Glenn Ligon
dal 27/1/2009 al 6/3/2009
Segnalato da
27/1/2009
Glenn Ligon
Thomas Dane Gallery, London
The show will feature a video work, two neons and a suite of photogravures. The video, "The Death of Tom", is based on the final scene from Uncle Tom's Cabin, Edwin S. Porter's 14-minute silent film made for the Thomas A. Edison studio in 1903.
The Directors of Thomas Dane Gallery are pleased to announce Glenn Ligon’s second
exhibition at the gallery. The show will feature a video work, two neons and a
suite of photogravures.
The video, "The Death of Tom", is based on the final scene from Uncle Tom's Cabin,
Edwin S. Porter's 14-minute silent film made for the Thomas A. Edison studio in
1903. Shot on 16 mm black and white film, Ligon sought to recreate Tom’s death
scene, where the main character of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel lies on the floor
of a woodshed as visions of the future float over his head. However, after the
footage was developed, he discovered the images were blurred. Intrigued by this
disappearance – the subject of his own artistic production in paintings and other
media over the last decade and a half – Ligon decided to use the “ruined” film
anyway, transferring it to video and adding a commissioned score by the jazz pianist
Jason Moran based on the vaudeville song “Nobody". The resulting video, with its
dense shadows and ghostly lights, hovers on the edge of representation and becomes a
narrative that – like the larger historical narratives to which it refers – remains
unfinished business. In addition, Ligon has produced a set of photogravures based on
frames of the video.
Another work in the show is "Untitled", the last of a series of neon pieces inspired
by the first chapter of Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities". The neon spells “America”
in large letters and the glowing white tubing has been painted black on the front
but not the back, so that the letters appear backlighted by white light. The neon
also has an animator, which makes the light slowly fade off and on over the course
of several hours. Glowing and eclipsed, fading and reviving, the neon is a
meditation on the optimism and ambivalence of this particular historical moment.
Other works in the show include “Excerpt”, a neon based on Nauman’s “One Hundred
Live and Die” and a series of oilstick drawings which use text from Franz Kafka’s
diaries.
Glenn Ligon (b 1960) lives and works in New York. In 2005 he was the subject of a
major touring exhibition, “Some Changes", which was presented at the Power Plant,
Toronto. The exhibition was co-curated by Wayne Baerwaldt, former Director of the
Power Plant, and Thelma Golden, Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, and
travelled to Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh,
the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, and the Musée d'Art Moderne of Luxembourg.
He has exhibited widely in the United States and around the world. Ligon’s work is
held in distinguished collections including The Whitney Museum, NY, The Museum of
Modern Art, NY, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and The Tate Modern, London.
Press Enquiries
Leigh Robb
+44 (0) 20 7925 2505 or leigh@thomasdane.com
Other Enquiries
Martine d'Anglejan-Chatillon
+44 (0) 20 7925 2505 or martine@thomasdane.com
Opening Reception Wednesday 28 January 2009, 6-8pm
Thomas Dane
11 Duke Street St James's - London
Gallery open Tuesday to Friday 11 - 6, Saturday 11 - 4.
Free admission