Some Changes. An exhibition which explores the idea of revision, highlighting moments in the artist's practice where existing works and themes are returned to in subsequent pieces and in new mediums. Ligon's practice encompasses painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation, and video.
Some Changes
The Power Plant is pleased to announce a major touring exhibition of the work of New
York-based artist Glenn Ligon. Ligon is at the forefront of a generation of artists
who came to prominence in the late 1980s on the strength of conceptually based
paintings and phototext work that investigates the social, linguistic and political
construction of race, gender and sexuality. Glenn Ligon: Some Changes is an
exhibition which explores the idea of “revision,†highlighting moments in Ligon's
practice where existing works and themes are returned to in subsequent pieces and in
new mediums. Ligon’s practice, which incorporates sources as diverse as James
Baldwin's literary texts, photographic scrapbooks, and Richard Pryor's stand-up
comic routines, encompasses painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation, and
video. Ligon's art is a sustained meditation on issues of quotation, the presence of
the past in the present, and the representation of the self in relationship to
culture and history. Glenn Ligon: Some Changes provides an opportunity to view a significant body
of the artist’s works, spanning from 1988 to the present. These include Untitled (I
Am A Man) (1988); Runaways (1993); the Richard Pryor paintings (1993-2004); the
award-winning web-based project, Annotations (2003); and the installation The Orange
and Blue Feelings (2003), among others.
Co-curated by Wayne Baerwaldt, Director, The Power Plant, and Thelma Golden, Deputy
Director, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.
Ligon’s work has appeared in Documenta XI, Kassel (2002); the XXIV Bienal de Sao
Paulo (1998) and the Venice Biennale (1997); his extensive exhibition history also
includes solo shows at Kunstverein Munich (2001); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
(2000); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1996); and the Hirshhorn Museum,
Washington, D.C. (1993). His work has been included in important group exhibitions
such as Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated), Guggenheim Museum, New York (2004); The
American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York; and Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1994).
This important touring exhibition opens at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery
on June 24, 2005 and travels through 2007 to Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
(January 14 to April2, 2006), The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (September 30 to
December 31, 2006), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (January 27 to April 22,
2007) and Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc, Luxembourg (October 6 – December 17,
2007).
A 204-page, fully illustrated hard-bound catalogue, including essays by Huey
Copeland, Darby English, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Mark Nash, and an interview by
Stephen Andrews, accompanies the exhibition. The exhibition is made possible through
the generous support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Horace
Walter Goldsmith Foundation, the Peter Norton Family Foundation, Toby Devan Lewis,
and the Albert and Temmy Latner Family Foundation. Additional support has been
graciously provided by the Hal Jackman Foundation, Judy Schulich, Gregory R. Miller,
The Drake Hotel, the Broad Art Foundation, the Linda Pace Foundation, and Dr.
Kenneth Montague.
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery at Harbourfront Centre is supported by the
Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through
the Toronto Arts Council and Harbourfront Centre.
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery at Harbourfront Centre
231 Queens Quay West - Toronto
The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. and Wednesday until 8 p.m.
Admission is free on Wednesdays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.