The Brant Basis’s Glenn Ligon isn’t a deep dive into the artist’s profession, however it’s a concise overview that does one thing uncommon: it offers the artwork area to attach with the viewer. The present’s eight works, all drawn from the Brant’s assortment, are unfold throughout 4 tales, two of that are devoted to at least one set up every. Nearly like a “best hits,” it consists of stenciled textual content work, neon indicators, and one video set up.
The workers suggests beginning with the ground the place textual content work are paired with considered one of Ligon’s best-known items, “Rückenfigur” (2009). The title refers to a tool in artwork, most frequently related to Caspar David Friedrich, of depicting a determine from behind, as a way for viewers to mission themselves into the work and ponder the scene. One apparent interpretation of Ligon’s piece — a white neon signal studying “America” with the letters backwards — in relation to the title, is of a White America that’s turned its again on everybody else. It’s a robust, direct assertion, however the artist’s work lends itself to greater than a single, easy studying. His use of language as a medium factors up its failings in addition to the viewer’s stake in what’s mentioned and whether or not or not it’s legible to us.
A textual content portray on an adjoining wall alternates the names “Malcolm” and “Martin” in black on a crimson floor (“Deferred (Malcolm/Martin),” 1991). Because the repetition transforms the names into sounds, they visually degenerate, changing into nearly unreadable on the backside of the canvas.
Different works take the bounds of language additional, together with “Stranger #64” (2012), the place illegible textual content from James Baldwin’s essay “Stranger within the Village” (1953) turns into a palpable object by way of layers of oil stick, acrylic, and coal mud. What’s initially an aesthetically engaging darkish grey floor emerges as an unsettling embodiment of Baldwin’s story of the racism he encountered in a small, all-White city in Switzerland.
The outlier within the present is “Stay” (2014), a silent seven-channel video set up screening footage of comic Richard Pryor’s 1982 stand-up movie Stay on the Sundown Strip. Ligon has made textual content works based mostly on Pryor’s materials previously, so it’s all of the extra disorienting to see him performing — right here, fragmented, the totally different screens displaying simply his face, arm, torso, or crotch — with out listening to him.
Even with out the sound, anybody who’s conversant in Pryor is aware of that racism is a recurring topic of his comedy, simply because it’s a by way of line in Ligon’s artwork. By breaking his picture into elements, the artist could also be alluding to the fragmentation and fetishization of the physique that many individuals of coloration endure. However once more, it’s not that clear-cut. We’re watching somebody whom most individuals will acknowledge. Just like the textual content work that talk visually moderately than verbally, by way of their formal breakdown or manipulation, “Stay” reveals Pryor’s act in minute element, by way of expressions and physique language which can be typically extra resigned or pained than comedic.
For me, “Stay” was essentially the most infuriating and significant work within the present, a annoyed try at communication that actively entails the viewer. In the event you’re not within the comic, you might look ahead to a couple of minutes after which stroll away. However in any other case, how lengthy are you able to stand to observe somebody converse with out listening to what they’re saying?
Glenn Ligon continues on the Brant Basis (421 East sixth Avenue, East Village, Manhattan) by way of July 19. The exhibition was organized by the inspiration.
