The Brant Foundation’s Glenn Ligon Is not a deep dive in the artist’s career, but it is a concise overview that does something rare: it gives the art room to make contact with the viewer. The eight works of the show, all from the Brant collection, are spread over four stories, two of which are devoted to one installation each. Almost like a ‘biggest hits’, it contains Gepencile text paintings, neon boards and one video installation.
The staff proposes to start with the floor where text paintings are combined with one of Ligon’s best -known pieces, “Rückkenfigur” (2009). The title refers to a device in the art, usually associated with Caspar David Friedrich, from displaying a figure from behind, as a means for viewers to project and consider the scene. An obvious interpretation of the Ligon piece – a white neon sign that ‘America’ reads with the letters backwards – in relation to the title, is from a white America that everyone else has their backs. It is a strong, direct statement, but the work of the artist lends itself to more than a single, simple reading. His language as a medium points to his shortcomings and the importance of the viewer in what is being said and whether or not it is readable for us.
A text painting on an adjacent wall alternates the names “Malcolm” and “Martin” in black on a red soil (“postponed (Malcolm/Martin),” 1991). While the repetition converts the names into sounds, they degenerate visually and become almost unreadable at the bottom of the canvas.
Other works take the limits of the language further, including “Stranger #64” (2012), where illegible text of the Essay “Stranger in the Village” by James Baldwin (1953) is a tangible object by layers Olievaart, Acrylic and coal dust. What is initially an aesthetically seductive dark gray surface comes to the fore as a disturbing embodiment of Baldwin’s story about the racism he encountered in a small, white city in Switzerland.
The Outlier in the Show is “Live” (2014), a silent Zevenkanaal’s video-installation screening images of comedian Richard Pryor’s stand-up film from 1982 Live on the sunset strip. In the past, Ligon has made text works on the basis of the material of Pryor, so it is all the more disorienting to see him perform – here, fragmented, the different screens with only his face, arm, torso or cross – without hearing him.
Even without the sound, everyone who is familiar with Pryor knows that racism is a recurring subject of his comedy, just as it is a transmission in Ligon’s art. By breaking his image in parts, the artist can refer to the fragmentation and fetishization of the body that endure many people of color. But again, it’s not that clear. We look at someone who will recognize most people. Just like the text paintings that visually communicate instead of verbally, “live” through their formal breakdown or manipulation, “live” shows pryor’s action in minute detail, through expressions and body language that often have made more dismissal or pain than comical.
For me, “live” was the most annoying and meaningful work in the show, a frustrated attempt at communication in which the viewer is actively involved. If you are not interested in the comedian, you can look for a few minutes and then walk away. But different, how long can you stand to see someone speak without hearing what he is saying?
Glenn Ligon Continues in the Brant Foundation (421 East 6th Street, East Village, Manhattan) until July 19. The exhibition was organized by the foundation.
