Glenn Ligon

Glenn Ligon

b. 1960, New York
lives in New York

Glenn Ligon earned a BA from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut. He works in several mediums, such as painting, printmaking, and neon. Ligon’s work is intertextual, drawing on writings from such diverse authors and figures as Richard Pryor, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, and Walt Whitman. His practice explores themes pertinent to the current and historical American experience, specifically the narratives and legacies of slavery, the civil rights movement, and the climate of antiblackness in the United States. Ligon’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Tate Modern; London, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Museum of Modern Art, New York, among others. He has twice exhibited at the Venice Biennale (2015 and 1997). Ligon has received numerous awards and accolades, such as the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Archives of American Art Medal (2017), International Association of Art Critics Award (2012), the Skowhegan Medal for Painting (2006), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Guggenheim Fellowship (2003) and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1991, 1989, and 1982).

Glenn Ligon, One Black Day (II), 2017. Neon and paint, 5 x 33 inches (12.7 x 83.82 cm). Collection of the artist © Glenn Ligon; Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Thomas Dane Gallery, London and Chantal Crousel, Paris