Essays by Karen Kurcynzski and Arisa White, Interview by Romi Crawford, Introduction by Barbara Räcker
Is anything the matter? is the most extensive book yet to document artist Laylah Ali’s nearly three decades of drawings. With puzzling and fraught scenes that unsettle in their insistence on multiple readings, Ali’s drawings use humor to invite the viewer into a nuanced conversation. Though the drawings range in format, they share a continuing theme in Ali’s ongoing interest in the complex combinations of race, power, gendering, human frailty, and murky politics. With an introduction by Barbara Räcker, the catalog includes over 140 reproductions of drawings as well as a detailed examination of Ali’s drawing practice by art historian Karen Kurcynzski, a lyric essay by poet Arisa White, and a new interview with art historian Romi Crawford. Among the series represented are: Self-Portraits with Nat Turner’s Vision, one of her earliest drawing series; the Typology drawings, which are intentionally drained of color but rich in precise patterning; the Studies series, vivid figurative drawings executed on the back of wedding invitations; and Note drawings, poetic lists that chart the artist’s reckoning with her daily encounters and stimuli.
