Reconciling the American Understanding of Race: Works by Glenn Ligon
Glenn Ligon, Rückenfigur, 2009.
Over the past few months we’ve been staring at the walls of our rooms, our minds churning, as we’ve been stuck. This is a situation where most information came to us through text and sound. Sitting in the familiar surroundings of our homes, while outside everything has been and is changing so rapidly, the reality that weighs the heaviest is often the textual.
Works by American artist Glenn Ligon (born in 1960 in the Bronx, New York) are good to bring to the attention, especially in this day and age. The works are simple at first glance. Three words in neon light, criss-crossed throughout the space. Bruise. Blood. Blues. Black letters against a white background. I Am A Man. Using typography, light and colour on a simple plain wall, they address a stream of subjects such as race relations, sexuality, and identity research, and are strongly shaped by Ligon’s identity as a gay, black man. The aesthetics of the text don’t only bring out the poetic quality of the work, but also challenge and examine the aesthetic preconceptions of the viewer.
Untitled (I Am a Man), 1988
Ligon's textual works make use of the identities of different typographies, which confront the viewer with social issues and issues of identity and politics in a way that is unorthodox at first sight, thus blowing away the usual grip under the viewer’s feet. It is the unusual combination of imagery versus text that is the viewer’s challenge, realised through only a number of words. Isn't that comparable to the way many people today stare at the wall, and the wall speaks to us with the voice of our own thoughts? It is silent, and at the same time, a few simple neon letters form a powerful monologue.
Installation view of "Blue Black," Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 2017 Photograph ©Alise O’Brien Photography
Ligon’s work was included in Wolfgang Tillmans' 2020Solidarity; a project by Between Bridges that ran from the 9th of April until the 10th of August. Over fifty international artists designed posters and offered them on different crowdfunding sites as a reward for donations helping cultural and music venues, community projects, independent spaces and publications that are existentially threatened by the current crisis.
2020Solidarity: Between Bridges, Glen Ligon
Written by Christine Bax.
