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.

Professional Experience

Film Director and Artist

Founder & Principal, Texarkana
2020–present

Co-founder & CEO, Hood By Air
2010–2018

Visiting Artist

2025 — Columbia University (MFA Art) visiting artist, studio visits

2025 — Yale University (MFA Art) visiting artist

2025 — Rikers Island Jail Library Program (NYPL) artist talk + workshop

2023 — Bard MFA visiting artist

2019 — UCLA Graduate Art
visiting artist, studio visits

2018 — Southern Methodist University — Meadows School of the Arts visiting artist

Select Bibliography & Press

2025 — 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 — Interview Magazine
“Kiernan ‘Knives’ Francis and Leilah Weinraub on Innuendo, Belonging, and the New York Dream”

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 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,” 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 Interviews

2019 — DIS.art
Shakedown: Director’s Commentary

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, Frankfurt
MMK Talks (YouTube)

Solo Exhibitions

2018 — Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Harlem, New York, NY

2018 — What Pipeline, Detroit, MI

Group Exhibitions

2025 — Made in L.A. 2025, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA

2023 — São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil

2021 — Moving Image Biennial, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva, Switzerland

2021 — LEAN, Kunsthall Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway

2021 — LEAN, Performa, New York, NY

2019 — RE:WORKING* LABOR***, Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute of 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)

2025 — BlackStar Film Festival
Nominee, Best Short Narrative (Seek No Favor)

2024 — New Theater Hollywood, Los Angeles
Artist-in-Residence

2019 — Cinereach
Post-Production Grant (Shakedown)

2019 — Sundance Institute
Art of Nonfiction Fellow

2018 — Indie Memphis Film Festival
Best Documentary Feature (Shakedown)

2018 — Outfest
Special Programming Committee Award (Shakedown)

2018 — Images Festival, Toronto
Can’t Get You Out of My Head Award (Shakedown)

2018 — Berlinale
Nominee, Teddy Award / Best Documentary Film (Shakedown)

2015 — CFDA Fashion Awards
Swarovski Award for Menswear (Hood By Air)

2014 — LVMH Prize
Special Jury Prize (Hood By Air)

2014 — Frameline Completion Fund
Completion Award (Shakedown)

Film Independent — Project Involve Fellow

Wexner Center for the Arts
Artist Residency

Jury Service

2023 — Athens International Film + Video Festival
Jury Member, 50th Festival Edition

Education

Bard College — Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

Antioch College — Media and Social Change
Yellow Springs, OH

Last Updated November 2025

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.