GLENN LIGON (b. 1960, New York),
Glenn Ligon: COME OUT
Exhibition Catalogue / Book
by Megan Ratner. Published by the Riding House, London, UK, 2014. Hardbound, 48 pp., 25 color illus. Dimensions: 12" x 11-1/4". BRAND NEW / Sealed.
Internationally recognized artist Glenn Ligon explores in a combination artist book and exhibition document the continuing relevance of Steve Reich’s early taped speech work, Come Out (1966), in a series of new monumental screen-printed paintings. Echoing Reich’s 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 Reich’s work in which the intelligibility of the words breaks apart with repetition, Ligon’s 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.
Ligon’s series recontextualises the phrase ‘Come out to show them’ from the testimony of one of the badly beaten Harlem Six, which Reich isolated for his 1966 work. Whilst Reich repeats the refrain on two channels that gradually become out of sync, Ligon continually superimposes the words onto the canvas to form densely layered landscapes of text. Echoing Reich's music, the artist increases the number of silkscreen layers in each painting until the words verge on abstraction.
Bringing together illustrations of new studies and paintings originally exhibited at Thomas Dane Gallery, London, an essay by Megan Ratner examines the relationship between the paintings, the phrase and history.
This publication coincides with the exhibition Glenn Ligon: Call and Response at Camden Arts Centre, London, UK (10/10/2014 - 1/11/2015).
Megan Ratner is an independent critic based in New York and has written for Film Comment, Film Quarterly, frieze and other publications.
SELECT RECENT SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2024
'Glenn Ligon', Hauser & Wirth, Hong Kong, Hong Kong (3/25 - 5/11)
2023
'Glenn Ligon: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation', Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA
2022
'Visual Record: The Materiality of Sound in Print' (group exhibition), New York Print Center (NYPC), New York, NY
'Glenn Ligon: Post-Noir', Carré d'Art, Nîmes, France
'Glenn Ligon: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation', Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery Porter College, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
'Glenn Ligon: An Open Letter', Thomas Dane Gallery, London, UK
2021
'Glenn Ligon: It’s Always a Little Bit Not Yet', Hauser & Wirth Gallery, New York, NY
'Glenn Ligon: First Contact', Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland
2019
'Glenn Ligon: In a Year with a Black Moon', Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
'Glenn Ligon: Des Parisiens Noirs', Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
'Glenn Ligon: Selections from the Marciano Collection', Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
'Glenn Ligon: To be a Negro in this country is really never to be looked at', Maria & Alberto De La Cruz Art Gallery, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
2018
'Glenn Ligon: Debris Field/Notes for a Poem on the Third World/Soleil Nègre', Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, France
'Glenn Ligon: Tutto poteva, nella poesia, avere una soluzione / In poetry, a solution to everything', Thomas Dane Gallery, Naples, Italy
'Glenn Ligon: Sculpture', Luhring Augustine, New York, NY
2017
'Glenn Ligon', Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
'Blue Black - a curatorial project by Glenn Ligon', Pulitzer Art Foundation, St. Louis, MO
2016
'Glenn Ligon: What We Said The Last Time', Luhring Augustine, New York, NY
'Glenn Ligon: We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is', Luhring Augustine Bushwick, New York, NY
2015
'Glenn Ligon: Encounters and Collisions', Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
2014
'Glenn Ligon: Call and Response', Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
'Glenn Ligon: Come Out', Thomas Dane Gallery, London, UK
2012
'Glenn Ligon: Neon', Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York, NY
'Blues for Smoke' (group exhibition), Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, CA
'The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Andy Warhol' (group exhibition), Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, CA
'Glenn Ligon: America', Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (MAMFW), Fort Worth, TX
2011
'Glenn Ligon: America', Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA
'Glenn Ligon: Recent Prints', Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, WA
'30 Americans' (group exhibition), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
'30 Americans' (group exhibition), North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
'Glenn Ligon: America', Whitney Museum of A merican Art, New York, NY
2010
'Huckleberry Finn' (group exhibition), CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA
'Minima Moralia: Samuel Beckett, Matias Faldbakken, Glenn Ligon, Bruce Nauman', Marvelli Gallery, New York, NY
'Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic' (group exhibition), Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC), Santiago De Compostela, Spain
'DESIRE' (group exhibition), Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX
'Hard Targets' (group exhibition), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH
'Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic' (group exhibition), Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
2009
'Glenn Ligon: Off Book', Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA
'Exposed! — Revealing Sources in Contemporary Art' (group exhibition), Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
'Bad Habits' (group exhibition), Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY
'Glenn Ligon: Nobody and Other Songs', Thomas Dane, London, UK
2008
'30 Americans' (group exhibition), Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL
'Glenn Ligon: Figure/Paysage/Marine', Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris, France
'Glenn Ligon: The Death of Tom', Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MoCCA), Toronto, Canada
'The Wizard of Oz' (group exhibition), CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA
'Glenn Ligon: Love and Theft', Power House, Memphis, TN
2007
'Glenn Ligon: No Room (Gold)', Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA
'Glenn Ligon: Some Changes', Mudam - Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
'Glenn Ligon: Some Changes', Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
'Paper Trail: A Decade of Acquisitions' (group exhibition), Walker Art Center (WAC), Minneapolis, MN
'Glenn Ligon: Some Changes', Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH
2006
'Glenn Ligon: Brilliant Corners', Thomas Dane, London, UK
'Glenn Ligon: Some Changes', Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
'Glenn Ligon: We Had Everything Before Us, We Had Nothing Before Us', Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris, France
'Glenn Ligon: Some Changes', Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX
2005
'Glenn Ligon: Some Changes', Power Plant, Toronto, Canada
'Glenn Ligon: Drawings', Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO
2004
'Glenn Ligon: Text Paintings, 1990 - 2004', Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA
'Open House' (group exhibition), Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
'Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated)' (group exhibition), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
2003
'Glenn Ligon: Going There', D'Amelio Terras Gallery, New York, NY
'Glenn Ligon: Annotations' (online project), Dia Center for the Arts, New York, NY
2002
'Glenn Ligon', Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
2001
'Glenn Ligon: Colored', D'Amelio Terras Gallery, New York, NY
'Glenn Ligon: Portraits and Not Portraits', Kunstverein Munich, Germany
'Glenn Ligon: Stranger', the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
2000
'Point of Reference: Frederick Hayes, Glenn Ligon, Gary Simmons, and Kara Walker', Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA
'Glenn Ligon: Coloring - New Work', Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
'Currents 81', St. Louis Art Museum, MO
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