Glenn Ligon papers

Title: Glenn Ligon papers

Dates: 1994-1996

Collection Number: 1996-16

Creator/Collector:

Extent: 1.6 linear feet

Repository: GLBT Historical Society

Abstract: The Glenn Ligon papers consist of books, essays and articles about the Million Man March and representations of black people, exhibition catalogues, journal notes, test photos, photo albums and scrapbooks used in the preparation of his exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May 23rd through August 25th, 1996.

Language of Material: English

Collection is open for research.

[Identification of item]. Glenn Ligon papers. Collection Number: 1996-16. GLBT Historical Society

Gift of Glenn Ligon on June 24, 1996.

The Glenn Ligon papers consist of books, essays and articles about the Million Man March and representations of black people, exhibition catalogues, journal notes, test photos, photo albums and scrapbooks used in the preparation of his exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May 23rd through August 25th, 1996. Ligon is an American conceptual artist whose work explores race, language, desire, and identity; his work is greatly informed by his experiences as a Black gay man living in the United States. According to Ligon, his SFMOMA show (“Glenn Ligon: New Work”) is about autobiography, how identity is formed within the framework of society’s understanding of race, class, gender and sexual preference, and about the conflicting nature of those identifications. Scrapbooks created by Ligon as an extension of the Museum exhibit were simultaneously exhibited at the GLBT Historical Society. The exhibition pamphlet notes, “For Ligon, placing a trove of materials about the [Million Man] march and his work on it in the care of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society is an act with many layers of meaning in relation to the questions of presence and absence, visibility and invisibility that run through the rest of the exhibition. It is a way of filling in spaces left hauntingly blank by the images in the gallery, of speaking personally to a more motivated, less impersonal audience than that of a large museum, an audience willing to make the extra effort to visit a space they might otherwise ignore or avoid.” An index to the material in the collection is available in Box 1. GSSO linked terms: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_003728; http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_007675; http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_001039; http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_001601; http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_006371; http://purl.bioontology.org/ontology/MESH/D001154; http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GSSO_000374