Black Lines Matter: The Work of Glenn Ligon

Glenn Ligon, 'Double America', Neon & Black Paint, 914 mm x 3048 mm, 2012

It would be short-sighted, if not pernicious - and surely indicative of the problem generally, to ignore the waves of anger and protest over the recent death, in Minneapolis Police custody, of George Floyd.

Glenn Ligon, 'Untitled (America)', Oil Stick & Acrylic on Paper, 305 mm x 229 mm, 2007

Glenn Ligon, 'Figure #63', Acrylic, Screen Print & Coal Dust, 1524 mm x 1219 mm, 2010

This is no place to attempt to discuss all the complexities of America's institutional racism (or Britain's, for that matter), and clearly, I can have no real understanding of the everyday lived reality of all that, from the point of view of any BAME person.  This was only ever really intended to be an outlet for my own thoughts about art, in any case.  But sometimes you just have to accept that your own self-indulgent concerns exist within much wider societal or environmental contexts - however insulated your own privileged existence may appear.  Whether this really is the global turning point so many hope for, only time will tell, and the sad fact is, America has been this way before - to relatively little lasting effect.  But it's vital that people keep hoping (and more importantly - pushing) for a breakthrough.  For a variety of reasons, it seems doubtful our species can prevail much longer by maintaining the status quo - and this does feel like a time to stand up and be counted, at the very least.

Glenn Ligon, 'Study For Negro Sunshine #52', Oil Stick, Coal Dust & Gesso, 305 mm X 209 mm, 2010 

Glenn Ligon, 'Warm Broad Glow II', Neon, Paint & Metal (Installation), 
237 mm x 6147 mm x 117 mm, 2011

Glenn Ligon, 'A Small Band', Neon & Paint (Installation), 1899 mm x 20257 mm,
Giardini-Central Pavillion, Venice, 2015

Glenn Ligon, 'Come Out Study #12', Silkscreen on Canvas, 914 mm x 1219 mm, 2014

Naturally, the whole issue of White folks hi-jacking Black folks' struggle is fraught with its own difficulties.  However, many have also pointed out that, as racism is a problem emerging from within white society - white people should also take responsibility, and be instrumental in dismantling it.  An edifice may withstand assault from without indefinitely, if sufficiently fortified - but must eventually collapse if the foundations are also dug away from within.  Also, glib though it may sound - how long can one really go on feeling shame and embarrassment at the crap behaviour of one's own tribe?  Self-respect, and respect for others, must surely be two sides of the same coin.

Glen Ligon, 'Untitled (I Feel Most Coloured When I Am Thrown -  
Against A Sharp White Background)',
Oil Stick, Gesso & Graphite on Wood, 
2032 mm x 76 mm, 1990

Glenn Ligon, 'Untitled (I Am Somebody)', 
Oil Stick, Gesso & Graphite on Wood, 
2032 mm x 76 mm, 1991

Being less than techno-adept, or social media-savvy, at the best of times - I'm ashamed to admit the recent social media blackout gesture rather passed me by, in the moment.  In fact, it was a sign of how dim I can be about such matters, that I initially assumed there was just something wrong with my phone.  As it is, some have since critiqued that as a superficial and wholly inadequate response, anyway.  I don't  have too much of an opinion about that - but it's certainly no excuse for just keeping one's head down.  After a little reflection, the best thing to do here seems to be to use this - my primary channel of on-line communication, to feature the work of an artist who has engaged with all of these issues, far more skilfully than I could ever hope to.

Glenn Ligon, 'Stranger #48', Oil Stick, Acrylic & Coal Dust on Canvas, 1829 mm x 1524 mm, 2011

Glenn Ligon, '(Miserable) Life', Oil Stick & Acrylic on Paper, 305 mm x 229 mm, 2008

Glenn Ligon is a New York based African-American artist, of international standing, whose work I first encountered at Nottingham Contemporary, in 2015, during his self-curated 'Encounters And Collisions' exhibition.  I was immediately struck by both the eloquence and elegance of his own work (be it in the form of 'paintings', drawings, neon, or other installations), and by his ability to create consistently seductive formal artefacts which are both conceptually loaded, and culturally engaged.  I was always going to be drawn to text-based work which also remained so in touch with the traditions of abstract painting - but this work seems to go further than just that.  Certainly, I can think of few other artists so capable of simultaneously exploiting the symbolic and visual potential of black and white - and the effect of one on the other, quite so effectively.  Add in Ligon's strong literary sensibilities, and the sheer poetry of so many of his statements (often borrowed from other powerful Black voices), and you have a body of work which communicates more profoundly than any simple slogan.

Glenn Ligon, 'Debris Field #2', Etching Ink & Ink Marker on Canvas, 2896 mm x 2235 mm, 2018

Glenn Ligon, 'Debris Field #5', Etching Ink on Canvas, 2896 mm x 2235 mm, 2018

To achieve all that is a definite achievement in purely artistic terms.  What elevates Ligon's work still further, is his ability to do it whilst remaining inextricably engaged with the centuries-old struggle of Black people to have their lives and voices recognised, and valued as equal. 
    

Glenn Ligon, 'Stranger Study #12', Oil Stick, Gesso & Coal Dust on Canvas, 1016 mm x 762 mm, 2012

...You've Got Us Into.

Somehow, this one slipped through the net.

Alexis Harding, 'Untitled Study', Oil & Gloss On Canvas, 1995

‘Somewhat Abstract: Selections From The Arts Council Collection’, continues until 29 June 2014 at Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GB.

Somewhat Abstracted

Charred Boards, Narrow Marsh, Nottingham, April 2014

A few posts back, I mentioned how spending any significant amount of time in an art exhibition can sometimes influence my perception of the world after leaving the gallery.  In the case of my recent visit to ‘Somewhat Abstract’ at NottinghamContemporary, (already discussed at some length), a similar process took place but this time, in reverse.  On my way to the gallery, and with time and Spring weather on my side, I spent a while exploring the surrounding area with my camera with the intention of concentrating on the walls, surfaces, and material fabric of the city in as abstract way as possible.

Charred Boards, Narrow Marsh, Nottingham, April 2014

There was a specific research agenda behind this, (and it’s hardly new territory for me, after all), but also, the general sense that, if ‘Abstract’ was to be a theme for the day, I might as well get into that mindset from the get-go.  In the event, I spent over an hour happily strolling around the dilapidated grandeur of the Lace Market area to the North of The Contemporary, and the more workaday territory immediately to the South -between the foot of the sandstone cliff that the gallery surmounts, and the Railway Station beyond.

Both: Narrow Marsh, Nottingham, April 2014

Rear Service Entrance, Nottingham Contemporary, April 2014

Although adjacent, these zones differ greatly in both atmosphere and physical attributes and there’s quite a contrast between the worlds of above and below.  The Lace Market, once being the seat of one of the craft trades on which Nottingham’s prosperity was most famously built, is a maze of interconnecting streets lined with imposing and often ornate Victorian buildings.  In recent years it has adapted itself to the needs of young creative types or those in search of stylish inner-city living, and the identity of the area now takes its identity equally from its historic setting (and dilapidation that still prevails in places), and the incidents of slick design and gentrification now punctuating it.

Both: Narrow Marsh, Nottingham, April 2014

The tract below is even more obviously in a state of transition.  The elevated tramline running towards its terminus next to the railway station, which is itself currently in the throws of major redevelopment, bisects it.  Indeed, this whole area is a nexus of transport routes, with a major road in and out of the city centre and a canal cut both running through it.  Regular readers will recognise this as exactly the kind of location I’m routinely drawn to.

Both: Narrow Marsh, Nottingham, April 2014

Immediately to the west of the new tramway lies the bulky, faded Modernism of the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre, Bus Station and Car Park complex, with various entrances resembling the mouths of a somewhat forbidding bunker.  To the east sits an enclave of mid-twentieth century housing that always intrigues me in its inconguity.  Laid out, I assume, as a public housing estate, and punctuated by a network of secluded pedestrian cut-throughs, it feels like a surprisingly calm oasis of tightly packed gardens and something of a time capsule in a rapidly changing scene. 

Both: Lace Market, Nottingham, April 2014

In the shadow of the tramline lie the last vestiges of the old Narrow Marsh slum area and the ruins of a disused railway line that once ran through it.  This includes a couple of streets of abandoned, dilapidated commercial buildings, (some showing evidence of arson), which provided some of the richest pickings for my camera.  These seem to teeter on the very edge of events now, as lapping up against them is a recently cleared area, clearly awaiting development and denoting the regenerative processes overtaking this whole district.  I never tire of such locales where one can sense the last gasps of a previous situation, just prior to it being sloughed off like dead cells from a city’s larger organism.

All: Lace Market, Nottingham, April 2014

Narrow Marsh, Nottingham, April 2014

As was my intention, they tread a line between formal abstraction and the recognisable world, whilst remaining fairly 'straight in terms of exposure and focusing'.  They also contain less than usual of the textual content that habitually fascinates me.  I suppose one could argue that relatively little of my geographical description above is specifically discernible from them.  However, I never tire of the multiple ways that history, and changing events or usages, can leave evidence of itself on the surfaces of a city’s physical fabric.  The passage of thousands of lives and the activities carried out within them, are all to there to be read, along with the wider processes of entropy, material decay and socio-economic fluctuations, if one looks hard enough.

Prunella Clough, 'Samples', Oil On Canvas, 1997

It was a delight to enter the ‘Somewhat Abstract’ show a few minutes later and find many of these thoughts magnified and distilled by the work on show.  They were there most obviously in the paintings of Prunella Clough and cast reliefs of Karin Ruggaber, with their strong suggestions of weathered masonry and urban environments.  More obliquely, they were also there in Mark Lewis’s filmed meditation on the lost Utopianism of an outmoded vision of architecture and city planning, or indeed, in Wolfgang Tillmans’ investigation of just how photography might transform itself into a medium capable of conveying the abstract.

Narrow Marsh, Nottingham, April 2014

On reflection, I wonder if photography might, paradoxically, be one of the more interesting ways to explore the oft-stated idea of abstraction/representation as two sides of the same coin.  It can, of course never be abstract in the strictest sense, but like the exhibition itself, may offer plenty of scope to explore the points at which the recognisable begins a transformation into something other.  It also occurs to me that, despite my recent ham-fisted attempts to expand my 'range' by incorporating representational motifs within certain paintings, it's really in some variety of formal abstraction that I feel most at home.

Lace Market, Nottingham, April 2014

Somewhat Abstract: Selections From The Arts Council Collection', continues until 29 June at Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham, NG1 2GB.

'Somewhat Abstract' At Nottingham Contemporary 2

Nottingham Contemporary, April 2014

To avoid an essay of excessive proportions, I concentrated on paintings in my first post about the current exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary, ‘Somewhat Abstract: Selections From The Arts Council Collection’.  However, there was plenty of work in other media that also caught my eye in the show so, in the name of completeness and balance, I’ll run through some of it here.  As before, while some of these pieces are clearly abstract (or abstracted) in formal/visual terms, others represent curatorial attempts to include different strands of abstract thought and conceptual agendas within the show’s overall scope.

Foreground: Rachel Whiteread, 'Untitled (6 Speces)', Resin, 1994.  Background:  Work By
Prunella Clough (Left Hand Wall), & Karin Ruggaber (Right Hand Wall).

Rachel Whiteread, ‘Untitled (6 Spaces)’, Resin, 1994:  For me, Whiteread’s sculpture has a sophistication sometimes lacking amongst work by others of the YBA generation.  This may be because, whilst her casts of unremarkable negative spaces clearly sample specific sections of the actual world, they become resonant abstract forms in their own right through the simple inversion of positive/negative reality.  Here, she solidifies the spaces bounded by the legs of a series of seats.  Recognising the sources of her sculpture inevitably releases a whole raft of responses and associations, (most obvious in her concrete cast of an entire house’s interior), but always in the wake of its monumental presence within a given space.

Rachael Whiteread, 'Untitled (6 Spaces)', Resin, 1994

Art students past and present probably associate Whiteread’s M.O. with those drawing exercises depicting the spaces between objects, but I always found them to be a philosophical, as well as formal investigation.  Certainly, the simplest ideas are often the best, as is demonstrated here.  Although familiar, this row of casts still has the power to activate its surroundings and each acquires a gorgeous inner glow, itself implying a spatial dimension, through the use of transparent, amber-coloured resin.

John Latham, 'Shaun II', Mixed Media, 1958

John Latham, ‘Shaun II’, Mixed Media, 1958:  Although this wall-based piece involves canvas and black spray paint, it can’t really be categorised as a painting.  Collaging together Latham’s trademark charred books and sections of plumbing, it’s actually pretty characteristic of his highly conceptual assemblage work.

John Latham, 'Shaun II' (Detail), Mixed Media, 1958

It always feels like there’s more than a hint of post-Holocaust angst underlying Latham’s experimental, conceptual agenda.  His main concern may be to parody established knowledge systems, but is it too obvious or corny to see allusions to Nazi book burnings and industrialised genocide amongst these charred pages, pipes and taps?  Latham famously got into some bother for his routine destruction of books in different ways, although it appears to have been often for want of permission, more than on deeper philosophical grounds.

Amikam Toren, 'Received Wisdom', Plywood, Metal & Vinyl, 2006

Amikam Toren, ‘Received Wisdom’, Plywood, Metal & Vinyl, 2006:  Toren’s amusing piece also examines ideas about ‘official’ knowledge and the transmission of accepted ideas, although in a slightly less tortuous manner than Latham’s.  Here, he employs an adaptive, furniture-based approach to the Duchampian Readymade, (which isn’t so unusual these days), adapting a lecture theatre chair to make his point.  By laminating numerous layers of plywood onto the seat’s integral table surface, (abstracting it in the process), Toren extrudes a towering edifice of knowledge or a manifestation of accumulated study, (I suppose).  If not exactly the most complex idea in the world, it does result in an intriguing and amusing object that made me stop and think, at least  for a moment or two.

Yoko Ono, 'All White Chess Set', Painted Travel Chess Set, 1962-70

Yoko Ono: ‘All White Chess Set’, Painted Travel Chess Set, 1962-70:  Imagine there’s a chess set, in which all the pieces and squares are painted white, (I wonder if you can?).  Imagine Yoko Ono made it…

Is it too much to hope it’s not the only one?

Cathy De Monchaux, 'Clearing The Tracks Before They Appear', Steel, Brass, Enamel,
Muslin,  & Ribbon, (Date Unknown). 

Cathy De Monchaux, ‘Clearing The Tracks Before They Appear’, Steel, Brass, Enamel, Muslin, & Ribbon, and, ‘Ferment’, Lead, Steel & Velvet, 1988:  I first encountered De Monchaux’s work in 1997, at Prague’s Galerie Rudolfinum, in whose grand interiors, their alien-gothic aesthetic sat rather well.  Both these pieces are wall mounted and demonstrate, in different ways, her obsessive, erotically charged approach to sculpture.  Employing 3D CAD and the kind of filigree intricacy one might expect from a deranged jewelry designer, De Monchaux creates works of disturbing Freudian beauty.  Superficially, they remind me slightly of H.R. Geiger’s twisted SF designs, but more interestingly, appear to explore the relationship between (abstract) material qualities and psychosexual impulse at the heart of all fetishism.

Cathy De Monchaux, 'Ferment', Lead, Steel & Velvet, 1988

Cathy De Monchaux, 'Clearing The Tracks Before They Appear', Steel, Brass, Enamel, Muslin
& Ribbon,  (Date Unknown).

‘Clearing The Tracks…’ combines the delicacy of fabric and the repeated spikiness of metal hair combs in a torus-shaped mandala that is intrinsically feminine, but also suggests animal dentistry.  Meanwhile, the implications of the ’ tubular metal forms inserted into each other and peeling to expose puckered red velvet interiors, in ‘Ferment’, are unmistakable.  I guess it could all be just me but I really don’t think so.

Paul Graham, Photographs Of DHSS Benefits Claims Offices, C-Type Photographic Prints,
1985-85

Paul Graham, 'Man Filling In Form, Dole Office, Liverpool', C-Type Photographic Print, 1984.

Paul Graham, ‘DHSS Emergency Centre, Elephant & Castle, South London’, 1984; ‘Baby & Interview Cubicles, Brixton DHSS, South London’, 1984-85; ‘Man Filling In Form, Dole Office, Liverpool’, 1984; ‘Boy & Window Bars, Handsworth DHSS, Birmingham’, 1984-85.  All Photographic C-Type Prints:  There’s a distinct socio-political theme running through part of ‘Somewhat Abstract’, of which Graham’s four photographs would be an obvious example.  Whilst documenting the realities of the benefits system during the first term of Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government, Graham places as much emphasis on the tawdry atmospheres of DHSS offices, as on the claimants subsumed within them.  Wearing period fashions, they appear stranded amidst shabby décor and tired illumination that suggest a Kafkaesque situation of failed utopianism and shifting political priorities.  It may be difficult to see these photos as abstract until one recognises that their inhabitants are really caught between the abstract theories of competing ideologies.  It all feels like a time capsule from my own first few, fairly directionless,  post-college years.

Mark Lewis, 'Children's Games, Heygate Estate', 35mm Film Transferred To DVD, 2002

Mark Lewis, ‘Children’sGames, Heygate Estate’, 35mm Film Transferred To DVD, 2002:  A similar exploration of unfashionable social policy, based on essentially abstract ideas, underpins Mark Lewis’ excellent short film, (also, coincidentally, set in London’s Elephant & Castle district).  His steady-cam glides effortlessly around the ramps, elevated walkways and communal open spaces of the recently demolished Heygate Estate with an air of palpable artificiality.  Completed in 1974, and with a latter-day reputation for crime and social deprivation, The Heygate was, for many, symbolic of all that went wrong with the social/housing policies of Post-War Concensus.  However, many of the residents felt rather differently and, predictably, the current redevelopment plans feature only a fraction of the affordable housing that once occupied its Modernist blocks.

Mark Lewis, 'Children's Games, Heygate Estate', 35mm Film Transferred To DVD,  2002

Bathed in idyllic sunlight and populated by apparently carefree inhabitants at play, the film seems to capture something of the idealised world past planners may have envisioned, whilst questioning the very notion of ‘progress’, (and who exactly benefits from it).  Given my own fascination with urban environments and supposedly low status locations, and after my own fumbling attempts to shoot dynamic-view video, I was inevitably fascinated by this piece.

Karin Ruggaber, 'Slabs', Concrete, Plaster, Wood & Bark, 2004

Karin Ruggaber, ‘Slabs’, Concrete, Plaster, Wood & Bark, 2004:  Ruggaber is a new artist to me, but, (research suggests), one whose work chimes with some of my own interests.  This assemblage of small, wall-based cast reliefs clearly recalls degraded architectural surfaces, resembling collected small samples of rugged materiality.  They are formally abstract but instantly recognisable from the world around us, and actually felt like sections from the kind of photographs of urban surfaces and architectural details I’d taken minutes earlier.  None of this is particularly original, (indeed, I half-attempted something similar a while back).  However, a little research indicates that Ruggaber often introduces another dimension into her casts, by incorporating fabric, and that their careful arrangement across a gallery’s walls is an important part of her project.  It feels like a room full of them might be worth seeing.

Richard Smith, 'Livorno', Acrylic Paint,  Canvas, String & Wooden Dowel, 1972

Richard Smith, ‘Livorno’, Acrylic Paint, Canvas, String & Wooden Dowel, 1972:  Like John Hoyland, (also represented in the exhibition), Smith is a once-big name whose work now feels rather neglected by Art History.  He’s also an artist, like Prunella Clough, (likewise), whose work I often encounter in slightly dusty provincial collections.  He’s often associated with British Pop Art but appears to have engaged as much with the emblematic and physical properties of packaging as with commercial imagery per se.  In retrospect, the problem may be that, (like Hoyland’s), his work can seem like the end of something, rather than leading anywhere particularly new.  None of that is as important as the fact that I just like this piece as a thing.

Smith was primarily a painter, but one who was fascinated by the idea of the painting as a physical object.  Here, he moves into what could be better described as wall-based, abstract relief sculpture.  Paint is still involved, but merely as a way to self-colour the canvas of an object intended to recall a kite in its construction.  It explores the literal and expressive tension between fabric and the wooden poles and stress cords that lend it structure.  The pleasingly scalloped overall contour results from the internal tautness of the piece and speaks of Smith’s interest in his canvas as physical material, rather than as merely a support for pigment/imagery.

David Batchelor, 'Festival', Wheeled Hopper Bin, Fluorescent Lighting Tubes, Coloured
Polycarbonate, Decorative Rope Lights, Plastic Bottles, Dexion & Electrical Cable, 2006

David Batchelor, ‘Festival’, Wheeled Hopper Bin, Fluorescent Lighting Tubes, Coloured Polycarbonate, Decorative Rope Lights, Plastic Bottles, Dexion & Electrical Cable, 2006:  I’ve become very interested in David Batchelor’s work, but hadn’t seen any for real until my visit to the ‘Since 1843: In The Making’ show, (also in Nottingham), earlier this year.  This piece is exhibited separately from the main body of ‘Somewhat Abstract’, facing out from a window and, consequently, almost impossible to photograph on a bright day.  Nonetheless, it’s predictably enjoyable and represents Batchelor’s customary delight in the properties of colour, artificial light and synthetic/found materials.  Accompanying information explains it was part of a commission to create Christmas illuminations for London’s Hayward Gallery, which I now wish I had seen.

David Batchelor, 'Festival' (Detail), Wheeled Hopper Bin, Fluorescent Lighting Tubes,  Coloured
Polycarbonate, Decorative Rope Lights,  Plastic Bottles, Dexion & Electric Cable, 2006

Before leaving The Contemporary, I paused for a while in their study room.  I spent some time in there, browsing a book of David Batchelor’s found-in-the-street white ‘Monochromes’ [1.], an aspect of his oeuvre that link especially with my own interests.  An hour later, while waiting to meet a friend in Waterstone’s bookshop, I found and purchased a copy of Batchelor’s book, ‘The Luminous And The Grey’ [2.], which I’m looking forward to reading soon.  Whether through chance, or because one is always seeking connections subconsciously, it seems that things just join up.

‘Somewhat Abstract: Selections From The Arts Council Collection’, continues until 29 June 2014 at Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GB.  I definitely recommend it.

[1.]:  Jonathan Ree, ‘David Batchelor Found Monochromes Vol.1’, Ridinghouse, London, 2010.

[2.]:  David Bachelor, ‘The Luminous And The Grey’, London, Reaktion Books, 2014.