Ram Vishwanathan Photo
Aili Maimaiti at work outside Brick Oven Pizza.
Dot by dot — by tens of thousands of dots — a public portrait of the late boxing champion Muhammad Ali is coming into focus at the corner of Howe and Elm, at the hand of a warehouse worker looking to take the art world by storm.
The artist, Aili Maimaiti, was at that corner as dusk fell on Wednesday, working on a public mural of the boxer to adorn a side exterior wall of the popular Brick Oven Pizza restaurant.
As he worked, Maimaiti recalled that as he searched for his name online as a child, Muhammad Ali would show up instead.
So, in high school, he decided to take on the name “Red Boots Ali.”
“There’s only one ‘Red Boots Ali,’” he explained, his arms waving with enthusiasm.
The mural on the side wall of Brick Oven Pizza.
Maimaiti’s painting technique involves combining over 33,000 dots across a 36-by-14-foot white wall with the help of a projector.
The task combines huge amounts of precision and intricacy. Maimaiti, who is 31 years old, has been working on the mural since Monday for over 15 hours a day. He estimated that it will take him another three to four weeks to complete the job.
Maimaiti, who immigrated to the U.S. from China, works at an Amazon warehouse in New York from Thursday to Sunday. He plans to return to New Haven on Monday through Thursday in coming weeks to finish the job.
Maimaiti and Catalbasoglu.
Kadir Catalbasoglu, the owner of the Brick Oven Pizza, made the wall available for the mural. He is also covering the tab for the artist’s materials and hotel stays.
Catalbasoglu said that his own motivation for commissioning the mural came from a desire to bring more art to the Dwight neighborhood.
Catalbasoglu spoke about his love for art, which extends to baking pizzas. “He is an artist. I am an artist too, but in different divisions. We just combined our visions,” Catalbasoglu said. “Every pizza to me is a work of art. My wood-burning oven burning … every second of that fire is a different art.”
Catalbasoglu originally contacted other artists about painting a mural on the exterior wall, but didn’t seal a deal. Meanwhile, Maimaiti had painted a mural — his first in the United States — for another Turkish-owned restaurant, Saray Turkish Restaurant in West Haven. Maimaiti and Catalbasoglu were introduced, and they quickly converged on the idea of painting a mural of Muhammad Ali.
Muhammad Ali has carried a special significance for Catalbasoglu since his his childhood in Turkey “He was my idol. And I just wanted to make him live on my wall,” he said.
“I am a huge fan of Muhammad Ali,” concurred Maimaiti. “He’s one of a kind. I wanted to do something memorable, like a monument.”
Maimaiti, who comes from the Uighur community in northwestern China, said he finds inspiration in Ali’s aura of powerful, upstanding defiance. In a conversation, Maimaiti was adamant in refusing to be circumscribed into easy political categories. Above all, he said, he does not want to be seen as a victim — something he laments Uighurs are commonly reduced to. He does not want to talk about politics.
By creating a gap between art and politics, Maimaiti said, he believes that he can better touch the foundation of the human spirit.
“Art can heal people,” he said. “I don’t know if politics can.”
Maimaiti learned the style he is using for this mural at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, where he presented his graduation exhibition. Maimaiti has been dreaming of making his mark as an artist ever since. “I want to be the number-one artist in the United States,” he declared.
His work is not traditional, Maimaiti said, but consciously modern, and intertwined with technology. Maimaiti located himself as part of a trajectory of art history that overlaps with entertainment — and that includes Mohammad Ali himself. He said his emerging mural is not meant to be frustratingly confusing, as many paintings in museums are, but rather something everyone can enjoy and understand.
“Everyone has their own way of promoting their community,” Maimaiti continued. “I want to promote my own name. If someone looks me up and sees my name, and decides to learn about my community, then great. But I don’t want to represent my community by complaining and blaming. Michael Jordan and Mohammad Ali inspired black people — and when someone sees Michael Jordan, do they think about racism?” he said, explaining what for him constitutes a mimetic process between the artist and his figure on the mural.
“I am victory, not the victim,” he said, explaining his frustration with the way in which observers often expected him to act in particular ways that conformed to their expectations. “I don’t want to be a victim. I don’t want to be up for reasons of pity, or because I am part of a community. I want to be myself, and this is me. This is a masterpiece!” Maimaiti exclaimed, pointing to the mural and explaining the precision required to produce it. “It took me seven hours to set up the projector. This challenges me physically and emotionally.”
“Trust me, I could talk about politics all day,” Maimaiti continued. “It’s not easy to lose your family. It’s horrible, what happened to me. But this is not the time. It will not affect the world in a good way, it will not inspire.”
Maimaiti said that media coverage of his community’s plight in China has often been counterproductive, producing images and narratives of torture, police custody and concentration camps that reduce his community to a pitiable slogan that is soon forgotten. “There are just nightmares. You don’t see anything that inspires you. It destroys your soul, and makes people very sad.” he explained. “We need to find a unique way to inspire the people and promote the Uighurs — and not just the Uighurs, but black people too, and even Chinese people,” he said, motioning again to the partially-complete mural.
Maimaiti plans to return the corner of Elm and Howe next Monday, ready to continue work on his mural. When he finishes, he hopes that it will achieve exactly what he has set out to do — celebrate Muhammad Ali, himself, and the human spirit more broadly. “It takes intelligence, strength and wisdom to celebrate life,” he reflected. “If you talk about this, people here feel joy.”
Muhammad Ali refused to kill people he had never met and had no issue with. Refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam War was off the charts controversial when he declared he wouldn't serve.
Now we pour unlimited resources into the military and wars. No one in the establishment questions our savage policies.
Ali was a truth teller and the government tried to jail him for that.
For that alone, he is worth remembering.
I hope the Uighurs survive.