Glenn Ligon’s diptych, Condition Repor t is comprised of two side-by-side prints. Though simple, each contains a nested stack of historical and self-referential quotations. Both black-and-white prints depict a version of Ligon’s 1988 painting, Untitled (I Am A Man) , which declares the words of the parenthetical in blocky black letters. Ligon’s painting, of course, is itself a reappropriation and, in some ways, a reproduction. Based on the simple, declarative protest signs carried by sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Ligon’s painting recontextualized this now-iconic object as a work of art. While the print on the left of Condition Report directly mirrors Ligon’s 1988 painting, the print on the right of the pair includes marks, scribbles, and hand-written notations around the edges and borders of the image. These additions to the work are the condition report notes of the title, and refer back to the 1988 original—though this time not as it existed as a symbol of a historical event, but as it exists in the present as a rarified art object. Tracing a simple phrase—I AM A MAN—through these iterations as declaration, symbol, object, and surface, Ligon levies questions of representation and race, commodification and history, and the value and preciousness of one’s identity.
American artist Glenn Ligon is well known for his conceptually based works in paint, neon, photography, sculpture, and video. He draws upon American history, literature, and other sources to create works centered on the black American experience. Ligon filters through cultural sources to create compositions that highlight social inequalities, commemorate struggles, and point fingers at hypocrisy. Rendered in neon, through paint, and in other media, Ligon often draws out the words of others—be they the sanitation workers who protested in Memphis, Tennessee, with signs declaring I AM A MAN; or the controversial and confrontational Richard Pryor, whose jokes become electric letters on Ligon’s canvases.
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Matthew Buckingham presents a narrative directly connected with a highly symbolic site in the United States, the Mount Rushmore Memorial*...
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In his evocative Landscape Paintings, McMillian uses second-hand bedsheets, sourced from thrift shops, as his starting point...
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Weekly Picks: Singapore (6 - 12 August 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Singapore August 6, 2018 Premanadi by Temple of Fine Arts 11 – 12 August 2018 Premanadi – The River of Love is a dance-drama that follows the story of a family that goes on a journey while their boatmen and guide tell them of the myths and legends of the river that they pass...
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In Jackass (2008) by Ari Marcopoulos, his two sons, Cairo and Ethan, are pictured relaxing in a disheveled bedroom in their Sonoma home...
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Untitled is a black-and-white photograph of a wave just before it breaks as seen from the distance of an overlook...
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Brent Sikkema, the Manhattan art dealer renowned for representing artists such as Jeffrey Gibson and Kara Walker found dead The post Brent Sikkema – Visionary Art Dealer Of Jeffrey Gibson And Kara Walker Murdered appeared first on Artlyst ....
In Linda, Lee & Dorsey, Louis (1988~, 2018) Marcel Pardo Ariza draws on Bay Area queer histories that have been uncovered from local archives and queer organizations, and connects them to people currently living in the Bay, where Ariza is also based...
Yael Bartana’s video work A Declaration was shot in southern Tel Aviv, on the visible border between that city and Jaffa...