GLENN LIGON’s WORKS AT THE WEXNER CENTER

Sunday, 03 December 2006 20:13

Columbus, OH — The internationally touring survey Glenn Ligon: Some Changes, featuring more than 40 provocative pieces in a wide variety of mediums, makes its only Midwestern stop at the Wexner Center January 26–April 15, 2007.  A noted African American artist who came to prominence in the 1980s, Glenn Ligon is known for work that investigates social, linguistic, and political aspects of race, gender, and sexuality. Incorporating sources as diverse as James Baldwin’s literary texts, photographic scrapbooks, and Richard Pryor’s standup comedy routines, Ligon’s practice encompasses painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation, video, text-based work, and web-based projects.  This survey, covering nearly two decades in Ligon’s career, highlights moments in his work where existing texts, images, and themes from popular culture, literature, and history are “revised” in subsequent pieces and in new mediums.

Notes Helen Molesworth, the Wexner Center’s chief curator of exhibitions, “Glenn Ligon’s artistic range—from painting to printmaking to neon sculpture—combined with his interest in questions of American identity make him one of the most compelling artists of his generation.”

This spring’s Director’s Dialogue on Art and Social Change, featuring leading artists and writers, will focus on issues surrounding cultural conflict, identity, and freedom of expression—issues that are at the forefront of Ligon’s work and the current political climate.  This exhibition was organized by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto.  The tour has included the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston (summer 2005) and The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh (fall 2006); following its Wexner Center presentation, the show will travel to The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The University of British Columbia (summer 2007) and Mudam (Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean) in Luxembourg in the fall of 2007.

A catalogue of the show is available in the Wexner Center Store.  Visit The Wexner Center for the Arts at : www.wexarts.org/