The Whitney Museum of American Art’s “Edges of Ailey†exhibition is a feast for the senses. Occupying the museum’s entire fifth floor, the show brings together hundreds of objects—paintings, drawings, photographs, videos, archival material, journal entries, and more—in tribute to Alvin Ailey, the late titan of modern dance whose influence on Black American culture is still deeply felt today.
Curated by Adrienne Edwards, “Edges of Ailey†was six years in the making. Though he is best known as the founder, in 1958, of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey engaged with many art forms beyond dance, and this show is similarly wide-ranging. Edwards combed through Ailey’s archives and sought artwork of all kinds that spoke to his legacy; the overall effect is a coming together of excellent Black and queer visual art that channels struggle, triumph, and transcendence—key themes of Ailey’s riveting choreography.
More than 80 artists are represented in the show, with works spanning from 1851 to this year. Presiding over all of it is an 18-channel video (and accompanying audio) playing performance clips and archival interviews. It’s a lot to take in, but it is this abundance that makes “Edges of Ailey†so very moving. A spirit of generosity coursed through Ailey’s career. What better way to honor him than by uniting so many incredible works under one roof.
Below, 10 standout pieces from “Edges of Ailey†to look out for as you make your way through this expansive show.
This painting by American artist Emma Amos channels two iconic Black woman dancers. Judith Jamison first joined Alvin Ailey Dance Theater in 1965 and took over as artistic director of the company following Ailey’s death from AIDS-related illness in 1989, at 58 years old. (Jamison is also depicted in the show in Karon Davis’s white-plaster sculpture Dear Mama, made in 2024.) Josephine Baker, the iconic Jazz Age entertainer, was committed to civil rights activism alongside her dance career—a pairing not out of place for a show dedicated to Alvin Ailey.
You can feel the raw emotion in the artist and activist Benny Andrews’s stylized paintings. The stark whites, shadows, appliqued fabric, and elongated lines elicit an intense longing. Part of the artist’s Revival series, the painting revisits memories of the Baptist church of the artist’s youth in Georgia. (Ailey’s family was also Baptist, and he recalled sneaking off to church to watch adults dance as a formative memory of his youth).
“There’s so much music in Romie’s work,†Ailey once said of artist Romare Bearden, his friend and collaborator. The 21 collaged works on view in “Edges of Ailey†are from Bearden’s Bayou Fever series, from 1979, which were intended as sketches for a ballet to be choreographed by Ailey. The performance never materialized, but the artworks remain beautiful examples of Bearden’s vivid imagination.
Born in Trinidad in 1930, Geofrey Holder was a multidisciplinary artist who danced, acted, painted, and composed. In 1975 he won two Tonys, for direction and costumes, for his work on The Wiz. This stunning portrait is of his muse and wife, the actor and dancer Carmen de Lavallade, who was also close with Ailey.
Self-taught folk painter Clementine Hunter was born in 1887 in Louisiana. She worked and lived on a plantation and never received a formal education. (Ailey, born into segregated Texas in 1931, picked cotton along with his mother in his youth.) Hunter’s absorbing depictions of Black life in the South, like this baptism scene, were painted from memory.
Jacob Lawrence captured the streets and stoops of Harlem in many of his paintings from the 1940s. In Tombstones, the painter makes reference to the cycle of life in his distinct Social Realist style (he called it “dynamic cubismâ€) that made him a star of 20th-century representational art.
This epic 9-by-13-foot work, painted in grisaille and adorned with glitter, makes direct reference to Black music, commemorating such greats as Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Otis Redding, and John Coltrane. It is one in a series Kerry James Marshall painted in dedication to Civil Rights figures who died in the 1960s.
Senga Nengudi began her sand-filled pantyhose sculptures after giving birth to her first child. The stretched fabric instantly calls to mind a dancer’s legs. During the original installations of her R.S.V.P. pieces, at the gallery Just Above Midtown, viewers and performers were invited to manipulate the sculptures.
This poster, widely distributed in the 1970s, is located in the show’s Black Liberation section (there are nine other categories, including Blackness in Dance, Black Spirituality, and After Ailey). It is dedicated to the men who died at Attica prison in 1971 for protesting against the despicable conditions. Across the map, Ringgold notes other uprisings and cases of imperial injustice. It is a poignant reminder of the ongoing, interconnected struggle for justice and freedom in this country and beyond.
This is one of two paintings that British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, a contemporary star of Black figuration, produced expressly for this show. As with her other work, her subjects are imagined people, amalgamations that represent a deeper truth. Lush swaths of green and blue pop against her muted background. What these four dancers think of as they ready themselves to perform, we can only guess.
“Edges of Ailey†is on view at The Whitney Museum of American Art through February 9, 2025.