GLENN LIGON (1960-)

Ligon is a conceptual artist whose work explores race, language, desire, sexuality, and identity. Ligon's work often draws on 20th century literature and speech of 20th century cultural figures. The signed edition is related to a project Ligon undertook during a residency at Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center in 1999–2000. The artist began by copying pages from Afrocentric coloring books, printed by Johnson Publishing Company (the former publisher of Ebony and Jet) and other firms during the 1960s and ’70s, that bore images of icons like Malcolm X and Harriet Tubman as well as of Black characters performing everyday activities. He then distributed these materials to children at local daycare centers—orchestrating a meeting between artifacts created in the wake of the American civil rights movement and an audience only beginning to gain historical and political awareness—who added color to the line drawings. Subsequently, Ligon selected and enlarged examples from this collaboration in a series of paintings titled Coloring.