Glenn Ligon
American, 1960
Ligon has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature and society across a body of work that builds critically on the legacies of modern painting and, more recently, conceptual art. Throughout his career, he has been best known for his landmark series of highly textured text-based paintings, which draw on the writings and speech of diverse figures. In addition to paintings, Ligon’s practice also encompasses neon, photography, sculpture, print, installation and video. Ligon lives and works in New York. He received a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1982 and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program in 1985. A mid-career retrospective of Ligon’s work, Glenn Ligon: America, organized by Scott Rothkopf, opened at the Whitney Museum in March 2011 and traveled nationally. Ligon has also been the subject of solo museum exhibitions at Camden Arts Centre in London, The Power Plant in Toronto, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York City, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, and the Kunstverein Munich.
“There’s a kind of slowness and inefficiency about rendering text in paint. We’re in a world that’s very fast, so things that slow you down for a minute — give you pause — are good.”
Photo © Paul Sepuya
