Glenn Ligon (b. 1960) is an artist living and working in New York. Throughout his career, Ligon has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature, and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and conceptual art. He earned his BA from Wesleyan University (1982) and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (1985). In 2011, the Whitney Museum of American Art held a mid-career retrospective, ‘Glenn Ligon: America’, organized by Scott Rothkopf, that traveled nationally. Important solo exhibitions include ‘Glenn Ligon: Break It Down,’ Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2025); ‘All Over the Place,’ The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, England (2024); ‘Post-Noir’, Carre d’Art, Nîmes (2022); ‘Glenn Ligon: Call and Response’, Camden Arts Centre, London (2014); and ‘Glenn Ligon – Some Changes’, The Power Plant Center for Contemporary Art, Toronto (traveled internationally) (2005). Select curatorial projects include ‘Grief and Grievance’, New Museum, New York (2021); ‘Blue Black’, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2017); and ‘Glenn Ligon: Encounters and Collisions’, Nottingham Contemporary and Tate Liverpool (2015). Ligon’s work has been shown in major international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2015, 1997), Berlin Biennial (2014), Istanbul Biennial (2019, 2011), and Documenta XI (2002).
