Glenn Ligon

Glenn Ligon is an American conceptual artist whose work delves into issues of race, identity, language, and sexuality. Ligon is known for his text-based paintings, photographs and installations that challenge viewers to confront societal norms and historical narratives.

Bron in 1960 in the Bronx, New York, Ligon attended the Wesleyan University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1982. He further honed his craft at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York.

Ligon began his career with a strong interest in Abstract Expressionism, drawing on the energy and immediacy of artists such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. This influence can be seen in the way Ligon approaches text paintings in their composition and evidence of the artist’s process. Ligon goes further to complicate and confound with the use of text and his characteristic stencil, rending the text difficult to be deciphered.

Andy Warhol was also a formative influence for Ligon, who first saw Warhol’s work on a high school trip to Soho, New York. The Pop artist’s use of colour later inspired Ligon’s 2000 series Colouring where he asked schoolchildren to colour a set of images Ligon found in Afrocentric colouring books from the 1970s while he was in residence at the Walker Art Centre. Ligon silkscreens the colouring book’s image onto a canvas and used the children’s interpretations as his guide for colouring his painted versions. Colouring is both a double entendre to refer to the act of colouring in the colouring books and a commentary on race and how one’s perceptions of another are altered by colour.

Ligon’s exploration of colour and racial identity is notably presented in exhibition Blue Black (2017) at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation curated by the artist. The show, inspired by Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Black (2000), highlighted Ligon’s curatorial approach and his intellectual engagement with art history, Black identity and American culture.

Today, Glenn Ligon’s art continues to be celebrated for its intellectual rigor and emotional impact. His works were featured at Documenta in 2002, the Whitney Biennial in 1991 and the Venice Biennale in 1997 and 2015. Through his innovative use of text, colour and historical references, Ligon has established himself as a critical voice in contemporary art.