LEILAH WEINRAUB PORTFOLIO
Director & Artist
Based in Los Angeles & New York
NEWS
• Los Angeles Times [link]
• Made in L.A. 2025, Hammer Museum [link]
ABOUT →
WORK →
CV →
CONTACT →
lw@leilahweinraub.com
@leilahworld
Leilah Weinraub is a director whose films and video works have been presented at the Whitney Biennial, Hammer Museum, MoMA PS1, Tate Modern, the São Paulo Biennial, and the Berlinale. Her practice spans feature documentary, short-form experimental cinema, and multi-channel video installation, often extending onto screens, stages, and public space.
Available for visiting-artist appointments, seminars and conversations.
CV
Professional ExperienceFilm Director and Artist
Founder & Principal, Texarkana
2020–present
Co-founder; CEO, Hood By Air
2010–2018
Visiting Artist2025 — Columbia University (MFA Art) Visiting Artist, Studio visit.
2025 — Yale University (MFA Art) Visiting Artist
2025 — Rikers Island Jail Library Program (NYPL)
Artist talk + workshop
Select Bibliography & Press2025 — Los Angeles Times
“With The Kids, Leilah Weinraub Creates Performances for the Future,” by Fariha Róisín (October 16, 2025)
2025 — Made in L.A. 2025 Catalogue, Hammer Museum.
“A Nonviolent Choice,” essay by Terence Nance; curated by Essence Harden and Paulina Pobocha, p. 295.
2024 — “Kiernan ‘Knives’ Francis and Leilah Weinraub on Innuendo, Belonging, and the New York Dream”, Interview Magazine.
2022 — BUTT Magazine
“Laid Back and Getting Laid in LA,” by Michael Holt.
Issue 31, Autumn 2022, p. 12.
2021 — Marfa Journal
“Ottessa Moshfegh in Conversation with Leilah Weinraub.”
Photographs by Rachel Chandler; Styling by Malina Joseph Gilchrist.
2021 — i-D Magazine
“The Former CEO of Hood By Air on How the Brand Ended Fashion,” by Atheel Elmalik.
The Darker Issue, Winter 2021.
2021 — May Revue
“On the Film Shakedown by Leilah Weinraub,” by Juliana Huxtable.
2020 — TIME Magazine
“Black Cinema: 25 Essential Movies,” by Cady Lang (September 3, 2020).
2020 — Black Futures
“Mother of the House,” by Thomas J. Lax.
In Black Futures, edited by Kimberly Drew & Jenna Wortham.
2020 — IndieWire
“‘Shakedown’ Is the Lesbian Strip Club Doc Good Enough That It’ll Be on Both Pornhub and Criterion,” by Jude Dry (March 3, 2020).
2020 — Variety
“‘Shakedown’: Film Review,” by Jessica Kiang (June 4, 2020).
2020 — Film Comment
“News to Me: Max von Sydow, Leilah Weinraub, and Kelly Reichardt,” by James Wham (March 9, 2020).
2020 — Vanity Fair
“Shakedown Is a Must-See Documentary Now Streaming on Pornhub,” by K. Austin Collins (March 16, 2020).)
2020 — The New York Times
“Leilah Weinraub’s Radical Crossover,” by Melena Ryzik (April 3, 2020).
2018 — The New Yorker
“Leilah Weinraub’s Radical Cinema of Privacy in Shakedown,” by Cassie da Costa (March 16, 2018).
2018 — Dazed
“Shakedown: LA Confidential,” by Hannah Black (June 28, 2018).
2018 — Cultured Magazine
“Both/And: The Brilliance of Multi-Hyphenate Leilah Weinraub,” by Rindon Johnson (December 11, 2018).
2016 — The New Yorker
“Hood By Air’s Radically Aggressive Streetwear,” by Christopher Glazek (August 29, 2016).
2014 — The New York Times
“Hood By Air’s Collective Fashions,” by Jonah Weiner (September 12, 2014).
Select Video Interviews2019 —
Shakedown: Director’s Commentary — DIS.art
2019 — University of California Television (UCTV)
Shakedown — Interview with Leilah Weinraub
Interviewer: Mireille Miller-Young
2018 — Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Shakedown Q&A — YouTube
2017 — Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst
MMK Talks — YouTube
Solo Exhibitions2018 – Gavin Brown’s Enterprise Harlem, New York, NY
2018 – What Pipeline, Detroit
Group Exhibitions
2025 Made in L.A. 2025, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2023 São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil
2021 Moving Image Biennial, Center for Contemporary Art, Geneva, Switzerland
2021 LEAN, Kunsthall Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway
2021 LEAN, Performa, New York, NY
2019 RE*:WORKING** LABOR*, School of the Art Institute Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL
2018 Putting Out, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, NY
2017 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Awards, Grants and Residencies
2025 NewFest, Emerging Black LGBTQ+ Filmmaker Award (Seek No Favor)
2019 Sundance Institute, Art of Nonfiction Fellow
2018 Indie Memphis, Best Documentary Feature (Shakedown)
2018 Outfest, Special Programming Committee Award (Shakedown)
2018 Berlinale, Nominee, Teddy Award / Best Documentary Film (Shakedown)
2015 CFDA, Swarovski Award for Menswear (Hood By Air)
2014 LVMH Prize, Special Jury Prize (Hood By Air)
Frameline Completion Award (Shakedown)
Film Independent, Project Involve Fellow
Wexner Center for the Arts, Artist Residency
Education
Bard - Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Antioch College - Media and Social Change, Yellow Springs, OH
Last Updated 25.11.20
SELECTED WORK
1. THE KIDS (2025)
Performance
THE KIDS is a play by Leilah Weinraub, commissioned for Made in L.A. 2025 at the Hammer Museum. The story centers on four caryatid characters—Junior, Metal Mouth, Baby, and Mark—seen through the perspective of the narrator TITS, who observes them over a 27-day period from her apartment.
The play premiered at New Theater Hollywood in October 2025.
Video documentation available upon request.
Download Playbill
2. THE KIDS (2025)
Installation
A four-screen video work presented with four drawings, each relating to one of the caryatid characters—Junior, Metal Mouth, Baby, and Mark. The installation uses the visual language of advertising displays, treating ads as contemporary poems and logos as modern sigils that structure the world of The Kids. The video operates as a standalone poem about the four characters and the world they inhabit, while the drawings outline the development and structure of each character, shaped in dialogue with generative animation prompts used to explore and expand each character’s form.
Billboard
A single billboard presented in the form of an advertisement that marks the three-day, four-performance run of the play.
Commissioned by the Hammer Museum for Made in L.A. 2025.
Animations and fabrication developed in collaboration with artist Nicolau Vergueiro.
3. SEEK NO FAVOR (2025)
Short film
Co-directed by Leilah Weinraub and Elle Clay.
Written by Elle Clay.
Produced by Gilga, Texarkana, and Gummy.
Shot on 16mm in Brooklyn, Seek No Favor approaches the vigilante figure as a genre experiment—anxious, comedic, and slightly unreal. The film explores the space between parody and sincerity, examining how humor, melancholy, and stylized performance collide when a character like this is placed inside a Hollywood frame.
Runtime: 13 minutes.
Available upon request.
4. SHAKEDOWN (2018)
Feature documentary
Directed by Leilah Weinraub
Edited by Matt Hollis
SHAKEDOWN is a feature-length documentary filmed between 2002–2015 that chronicles the underground Black lesbian strip club scene in Los Angeles. Built around the weekly party “Shakedown,” the film follows its founder, creator, and dancers through an intimate portrait of nightlife, desire, labor, chosen family, and autonomy.
Runtime: 71 minutes.
World Premiere: 68th Berlin International Film Festival, Panorama Section (2018)
Selected Screenings: Whitney Biennial; MoMA PS1; Tate Modern; True/False Film Festival; Outfest; international festivals and museums.
Release: 2020 streaming release on Pornhub.com/ART and the Criterion Channel’s Tell Me: Women Filmmakers, Women’s Stories, DIS, and others.
Distribution: Grasshopper Film, The Film Collaborative.
Viewable link
5. HOOD BY AIR (2010–2018)
Fashion label and cultural project
Co-founder; CEO; creative and strategic direction: Leilah Weinraub
Co-founded with Shayne Oliver
Hood By Air emerged in New York as a fashion label and performance project. As a founding figure, Leilah Weinraub shaped the brand’s creative and strategic identity—directing runway shows and fashion films, overseeing brand communications, building production systems, and developing the visual and performative framework that propelled HBA to international recognition.
Role: CEO; creative and strategic direction; runway direction; filmmaker; producer.
Work: Advertising and editorial campaigns; fashion films; runway production; brand systems and strategy; collection development; global show production; business development and strategic growth; performance documentation.
Presentations: New York Fashion Week; Pitti Uomo; MoMA; international runways and performance contexts.
Legacy: A defining influence on 21st-century fashion, reshaping ideas of luxury, performance, nightlife, and identity.