LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Glenn Ligon

23 Oct 2011 - 22 Jan 2012

© Glenn Ligon
Malcolm X (Version 1) #1, 2000
Vinyl-based paint, silkscreen ink, and gesso on canvas
96 x 72 in. (243.8 x 182.9 cm).
Collection of Michael and Lise Evans.
Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
GLENN LIGON
AMERICA
23 October, 2011 – 22 January, 2012

Glenn Ligon: AMERICA is the first mid-career retrospective of Ligon’s work in the United States. The exhibition includes unknown early material and the reconstruction of seminal bodies of work such as the Door paintings, the coal dust Stranger canvases and the Coloring series. In addition, the retrospective will include the premiere of Ligon’s first multi-channel film installation: a work in progress examining Ralph Ellison’s writing of Invisible Man with a score by the noted jazz musician Jason Moran.

Ligon was born in the Bronx in 1960 and continues to live and work in New York. He received a BA from Wesleyan University in 1982 and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program in 1985. He has worked in a variety of media, including painting, neon, installation, video and print. In the late 80s and early 90s, Ligon became known for work that explores race, sexuality, representation and language. Ligon’s Notes on the Margin of the Black Book addressed his complicated relationship as a black gay man to the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and shortly thereafter he created the iconic black and white text-based paintings that referenced the writings of noted African American authors James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston.
 

Tags: Glenn Ligon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jason Moran