Y. Malik Jalal

March is pleased to present Break Neck Speeds, Y. Malik Jalal’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Rooted in the aesthetics of interstate highways––which he refers to as “arguably the greatest stage and metaphor of the modern drama”––Jalal surveys a wide range of phenomena through the lenses of acceleration and impact. Echoing traces of labor left upon this familiar landscape, Break Neck Speeds considers the roles of materiality and absence. The artist intervenes in the trajectories of found objects with freshly-fused steel: photographs are carefully cropped and encased in sleek frames, collaged print relics are positioned in silvery mounts, pages gilded and obscured. In mediating these material relationships and histories, Jalal proposes collision as the ultimate generator, and horror as essential to fantasy.

"A distinct characteristic of modern geography is the abject space of interstate highways. They’re familiar to us, integral to our daily lives … but uninhabitable and entirely devoted to capital, production, and warfare."

—Y. Malik Jalal

Y. Malik Jalal lives and works between New Haven, Connecticut and Atlanta, Georgia. He earned his MFA from Yale University in 2024 and his BA from Oglethorpe University in 2016. Previous solo exhibitions include Bent at March (New York, NY), Of Joy and Terror at the Coleman Art Center (York, AL), Altars to the Liver at Institute 193 (Lexington, KY), and A Study of the Supernatural Phenomena of Emergence at the Alabama Contemporary Art Center (Mobile, AL). He has exhibited in group shows at April in Paris (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Murmurs (Los Angeles, CA), Yossi Milo (New York, NY), et al. (San Francisco, CA), Hi-Lo Press (Atlanta, GA), and the Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA), among others. Jalal has curated group exhibitions at The Hi-Lo Press and the High Rise Exhibition. His zine, A Brief History of the World Vol. 1, was released exclusively at For Keeps Books in 2020.