USA Projects

Glenn Ligon is a celebrated conceptual artist whose work deals with issues of race, desire, and language. He attended Rhode Island School of Design and Wesleyan University. Ligon works in multiple media, including text-based painting, neon, print, installation, and video. He uses text, language, and imagery from a wide range of popular culture sources, from stand-up comedy routines and children's coloring and schoolbooks, to slave narratives and the literary works of James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gertrude Stein. In his best known works, he repeats phrases using stencil or silkscreen on canvas, eventually obliterating the text as it moves down the painting.

Photo credit Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
America, 2009; photo credit Regen Projects, Los Angeles