Glenn Ligon

b. 1960

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Glenn Ligon, Untitled (I Do Not Always Feel Colored), 1990 2001.275

Glenn Ligon, Untitled (I Do Not Always Feel Colored), 1990. Oil stick and gesso on panel, 80 × 30 1/16 × 1 1/2 in. (203.2 × 76.4 × 3.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of The Bohen Foundation in honor of Thomas N. Armstrong III 2001.275

Courtesy of the Artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Glenn Ligon makes art that investigates questions of personal identity as well as issues in history and contemporary life. Ligon reads a lot and he is inspired by words and phrases that he finds in books and other texts. He often borrows words from these texts to use in his artwork. For Untitled (I Do Not Always Feel Colored) (1990), he borrowed the words from an essay by Zora Neale Hurston. Ligon has explored a wide range of subjects, including images related to slavery, early civil rights demonstrations, and more recent events such as the Million Man March, and even the jokes of comedian Richard Pryor.

experimenting with words

After experimenting with different ways to include words in his paintings, Ligon realized that he did not always want the words to be legible. This idea of not being able to read the words became part of the work.

About the artist