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拍品专文
Glenn Ligon’s 2010 Figure #52 is a beautifully haunting example of his iconic series, in which the artist blurs the line between his readable text paintings and pure abstraction. Using coal dust and silkscreen, the painting reflects Ligon’s approach to found text and the precariousness of words as conveyors of meaning. Here, Ligon sees them as symbols, forcing them to take a backseat to his highly effective composition. Rendered in coal dust and silkscreen, Ligon treats the text like garbled speech: its purpose and origins are unknown and are conveyed, only partially, by the painting’s tone. As the words cascade down the canvas, their already dubious legibility becomes more difficult to read, until they coalesce into a black mass in the lower register. A supremely lyrical and compositionally driven example of Ligon’s text-based painting, Figure #52 captures the artist’s dual affinities for abstract painting and appropriated text in a dramatic and powerful picture.
A golden hue backgrounds the picture, peeking through in the increasingly small spaces between letters as they close in on one another toward the bottom of the canvas. Likewise, the color tears through the black letters in several crag-like peaks that appear to have been carved, rather than painted. These compound the picture’s abstractness and further render the text less legible. Rendered in coal dust, the letters bleed into one another, coalescing into a completely opaque curtain of blackness. "...it was about responding to the text...I wanted the material that I was using for the paintings to have the same kind of gravitas as the text,” explains Ligon. “I was also looking at Warhol's diamond dust paintings and became intrigued by the idea of the addition; material that is laid on top of the paint and changes. I came to coal dust accidentally. I was working with a silkscreen printer who said that he had printed some work using this stuff called "magnum." Magnum is a waste product, a leftover from coal processing. It is basically just coal dust gravel. Without even seeing it, I thought, 'This is perfect', in part because the words 'coal dust' had all these associations" (G. Ligon, quoted in S. Andrews, "Glenn Ligon: in Conversation," in Glenn Ligon - Some Changes, exh. cat., Contemporary Art Gallery at Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, 2005, p. 173).
For Ligon, the coal dust is an aesthetic, associative and symbolic choice. He references Warhol’s Diamond Dust paintings which, though deeply removed in content and context, also rely on an unusual material to alter the picture’s broader meaning. Warhol uses diamond dust to convey glamour and luxury, often with subjects that might not bring those attributes to mind, like conceptual artist Joseph Beuys. Ligon, by contrast, uses coal dust because “…it’s beautiful; it’s a black, shiny material, but it’s also a waste product … leftover from coal processing…. I am drawn to it because of all of the contradictory readings it engenders. Worthless. Waste. Black. Beautiful. Shiny. Reflective” (G. Ligon quotes in Glenn Ligon: Stranger, The Studio Museum of Harlem. New York, NY, 2001). Indeed, Ligon finds a potent mix of beauty and waste, leading to a picture that is ravishing in its rawness and utterly alluring in its visual difficulty.
A largely abstract painting, Figure #52 takes cues from Abstract Expressionism with its freewheeling, emotive composition and heavily impastoed paint. Ligon explains, in a 2015 interview in advance of his curated show at the Tate Liverpool, that he was influenced by that movement very early on: “…at the beginning of my career I was fascinated with abstract expressionism and would make pilgrimages to see his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He taught me how to paint, but I soon realized I didn’t want to make paintings that looked like his. That is the moment when I moved towards text-based work” (G. Ligon and S.Grant, "Inside My Head: An Interview with Glenn Ligon." Momus. August 14, 2015. https://momus.ca/inside-my-head-an-interview-with-glenn-ligon/). Ligon’s early interest in abstraction is evident in his intuitive approach to that style. He deftly adapts his text-based work to an abstract structure.
This fusion of styles is typical in Ligon’s work; the artist often draws inspiration from disparate sources in the conception and execution of his singular and unique body of work. One of the leading painters of his generation, Ligon epitomizes the sexually and racially conscious art that has formed a cornerstone of American visual culture since its emergence in the early 1990s. Concerned with the intersection between race, class and sexuality, the artist’s deeply personal work nevertheless strikes a universal tone, suggesting an overlapping of experiences across cultural and societal lines. Figure #52 is particularly universal, relying mainly on its materiality and composition to convey meaning to the viewer. In this picture, Ligon combines several of his most celebrated motifs–text, coal dust and a dialogue with abstraction–to create a varied and highly worked composition. A fine example of his mid-career work, Figure #52 finds the artist continuing to innovate within the parameters that have defined his work since the early days of his career.
A golden hue backgrounds the picture, peeking through in the increasingly small spaces between letters as they close in on one another toward the bottom of the canvas. Likewise, the color tears through the black letters in several crag-like peaks that appear to have been carved, rather than painted. These compound the picture’s abstractness and further render the text less legible. Rendered in coal dust, the letters bleed into one another, coalescing into a completely opaque curtain of blackness. "...it was about responding to the text...I wanted the material that I was using for the paintings to have the same kind of gravitas as the text,” explains Ligon. “I was also looking at Warhol's diamond dust paintings and became intrigued by the idea of the addition; material that is laid on top of the paint and changes. I came to coal dust accidentally. I was working with a silkscreen printer who said that he had printed some work using this stuff called "magnum." Magnum is a waste product, a leftover from coal processing. It is basically just coal dust gravel. Without even seeing it, I thought, 'This is perfect', in part because the words 'coal dust' had all these associations" (G. Ligon, quoted in S. Andrews, "Glenn Ligon: in Conversation," in Glenn Ligon - Some Changes, exh. cat., Contemporary Art Gallery at Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, 2005, p. 173).
For Ligon, the coal dust is an aesthetic, associative and symbolic choice. He references Warhol’s Diamond Dust paintings which, though deeply removed in content and context, also rely on an unusual material to alter the picture’s broader meaning. Warhol uses diamond dust to convey glamour and luxury, often with subjects that might not bring those attributes to mind, like conceptual artist Joseph Beuys. Ligon, by contrast, uses coal dust because “…it’s beautiful; it’s a black, shiny material, but it’s also a waste product … leftover from coal processing…. I am drawn to it because of all of the contradictory readings it engenders. Worthless. Waste. Black. Beautiful. Shiny. Reflective” (G. Ligon quotes in Glenn Ligon: Stranger, The Studio Museum of Harlem. New York, NY, 2001). Indeed, Ligon finds a potent mix of beauty and waste, leading to a picture that is ravishing in its rawness and utterly alluring in its visual difficulty.
A largely abstract painting, Figure #52 takes cues from Abstract Expressionism with its freewheeling, emotive composition and heavily impastoed paint. Ligon explains, in a 2015 interview in advance of his curated show at the Tate Liverpool, that he was influenced by that movement very early on: “…at the beginning of my career I was fascinated with abstract expressionism and would make pilgrimages to see his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He taught me how to paint, but I soon realized I didn’t want to make paintings that looked like his. That is the moment when I moved towards text-based work” (G. Ligon and S.Grant, "Inside My Head: An Interview with Glenn Ligon." Momus. August 14, 2015. https://momus.ca/inside-my-head-an-interview-with-glenn-ligon/). Ligon’s early interest in abstraction is evident in his intuitive approach to that style. He deftly adapts his text-based work to an abstract structure.
This fusion of styles is typical in Ligon’s work; the artist often draws inspiration from disparate sources in the conception and execution of his singular and unique body of work. One of the leading painters of his generation, Ligon epitomizes the sexually and racially conscious art that has formed a cornerstone of American visual culture since its emergence in the early 1990s. Concerned with the intersection between race, class and sexuality, the artist’s deeply personal work nevertheless strikes a universal tone, suggesting an overlapping of experiences across cultural and societal lines. Figure #52 is particularly universal, relying mainly on its materiality and composition to convey meaning to the viewer. In this picture, Ligon combines several of his most celebrated motifs–text, coal dust and a dialogue with abstraction–to create a varied and highly worked composition. A fine example of his mid-career work, Figure #52 finds the artist continuing to innovate within the parameters that have defined his work since the early days of his career.