JOHN HEINTZMAN
Currently, at the Peoria Riverfront Museum the works of contemporary art giant Glenn Ligon are exhibited for the first time. “Glenn Ligon: I Am Somebody” is an intimate exhibition centering around a work on loan from the Art Bridges Foundation. This exhibition also includes several prints from the collection my brother Jeff and I own.
Glenn Ligon’s use of words in his artwork spans decades of creating and incorporating his unique power of suggestion and his claim on Blackness by integrating them as content rather than as design.
With language guiding his art-making processes, Ligon explored American history and the Black experience through a most personal and political lens. Literary greats, e.g. James Baldwin, Walt Whitman, Ralph Ellison, Gertrude Stein and Zoe Neale Hurston have inspired his art. Even comedian Richard Pryor’s stand-up has given him a voice and the platform to raise awareness of inequality, degradation and disengagement from cultural acceptance, as well as simple prejudice. His works demand scrutiny, self-investment and reflection to gain appreciation for the determination of a race seeking equal rights and respect within our society.
Ligon’s ability to adapt his ideas to various mediums is remarkable. Walking past a studio that made commercial neon signs to discovering photos from the civil rights movement, he has elevated verbiage to new heights in Contemporary Art. The word “America” called into question a part of history that traversed four centuries of grievances against those who were enslaved. Further introspection and research exposed brutal emotions levied against a race, and only words could draw appropriate attention to his fight.
His series, “I AM A MAN,” came to represent a cry for recognition as a human being and an equal around any table. When his painting of such was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Ligon’s colleague and Museum Registrar began a to render a condition report on the art piece, Ligon was intrigued with the numerous notations he made noting imperfections. If one were taking note of these as Art — do others take note of Black persons’ imperfections, too? He then created a print which documented the details of such examination.
“Black Rage’ by Glenn Ligon
Recently, Jeff and I purchased a print “Black Rage,” which has similar notations on a book cover of the same name. This text recognizes the inherent efforts to survive and to address the struggle through research by Dr. William H. Grier and Dr. Price M. Cobb, released in 1969 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the subsequent riots in Washington, DC. Ligon reckoned these markings to a sales receipt’s list purchasing a slave.
“Narratives,” a series of broadsides that placed himself in the text in the 20th century, is on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art. One print from the portfolio was entitled “Life and Uncommon Suffering.” This was and is who the artist has become: an advocate, a sojourner and a voice for others.
The print “Extract” demonstrates Ligon’s personal commitment to particular texts and references from some of the most renown authors, including James Baldwin. This work is part of his ongoing “Stranger” series. This aquatint refers to Baldwin’s 1953 essay, “Stranger in the Village.” Baldwin had relocated to Europe and was living in a community that did not know him, and possibly had never interacted with an individual of another race. The extraction of this passage was similar to those numerous text-based paintings from an ongoing exploration of the existence of the Black man in the world, not only in America.
Glenn Ligon’s linguistic structures gives strength to his word choice. His screenprint “My Fear Is Your Fear” reveals the vulnerability in his art. To admit fear is to humble oneself in the eyes of society, but to recognize your fear is that of another, demonstrates his ability to join a chorus of suppression without hope. But only Glenn Ligon can draw attention to the most primal of emotions and engage others into an understanding that brings the divided together. Similar to “I Am A Man,” “My Fear Is Your Fear” is small but direct and ever present in today’s culture.
The most prominent work in this exhibition is “I Am Somebody,” a stunning door painting Ligon executed in the early 1990s. On loan from Alice Walton’s Art Bridges, this stenciled text statement, is derived from a poem by Dr. William Holmes Borders, and was introduced to the American public first as an affirmation on Sesame Street by Rev. Jesse Jackson — and then as a rally cry when he addressed an audience following Martin Luther King’s assassination. The repetitive statement “I Am Somebody” progresses from clearly defined text to a degraded, overworked, black swath, causing the viewer to scrutinize and reflect on three simple words and their impact of historical consequence and on our society today.
To study Glenn Ligon’s work and search for its immediate message will give all a moment of contemplation that can identify our own insecurities. Ligon’s artwork provides today’s society with much self-reflection at the extreme cost an entire race has shouldered for centuries.
“I Am Somebody” will be exhibited at the Peoria Riverfront Museum through March.
Much gratitude is offered to Alice Walton and the Art Bridges Foundation for the continued and generous support in their efforts to introduce Contemporary Art to our community. Loans and assistance also come from the Whitney Museum, Hauser & Wirth Galleries, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Visionary Society and Friends of Art at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.