Glenn Ligon Come Out

“this publication coincides with the exhibition Glenn Ligon: Call and Response at Camden Arts Centre, London”
American artist Glenn Ligon’s monumental screen-printed paintings draw upon Minimalist composer Steve Reich’s taped-speech work Come Out. Ligon’s series recontextualises the phrase ‘Come out to show them’ from the testimony of one of the badly beaten Harlem Six, which Reich isolated for his 1966 work. Whilst Reich repeats the refrain on two channels that gradually become out of sync, Ligon continually superimposes the words onto the canvas to form densely layered landscapes of text, until the words verge on abstraction.
The publication brings together illustrations of new studies and paintings originally exhibited at Thomas Dane Gallery, London, an essay by independent critic Megan Ratner examines the relationship between the paintings, the phrase and history.
This publication coincides with the exhibition Glenn Ligon: Call and Response at Camden Arts Centre, London (10 October 2014-11 January 2015).