Untitled (speech/crowd)

By: Glenn Ligon , June 5, 2011

Medium: Photography, by using silkscreen, coal dust, oil stick, and glue on paper


Glenn Ligon is a famous Artist best known for his work that explores race, language, desire, sexuality, and identity which he has been bring to the public eye sense 1993 (2017). This particular artwork was featured in the exhibition, “America.” in 2011 As told by the Whitney Museum of American Art: "AMERICA is the first comprehensive mid-career retrospective devoted to this pioneering New York–based artist. Throughout his career, Ligon (b. 1960) 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 recent conceptual art. He is best known for his landmark series of text-based paintings, made since the late 1980s, which draw on the writings and speech of diverse figures including Jean Genet, Zora Neale Hurston, Jesse Jackson, and Richard Pryor. Ligon’s subject matter ranges widely from the Million Man March and the aftermath of slavery to 1970s coloring books and the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe—all treated within artworks that are both politically provocative and beautiful to behold" (whitney.org).

This artwork, functions extremely well in the context of the book. In the previous chapter, the author discusses a stop-and-frisk situation, which is about a black/African-American man who is stopped by law enforcement and due to the color of his skin, he is booked for speeding, fingerprinted, undressed, and then is sent home (Rankine 109). The artwork on the next page by Glenn Ligon is a photograph taken from coverage of the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C. (Schroeder, Ivy), that Ligon then creates an appearance of a ink pad used for fingerprinting over it due to the black/darken areas and appear to have a bumpy-like texture. Also, with the black/African-American men in the background of the image, it fits with the text of “And still you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description” (Rankine 109). The author’s message portrayed here is that due to the color of a person’s dark skin, they will always be the one who is fitting the description of “trouble” to be booked and fingerprinted no matter what the reason.


Links:

* http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/GlennLigon/#mmi_43931

* http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/glenn-ligon

Video Clips:

Resources:

  • "Glenn Ligon." Glenn Ligon - Artists - Luhring Augustine. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2017.
  • "Glenn Ligon." Glenn Ligon - Artists - Regen Projects. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.
  • Schroeder, Ivy. "Currents 81: Glenn Ligon." Riverfront Times. Riverfront Times, 09 Feb. 2017. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.




~ Research by: Mads Miles and Samara Lyons