"Shades of Blue: Alia Ali’s INDIGO - Vision and Opacity” in alia ali . . . one of many
Published by Hatje Cantz, 2025
An essay originally written for Alia Ali: Flux (Galerie Peter Sillem, 2021) is re-printed for the artist’s major monograph published by Hatje Cantz. Rather than a monograph, a drawing of one, Alia Ali presents with this book a multi-graph, a drawing of many. Ali deconstructs artificial binaries to examine inherited political narratives—diaspora, identity, borders—through the lens of photography, language, textile, and architectural installations. A map of patterns emerges, interwoven with artist statements, research images, exchanges with collaborators, and fragments of her journals. Words and images draw us simultaneously into the micro musings of the artist’s mind and zoom out to a macro reflection of the global and communal nature of the artist’s practice. Ali’s multi-graph is a textural experience in which each page is folded upon itself, leaving one wondering at what is invisible in plain sight.
This extraordinary book also impresses with its special form of Japanese binding.
Contributions by Alia Ali, Allison Young, and Zan Zeller.
ISBN: 978-3-7757-5945-8
More information here.
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