Yusef Lateef

November 8–December 20, 2014 320 West 13th Street
Five framed works on paper are hung on a white wall. The color palette of the works is primarily washed out tones of blue, green, orange, and gray.

Yusef Lateef, installation view, 2014

Three framed works on paper are hung on a white wall. The dimensions of each work increase from left to right, and all have central compositions of colorful, tangled lines and forms that are surrounded by blank space.

Yusef Lateef, installation view, 2014

Two adjacent white walls display six framed works on paper, three on each wall. There is a vitrine in the center of the room containing records, books, and other materials.

Yusef Lateef, installation view, 2014

A frontal view of an abstract, textured work with distinct, short lines that are organized to convey a sense of dynamic motion. The colors used for the perimeter alternate between a soft lilac, orange, and blue, and there are forms in orange, blue, and pale green in the center of the composition.

Yusef Lateef, Untitled, N.D., watercolor, pen, ink, marker and pastel on paper, 22 × 30 in.

A composition of three abstract structures surrounded by white space, one on the left, another on the right, and one extending along the bottom. They are composed of different lattice-like patterns with some color-filled segments.

Yusef Lateef, Elsewhere Plants, N.D., watercolor, pen, and marker on paper, 14 × 16 in.

A distinct ground and sky divide the composition in half. The segments are filled with slanted ovals in various shades of gray. In the center stands a jagged, barren, tree-like form with yellow swirling roots and a written line of Arabic below.

Yusef Lateef, Untitled, N.D., watercolor, pen, and pencil on paper, 14 × 17 in.

Press Release

Curated by Alhena Katsof

White Columns is proud to present the first New York exhibition of drawings by the master musician, composer and artist Dr. Yusef Lateef (1920 – 2013). The exhibition has been organized by curator Alhena Katsof. Throughout his lifetime, Dr. Lateef was immersed in his creation of ‘autophysiopsychic music.’ He described this as music that comes from one’s physical, mental and spiritual self or ‘from the heart’. As part of this creative continuum, Dr. Lateef made over 100 drawings, as well as innovative graphic notations and scores in which numbers and shapes organize complex interval-based music. This exhibition at White Columns includes examples of these notations alongside a selection of drawings created with watercolor, pen, ink, graphite and glitter.

Working at home, Dr. Lateef drew in the same room where he composed at his piano for over forty years, surrounded by instruments he collected from across the globe. A virtuosic wind musician and vocalist, Dr. Lateef played the tenor saxophone, flute, oboe, shanai, shofar, argol, sarewa, and taiwan koto. He activated some of this technique in his works on paper by pouring small puddles of ink onto the page and then blowing through a straw to spread the liquid. These fanning pools are interwoven with various marks, lines, squiggles, scratches and concentric circles. At times, the shapes resemble emerging trees, candelabra, flowers and clouds. In other instances, ameba-like clusters boom like the cosmos across the page.

Dr. Lateef’s drawing practice was informed by his lifelong immersion in methods of free playing wherein the ‘feeling tone’ of a singular gesture inspires the next. This call and response unfolds one mark at a time, from first to the last, in a process that could take one or many days before a drawing reached completion. As a devout Muslim, his drawings were frequently embedded with references to Allah – The One worthy of worship. This infused his work as an outspoken philosopher, dedicated educator, playwright and science fiction novelist, for whom creativity was a force that exists in myriad forms.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from an album, co-released with composer and percussionist Adam Rudolph, with new compositions and recordings by Dr. Lateef. The phrase invokes an essence of his seven-decades long meditation on sonic dimensions and their broader social significances, which he practiced across macro and micro planes, moving always and ever, Towards the Unknown.

White Columns would like to thank Alhena Katsof for introducing us to Yusef Lateef’s extraordinary drawings.

For more information contact: info@whitecolumns.org

Exhibition Checklist

Exhibition Poster

Related Press

Event

AUTOPHYSIOPSYCHIC’- A MUSICAL INVOCATION IN RESONANCE WITH YUSEF LATEEF’S ARTWORKS

Adam Rudolph with Alex Marcelo, Batya Sobel and Matt Waugh performing Yusef Lateef’s drawings, graphic scores and poetry.

December 16th, 2014

White Columns
320 West 13th Street
New York, NY

Five framed works on paper are hung on a white wall. The color palette of the works is primarily washed out tones of blue, green, orange, and gray.
Three framed works on paper are hung on a white wall. The dimensions of each work increase from left to right, and all have central compositions of colorful, tangled lines and forms that are surrounded by blank space.
Two adjacent white walls display six framed works on paper, three on each wall. There is a vitrine in the center of the room containing records, books, and other materials.
A frontal view of an abstract, textured work with distinct, short lines that are organized to convey a sense of dynamic motion. The colors used for the perimeter alternate between a soft lilac, orange, and blue, and there are forms in orange, blue, and pale green in the center of the composition.
A composition of three abstract structures surrounded by white space, one on the left, another on the right, and one extending along the bottom. They are composed of different lattice-like patterns with some color-filled segments.
A distinct ground and sky divide the composition in half. The segments are filled with slanted ovals in various shades of gray. In the center stands a jagged, barren, tree-like form with yellow swirling roots and a written line of Arabic below.

Yusef Lateef, installation view, 2014 (Five framed works on paper are hung on a white wall. The color palette of the works is primarily washed out tones of blue, green, orange, and gray.)

Yusef Lateef, installation view, 2014 (Three framed works on paper are hung on a white wall. The dimensions of each work increase from left to right, and all have central compositions of colorful, tangled lines and forms surrounded by blank space.)

Yusef Lateef, installation view, 2014 (Two adjacent white walls display six framed works on paper, three on each wall. There is a vitrine in the center of the room containing records, books, and other materials.)

Yusef Lateef, Untitled, N.D., watercolor, pen, ink, marker and pastel on paper, 22 × 30 in. (A frontal view of an abstract, textured work with distinct, short lines that are organized to convey a sense of dynamic motion. The colors used for the perimeter alternate between a soft lilac, orange, and blue, and there are forms in orange, blue, and pale green in the center of the composition.)

Yusef Lateef, Elsewhere Plants, N.D., watercolor, pen, and marker on paper, 14 × 16 in. (A composition of three abstract structures surrounded by white space, one on the left, another on the right, and one extending along the bottom. They are composed of different lattice-like patterns with some color-filled segments.)

Yusef Lateef, Untitled, N.D., watercolor, pen, and pencil on paper, 14 × 17 in. (A distinct ground and sky divide the composition in half. The segments are filled with slanted ovals in various shades of gray. In the center stands a jagged, barren, tree-like form with yellow swirling roots and a written line of Arabic below.)