Glenn Ligon

An illustrated examination of Glenn Ligon's iconic Untitled (I Am a Man) (1988)—a quotation, an appropriated text turned into an artifact. The iconic work Untitled (I Am a Man) (1988) by the important contemporary American artist Glenn Ligon is a quotation, an appropriated text turned into an artifact. The National Gallery of Art in Washington presents the work as a “representation—a signifier—of the actual signs carried by 1,300 striking African American sanitation workers in Memphis, made famous by Ernest Withers' 1968 photographs.” In this illustrated study of the work, Gregg Bordowitz takes the National Gallery's presentation as his starting point, considering the museum's juxtaposition of Untitled (I Am a Man) and the ca. 1935 sculpture, Schoolteacher, by William Edmondson, and the relation of the two terms, “markers” and “signs.” After closely examining the canvas itself, its textures, brushwork, and structure, Bordowitz presents a theoretical framework that draws on the work of American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and his theory of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. He makes a case for Thirdness as a function, operation, or law of meaning-making, not limited by the gender, age, ethnicity, race, class, or personal history of the viewer. Bordowitz goes on to examine Ligon's work in terms of the representation of self, race, and gender, focusing on three series: Profile Series (1990–91), Narratives, and Runaways (both 1993). He cites such historical figures as Sojourner Truth and her famous 1851 speech, “Ain't I a Woman?” as well as influences ranging from Bo Diddley's 1955 song, “I'm a Man” to the cultural theories of Stuart Hall.

Published on the occasion of an exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Mar. 10-June 5, 2011, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Calif. Oct. 23, 2011-Jan. 22, 2012 and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Tex. Feb.-May 2012.

An astonishing photographic study of black men today from the acclaimed portrait photographer.

Text by Darby English, Wayne Baerwaldt, Huey Copeland, Mark Nash, Wayne Koestenbaum. Interview by Stephen Andrews.

Internationally recognized artist Glenn Ligon explores in a combination artist book and exhibition document the continuing relevance of Steve Reichs early taped speech work, Come Out (1966), in a series of new monumental screen-printed paintings. Echoing Reichs repetitive two-channel work sampling the voice of David Hamm, one of the badly beaten Harlem Six wrongly accused of murdering a shopkeeper, Ligon overlays the words come out to show them on canvas to form densely layered landscapes of text. Like Reichs work in which the intelligibility of the words breaks apart with repetition, Ligons superimposed texts reflect on the shifting effects of a visual continuum. Featured is an essay by film critic Megan Ratner examining the relationship between the paintings, the phrase and the history of the Harlem Six.

The theme of autobiography in Ligon's work is examined in light of a comprehensive study of his body of work. Ligon's sophisticated expressions of the issues of race and gay desire emerge clearly and lucidly.

Somewhere between a scholarly study, a picture book, and an artist's book, Glenn Ligon's book documents shifts in the social, cultural, and political history of African-Americans in the post-World-War-II era by gathering together images and graphics on the covers of books written by and about them.