Glenn Ligon : America

by Scott Rothkopf; Foreword by Adam D. Weinberg; With essays by Hilton Als, Okwui E

• ISBN13: 9780300168471
• ISBN10: 0300168470
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2011-04-26
• Publisher: The Whitney Museum of American Art

Summary

American artist Glenn Ligon (b. 1960) is best known for his landmark body of text-based paintings, made since the late 1980s, which appropriate the writings of African-American authors such as James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston. In subsequent bodies of work, Ligon has dealt with a wide range of material, including images and slogans related to early civil rights demonstrations and the Million Man March, as well as runaway slave notices, Richard Pryor jokes, and 1970s coloring books targeted at African-American children. Glenn Ligon: AMERICA, created in close collaboration with the artist, is the first in-depth presentation of his art, including paintings, photography, sculptural installations, prints, and drawings. Essays by high-profile contributors explore Ligon's working methods and related topics such as literature and democracy, slave narratives, music, comedy, race, and sexuality, all of which situate the artist within a broader cultural context and greatly advance the understanding and renown of this pioneering American artist.

Author Biography

Scott Rothkopf is curator and Adam D. Weinberg is Alice Pratt Brown Director, both at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Hilton Als is a staff writer for the New Yorker. Okwui Enwezor was dean of the San Francisco Art Institute. Thelma Golden is director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Saidiya Hartman is a professor at Columbia University. Bennett Simpson is associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Franklin Sirmans is curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.