Glenn Ligon
| Glenn Ligon | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1960 Bronx, NewYork |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Conceptual Art |
| Training | Wesleyan University |
Glenn Ligon is an American conceptual artist whose work explores race, language, desire, sexuality, and identity.[1] He engages in intertextuality with other works from the visual arts, literature, and history, as well as his own life.
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[edit] Early life and career
Born in 1960 in the Bronx, Ligon graduated with a B.A. from Wesleyan University. In 1985, he participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program.[2] He currently lives and works in New York City.[3]
[edit] Work
Ligon works in multiple media, including painting, neon, video, photography, and digital media such as Adobe Flash for his work Annotations. Ligon's work is greatly informed by his experiences as an African American and as a gay man[4] living in the United States.
Although Ligon's work spans sculptures, prints, drawings, mixed media and even neon signs, painting remains a core activity. In 1989, he mounted his first solo show, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," in Brooklyn.[5] This show established Ligon's reputation for creating large, text-based paintings in which a phrase chosen from literature or other sources is repeated over and over, eventually dissipating into murk.
Ligon first gained prominence in the early 1990s along with a generation of artists like Lorna Simpson, Gary Simmons, and Janine Antoni.[6] In 1993, Ligon began the first of three series of gold-colored paintings based on Richard Pryor's groundbreaking stand-up comedy routines from the 1970s. The scatological and racially charged jokes Ligon depicts speak in the vernacular language of the street and reveal a complex and nuanced vision of black culture.[7] In 1994, the art installation To Disembark was shown at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. The title alludes to the title of a book of poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks. "To Disembark" functions in both works to evoke the recognition that African Americans are still coping with the remnants of slavery and its ongoing manifestation in racism.[8] In one part of the installation, Ligon created a series of packing crates modeled on the one described by ex-slave Henry "Box" Brown in his "Narrative of Henry Box Brown who escaped from Slavery Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide." Each crate played a different sound, such as a heartbeat, a spiritual, or contemporary rap music. Around each box, the artist placed posters in which he characterized himself, in words and period images, as a runaway slave in the style of 19th century broadsheets circulated to advertise for the return of fugitive slaves.[9] In another part of the exhibition, Ligon stenciled four quotes from a Zora Neale Hurston essay, "how it feels to be colored me," directly on the walls: "I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background," "I remember the very day that I became colored," "I am not tragically colored," and "I do not always feel colored." Ligon found Hurston's writing illuminating because she explores the idea of race as a concept that is structured by context rather than essence.[10]
In "A Feast of Scraps" (1994–1998), he inserted pornographic and stereotypical photographs of black men, complete with invented captions ("mother knew," "I fell out" "It's a process") into albums of family snapshots including graduation photographs, vacation snapshots, pictures of baby showers, birthday celebrations, and baptisms, some of which include the artist's own family. Like almost all of Ligon's art, this project draws out the secret histories and submerged meanings of inherited texts and images.[11]
Another series of large paintings was based on children's interpretations of 1970s black-history coloring books. In 2008, Ligon's piece "Warm Broad Glow" was selected to participate in the Renaissance Society's group exhibit, "Black Is, Black Ain't".[12]
[edit] Exhibitions
Ligon's work has been the subject of exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. Recent solo exhibition include the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2001); the Kunstverein München, Germany (2001), the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2000); the St. Louis Art Museum (2000); the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (1998); and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1996).[13] A first survey of Ligon's work opened at The Power Plant in Toronto in June 2005 and traveled to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston; Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver, and the Mudam in Luxembourg. The first comprehensive mid-career retrospective devoted to Ligon's work was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2011.[14] Group shows in which Ligon has participated include the Whitney Biennial (1991 and 1993), Biennale of Sydney (1996), Venice Biennale (1997), Kwangju Biennale (2000), and Documenta 11 (2002).[15]
Glenn Ligon is represented by Regen Projects, Los Angeles[16] in Los Angeles; Luhring Augustine in New York; and Thomas Dane Gallery in London.[17]
[edit] Collections
Ligon's work is represented in many public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Tate Modern, London; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
[edit] Recognition
In 2005, Ligon won an Alphonse Fletcher Foundation Fellowship for his art work. In 2006 he was awarded the Skowhegan Medal for Painting. In 2010, he won a United States Artists Fellow award.[18]
In 2009, President Barack Obama added Ligon's 1992 Black Like Me No. 2, on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, to the White House collection, where it was installed in the President's private living quarters.[19]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Meyer, Richard. "Glenn Ligon." Gay Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, Volume 2. Edited by George E. Haggerty. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000.
- ^ Glenn Ligon Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York.
- ^ Glenn Ligon Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica.
- ^ "The Inside Story on Outsiderness" The New York Times February 24, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/arts/design/27ligon.html?pagewanted=all Downloaded November 28, 2011
- ^ Meyer, Richard. "Glenn Ligon." Gay Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, Volume 2. Edited by George E. Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmerman. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000.
- ^ Carol Vogel (February 24, 2011), The Inside Story on Outsiderness New York Times.
- ^ Glenn Ligon, October 27 – December 8, 2007 Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
- ^ Kimberly Connor . Imagining Grace: Liberating Theologies in the Slave Narrative Tradition. University of Illinois Press, 2000.
- ^ Kimberly Connor . Imagining Grace: Liberating Theologies in the Slave Narrative Tradition. University of Illinois Press, 2000.
- ^ Kimberly Connor . Imagining Grace: Liberating Theologies in the Slave Narrative Tradition. University of Illinois Press, 2000.
- ^ Meyer, Richard. "Glenn Ligon." Gay Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, Volume 2. Edited by George E. Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmerman. New York: Garland Publishing, 2000.
- ^ The Renaissance Society
- ^ Glenn Ligon: Off Book, December 12, 2009 – January 23, 2010 Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
- ^ http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/GlennLigon
- ^ Glenn Ligon Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York.
- ^ Regen Projects
- ^ [1]
- ^ United States Artists Official Website
- ^ Carol Vogel (February 24, 2011), The Inside Story on Outsiderness New York Times.
