawing Connections |url=https://blogs.umass.edu/arthist391a-kurczynski-2/2018/05/08/laylah-ali-drawing-power-play-and-violence-2/ |access-date=2023-12-12 |language=en-US}}

=The Greenheads Series=

The subject of Ali's most well-known gouache paintings are Greenheads– characters designed to minimize, eliminate and interrogate categorical differences of gender, height, age, and in some ways race.Ali, Laylah. "Interview." Laylah Ali. By Rebecca Walker. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2001.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfK3OJ9PBUc |title=Laylah Ali: Meaning {{!}} Art21 "Extended Play" |date=2009-09-18 |last=Art21 |access-date=2024-06-09 |via=YouTube}} Ali created more than 80 of these paintings between 1996 and 2005. Ali drew on imagery and topics from newspapers, such as images of protest signs or world leaders hugging, but tweaked the stories in order to create something distant and new. Ali designed the characters and images to be specific and yet vague. They have meaning from Ali herself but the viewer brings their own references to interpret the image as well. Ali designed the characters to look human-like but not quite human so that they would be removed from our world and social context. They have a socio-political meaning yet they exist outside of our world.{{Cite book|title=Laylah Ali, the Greenheads series: [accompanies the exhibition "Laylah Ali: the Greenheads series" presented at Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, August 18 - November 25, 2012; Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, March 2 - June 30, 2013; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, September 7 - December 22, 2013|last1=Ali|first1=Laylah|last2=Rothschild|first2=Deborah|last3=Museum of Art.|date=2012|publisher=s.n.|isbn=9780913697306|location=S.l.|oclc = 843494121|language=en}}

=The Acephalous Series=

Since 2015, Ali has been working on paintings she calls The Acephalous Series, featuring figures described as gender conscious, potentially sexual or sexualized, some of which have racial characteristics and some of which do not have heads. "They are on an endless, determined trek, a multi-part journey," she says, "It has elements of a forced migration."

=Collaborations=

In 2002, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, commissioned Ali to create a wordless graphic novelette.{{Cite news |date=2005-12-01 |title=The Believer - Interview with Laylah Ali |url=http://www.believermag.com/issues/200512/?read=interview_ali |access-date=2017-03-11 |work=The Believer |language=en}} The artist collaborated with dancer and choreographer Dean Moss at The Kitchen in 2005 and at MASS MoCA in 2006 with figures on a field.{{cite web|url=http://www.bu.edu/today/2010/laylah-ali-on-greenheads-violence-in-art-and-more/|title=Laylah Ali on Greenheads, Violence in Art, and More|date=4 November 2010|publisher=Boston University|author=Cornuelle, Kimberly|access-date=17 March 2015}} They later premiered a performance at Some sweet day at MoMA, New York in 2012. John Brown Song! was an online project launched by the Dia Art Foundation in 2013.{{Cite web |date=2013-08-13 |title=What Could the Internet Be? Dia’s Online Projects |url=https://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/aug/13/what-could-internet-be-dias-online-projects/ |access-date=2024-06-09 |website=Rhizome |language=en}} Ali's outdoor billboard project for Walker without Walls at the Walker Art Center was documented on season 3 of the PBS series Art21: Art in the Twenty-First Century.{{Cite web |title=Laylah Ali in |url=https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s3/laylah-ali-in-power-segment/ |access-date=2024-07-07 |website=Art21 |language=en}}

Collections

Ali's works are included in the permanent collection of numerous public institutions, including the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and the Whitney Museum in New York City.{{Cite web|url=http://paulkasmingallery.com/artist/laylah-ali|title=Paul Kasmin Gallery - Laylah Ali|website=paulkasmingallery.com|access-date=2016-03-05|archive-date=2016-03-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305135817/http://www.paulkasmingallery.com/artist/laylah-ali|url-status=dead}}

Exhibitions

=Selected solo and group exhibitions=

Laylah Ali has exhibited in both the Venice Biennale (2003) and the Whitney Biennial (2004). Other exhibitions include:

Awards

Laylah Ali has been awarded a number of grants, residencies and awards, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2008,{{Cite web |last=Foundation |first=Joan Mitchell |title=Joan Mitchell Foundation » Artist Programs » Artist Grants |url=http://joanmitchellfoundation.org/artist-programs/artist-grants/painter-sculptors |access-date=2018-01-12 |website=joanmitchellfoundation.org |language=en}} the Joan Mitchell Foundation Residency in 2018,{{Cite web|url=https://www.artforum.com/news/joan-mitchell-foundation-names-artists-for-its-2018-residency-program-74181|title=Joan Mitchell Foundation Names Artists for Its 2018 Residency Program|website=www.artforum.com|date=8 February 2018 |access-date=2018-02-13}} the United States Artists Fellowship,{{Cite web|url=http://www.culturetype.com/2017/01/30/united-states-artists-taps-baltimore-based-deana-haggag-as-president-and-ceo/|title=United States Artists Taps Baltimore-based Deana Haggag as President and CEO {{!}} Culture Type|website=www.culturetype.com|date=31 January 2017 |language=en-US|access-date=2018-02-13}} as well as being honored as an artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College, Yaddo, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

References

{{Reflist}}

Bibliography

Selected artist books, exhibition catalogs, print editions and press:

  • Is Anything the Matter? Drawings by Laylah Ali. Essays by Karen Kurczynski and Arisa White; interview with Romi Crawford, Marion Art Gallery, SUNY Fredonia, NY, 2024. {{ISBN|9798218308711}}
  • Four letterpress prints (edition of 250) from “Self-Portraits with Nat Turner’s Vision” 1994 series, printed and published by Pellinore Press, Baltimore, MD, in collaboration with Goucher College, 2019.
  • Laylah Ali: The Acephalous Series. Essays by Alex Ebstein, Tisa Bryant, Kaitlyn Greenidge; interview with Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Silber Gallery, Goucher College, Baltimore, MD, 2019. {{ISBN|9781792300394}}
  • Comfort with Rage. Silkscreen print (edition of 100) commissioned by Printed Matter for NY Art Book Fair, printed and published by Kayrock Screenprinting, Brooklyn, NY, 2018.
  • Sixteen Drawings. Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY, 2017.
  • Laylah Ali: The Greenheads Series. Essays by Julia Bryan-Wilson and Kevin Young; interview with Deborah Rothschild, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA, 2012. {{ISBN|9780913697306}}
  • Laylah Ali: Note Drawings. Essay by Dina Deitsch; interview with Kevin Young, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, 2008. {{ISBN|9780945506591}}
  • Laylah Ali: Typology. Essay by Alex Baker; interview with Kara Walker, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 2007. {{ISBN|9780943836300}}
  • Notes with Little Illustration. Institute of International Visual Arts, London, book design by the artist and Nicole Parente, 2007.
  • The Believer: The Visual Issue. Interview with Tisa Bryant, p. 79, Dec. 2005 - Jan. 2006{{Cite web |last=admin_bm |date=2006-01-01 |title=An Interview with Laylah Ali |url=https://www.thebeliever.net/an-interview-with-laylah-ali/ |access-date=2024-06-09 |website=Believer Magazine |language=en-US}}
  • Types. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO, 2005 {{ISBN|0971219567}}
  • Untitled. Aquatint etching print (edition of 50) published by Wingate Studio, Hinsdale, NH, 2002.{{Cite web |title=Laylah Ali • Wingate Studio |url=https://wingatestudio.com/project/laylah-ali |access-date=2024-06-09 |language=en}} In the collection of the RISD Museum.
  • Untitled. Graphic novelette published on the occasion of Projects 75 for The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, digital production by Nicole Parente, 2002.{{Cite web |last=Helmick-Brunet |first=Helmick-Brunet |date=May 21, 2002 |title=Projects 75: Laylah Ali |url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/159 |website=MoMA}}
  • Laylah Ali: ICA Artist Prize 2000. Essays by Jessica Morgan and Suzanne Wise; interview with Rebecca Walker, ICA Boston, MA, 2001. {{ISBN|0910663610}}