Glenn Ligon
Selected Biography
Born in Bronx, New York, 1960
Lives and works in New York
1985, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York
1982, B.A., Wesleyan University, Middletown
1980, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
Solo Exhibitions
2014
Forthcoming: Camden Art Centre, London, UK
Glenn Ligon: Come Out, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, UK
Glenn Ligon: Narratives, Schmucker Art Gallery, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
2013
Glenn Ligon, Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo
2012
Glenn Ligon: Neon, Luhring Augustine, New York
2011
Glenn Ligon: AMERICA, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; 1; travelled to Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; travels to Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas
2010
Glenn Ligon, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2009
Nobody and Other Songs, Thomas Dane Gallery, London
Glenn Ligon: Off Book, Regen Projects II
2008
Love and Theft, Power House Memphis, Memphis
Figure / Paysage / Marine, Yvon Lambert, Paris, France
2007
Some Changes, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio; Mudam, Foundation Musee d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
Glenn Ligon, Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Unauthorized, Belkin Gallery, Vancouver
2006
Brilliant Corners, Glenn Ligon, Thomas Dane Gallery, London
We Had Everything Before Us We Had Nothing Before Us, Yvon Lambert Gallery, Paris, France
Grossman Gallery at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania
Some Changes, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Glenn Ligon, Grossman Gallery at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania
2005
Glenn Ligon: Some Changes, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada
Drawings, Baldwin Gallery, Aspen
2004
Text Paintings: 1990 – 2004, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, California
Circa 1971, ’72 or ’73, The Gallery at Dieu Donné Papermill, New York
2003
Going There, D’Amelio Terras, New York
Annotations, Dia Center for the Arts, New York, online project
2002
Glenn Ligon, Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, California
2001
Colored, D’Amelio Terras, New York
Portraits and Not-Portraits, Kunstverein Munich, Germany
Stranger, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
2000
Artist-in-Residendence: Glenn Ligon, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Coloring: New Work, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Currents 81, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
1998
Glenn Ligon: Unbecoming, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Glenn Ligon, ArtPace, San Antonio, Texas
Nothing Under the Sun, Max Protetch Gallery, New York
1997
Glenn Ligon: Day of Absence, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Center for Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown
Runaways, MOSAIC: Museum Study Center, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida
1996
The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Drawings by Glenn Ligon, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Glenn Ligon: New Work, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California
1995
Photos and Notes, Max Protetch Gallery, New York
Skin Tight, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Glenn Ligon, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa
1994
Project Room, Ruth Bloom Gallery, Santa Monica, California
1993
Glenn Ligon: to Disembark, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Traveled:
Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA; Davidson College Art Gallery, Davidson, NC;
Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS; Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI (brochure)
White, Max Protetch Gallery, New York
Good Mirrors Are Not Cheap, Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, New York, NY; Traveled: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
1992
Glenn Ligon, Max Protech Gallery, New York
Glenn Ligon/Matrix 120, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
1991
Glenn Ligon, White Columns, New York
Project Room, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York
1990
Winter Exhibition Series, National and International Studio Artist Program (1989-90), P.S. 1 Museum, New York
Institute for Contemporary Art, Long Island City, New York
1982
Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut
Recent Group Exhibitions
2014
30 Americans, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, Louisiana
Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany
Reliable Tension, or: How to Win a Conversation About Jasper Johns, 32 Edgewood Avenue Gallery,
Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut
8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
Man in the Mirror, Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels, Belgium
Point of View: African American Art Masters from the Elliot and Kimberly Perry Collection, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, Michigan
Somos Libres II, Pinacoteca Gianni e Marella Agnelli, Turin, Italy
Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California
UNE HISTOIRE (art archi design/des années 80 à nos jours) / A HISTORY (art architecture design, from the 80s to now), Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2013
Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada
Cinematic Visions: Painting at the Edge of Reality, Victoria Miro Gallery, London
Color Bind: The MCA Collection in Black and White, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois
Each One As She May – Ligon, Reich & De Keersmaeker, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Prennsylvania
Fiction/Nonfiction, Esker Foundation, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
In a Silent Way, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
Revelations, Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada
Blues for Smoke, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
The Unphotographable, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, California
Black and White, Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan
Speak, Memory, The Wallach Art Gallery, New York
Network of Mutuality: 50 Years Post-Birmingham, The Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
NYC 1993, New Museum, New York
Word and Image, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
We Hold These Truths…, The Hofstra University Museum, Hempstead
2012
The Annual 2012. National Academy, New York
Blues for Smoke, LA MOCA, Los Angeles, California
Taboo, MCA- Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
Weighted Words, The Zabludowicz Collection, London
Self-portraits, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
TERRAIN: Selected Works from the Linda Pace Foundation Collection, Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio, Texas
National Academy Annual Exhibition: 2012, National Academy, New York
Distant Star/Estrella Distante, Kurimanzutto, Mexico City, Mexico
Invisible, Hayward Gallery, London
Material, Salon 94 Freemans, New York
The Painting Factory: Abstraction After Andy Warhol, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California
The Residue of Memory, Aspen Museum of Art, Aspen, Colorado
War Prizes: The Cultural Legacy of Slavery & The Civil War, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artist, Fifty Years, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
2011
30 Americans, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
After Hours: Murals on the Bowery,(part of Festival of Idea for a New City), New York
America: Now + Here, a travelling exhibition in multiple expandable trucks, in many US Cities including Kansas City, Detroit, and Chicago, and Aspen, curated by Eric Fischl
American Exuberance, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida
ARTiculate: Links Between Visual and Verbal Expression, Camden Stedman Gallery, Rutgers University, Rutgers, New Jersey
Black Swan: The Exhibition, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, California
The Bearden Project, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
Collecting Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Distant Star/Estrella Distante, Kurimanzutto, Mexico City and Regen Projects, Los Angeles, California
Face Off: Portraits by Contemporary Artists, Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut
HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn,
New York
Human Nature: Contemporary Art from the Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
If you lived here you’d be home by now, CCS Bard Hessel Muesum, curated by Josiah McElheny
Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial)
Jean Genet, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
The Last First Decade, Ellipse Foundation, Portugal
Robert Mapplethorpe: Night Work, Curated by Scissor Sisters, Alison Jacques Gallery, London
Nothing in the World But Youth, Turner Contemporary, Kent, UK
Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA; travels to the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
We Will Live, We Will See, Zabludowicz Collection, London
Black White Gray Blue, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa
2010
Living with Art: Collecting Contemporary in Metro New York, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University, Purchase, New York
Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
Huckleberry Finn, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco, California
Minima Moralia, Marvelli Gallery, New York
Picture Industry (Goodbye to All That), organized by Walead Beshty, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, California
Contemporary Art from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York
This Girl Bends: Art and Feminism Since 1960, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Mixed Use, Manhattan: Photography and Related Practices, 1970s to the present, Reina Sofia, Madrid,
Spain
Self-Consciousness, VeneKlasen Werner Gallery, Berlin, Germany
Until Now: Collecting the New (1960-2010), Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota
El Gabinete Blanco, Fundacion/Coleccion Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico
Substitute Teacher, The Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia
Freedom of Expression: Politics and Aesthetics in African American Art, Colby College Museum of Art,Waterville, Maine
The Library of Babel/ In and Out of Place, curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers, 176 Zabludowicz Collection, London
Desire, The Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Afro-Modernism: Journeys through the Black Atlantic, Tate Liverpool, UK
Hard Targets, Wexner Center or the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
Twenty Five, Luhring Augustine, New York
From Then to Now: Masterworks of Contemporary African American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Oio
Imitation and Invention, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut
2009
30 Seconds off an Inch, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
Black Is, Black Ain’t, ArtSpace, Kansas City, Minnesota
Beg, Borrow and Steal, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida
FAX, The Drawing Center, New York; Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, Maryland; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, California; Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, Canada; Dowd Gallery, Cortland, New York; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico; Para/Site Art Space, Hong Kong
Reflection: A Video Program, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Infinitesimal Eternity, 32 Edgewood Avenue Gallery, Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut
Exposed: Revealing Sources in Contemporary Art, Delaware Art Museum, Delaware
Post-American L.A., 18th Street Arts Organization, Santa Monica, California
The Matrix Effect, The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connceticut
Collected. Propositions on the Permanent Collection, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York Modern and Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Between Art and Life: Contemporary Works from the Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California
Racism: An American Family Value, The Center for Book Arts, New York
Extended Family: Contemporary Connections, Brooklyn Museum, New York
2008
Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art, International Center of Photography, New
York
Notations: The Closing Decade, Philadelphia Museum of Art
International 08, Liverpool Biennale
Listen Darling...The World is Yours, Ellipse Foundation, Cascais, Portugal
Here is Every. Four Decades of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York
The 7th Gwangju Biennale: Annual Report: A Year in Exhibitions, Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea
The Wizard OZ, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, California
30 Americans, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida
Across the Divide: Reconsidering the Other, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Illinois
Intimacy, curated by Anne Pasternak, The Fireplace Project, East Hampton, New York
Progress, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City, Gottesman Exhibition Hall, The New York Public Library, New York
You & Me, Sometimes..., Lehmann Maupin, New York,
Under Pain of Death, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York
Black is, Black Ain’t, The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago, Illinois
2007
Sparkle Then Fade, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington
At Home, Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York
Mario Testino: At Home, Yvon Lambert, New York
What is Painting? Contemporary Art from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Substance & Surface, Bortolami Gallery, New York
Contemporary Art from the Harvard University Art Museums Collections, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Repicturing the Past/Picturing the Present, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Lines, Grids, Stains, Words, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Art Unlimited, Regen Projects at Art Basel 38, Basel, Switzerland
Art in America, Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, ShanHai, China
Paper: from the collection of Emily Fisher Landau, curated By Bill Katz, The Fisher Landau Center for Art, Long Island City, New York
Remix Identity and Abstraction, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, Fall 2007 Learn to Read, curated by Vincent Honoré and Maeve Polkinhorn, Tate Modern, London
Novel Readings, curated by Florencia Malbrán, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Annandale-on-
Hudson, New York
Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
2006
The Starry Messenger: Visions of the Universe, Compton Verney, Warwickshire
Die Neue Kunsthalle III, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Defamation of Character, organized by Neville Wakefield, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York
Voodoo Macbeth, curated by David A. Bailey, De La Warr Pavilion, East Sussex, UK
Yes Bruce Nauman, Zwirner & Wirth, New York
Gifts go in one direction, curated by Alexander Nagel, apexart, New York
SUBJECT, Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, Conneticut
Invitational Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
Dark Places, Santa Monica Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles, California
Skin Is a Language, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
2005
A Brief History of Invisible Art, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, California
Linkages and Themes in the African Diaspora, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, California
Looking at Words: The Formal Presence of Text in Modern Contemporary Works on Paper, conceived by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, NYCollective Histories / Collective Memories: California Modern, Orange County Museum of Modern Art, Newport Beach, CADrawing from the Modern, 1975 - 2005, Museum of Modern Art, New York
ROMANCE (a novel), curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Portugal
A Thousand Words, Inman Gallery, Houston, Texas
Getting Emotional, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts
Double Consciousness: Black Conceptual Art Since 1970, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas, organized by Valerie Cassel Oliver
2004
Experiments with Truth, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, guest curator Mark Nash
Love/Hate, From Magritte to Cattelan: Masterpieces from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois,
Villa Manin Centro d’Arte Contemporanea, Codroipo (Udine), Italy, curated by Francesco Bonami
Great White, Center for Curatorial Studies Museum, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, curated by Joanna Montoya
Open House, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, curated by Nancy Spector
Robert Colescott & Glenn Ligon from the Logan Collection, Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, University of