Glenn Ligon, Untitled (America)

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0:00:05.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’re at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and we’re looking at a sculpture by the American artist Glenn Ligon. Its title is Untitled, but then parenthetically, the word America. The sculpture hangs very high up. When I first saw it, it lit up. It was emphatic. I had to pay attention to it. But then I was confused, and it took me just a second to realize that the letters were upside down.

0:00:30.6 Victor Gomez: So what you are looking at is neon that is both inverted and painted with a layer of black. What this does for the work is it obscures and forces the red glimmering neon to reflect off of the wall.

0:00:47.8 Dr. Zucker: So we’re not seeing the lit neon directly. It’s all reflective. None of it is direct.

0:00:53.0 Gomez: Glenn Ligon is a perfect example of an artist who has taken text and language and used it to his advantage. It makes you wonder and question: why is America upside down? Why am I seeing a reflection of the glimmering light? And how do I see myself represented in this term that I know so well: “America?”

0:01:21.9 Dr. Zucker: The subversive nature of the work is clear from the flipping of the word America. A word that is often held up as a banner for patriotism, but is here undermined or complicated by the fact that it is upside down, and that although it’s actually attached to the wall, it almost seems to hang from the electrical cords and boxes above that power it. And the artist has chosen a typewriter-like typeface for its matter-of-factness, for its visual authority. And yet here that truth has been subverted.

0:01:56.8 Gomez: From where we are standing viewing the work from this low perspective, it very much feels as if America is toppling down. But also, what is this flickering sort of obnoxious red neon trying to tell you? Is it a warning? Is it celebratory? And does it represent you in any way?

0:02:20.6 Dr. Zucker: Standing here in Arkansas, in the United States, America means the United States, but of course, America is so much more. It’s Canada, it’s Mexico, it’s Central America, it’s all of South America. And even if we’re dealing with the word America, within the context of the United States, there are so many meanings, so many things to be proud of, but also so many reasons for concern.

0:02:44.8 Gomez: Glenn Ligon is asking us to step outside of our own experience and consider the ways in which America, not only the United States, is a much larger entity.

0:03:00.1 Dr. Zucker: For much of its life. Neon had no place in the realm of fine art. It was a tawdry material. It would spell the words bar or motel, and it was meant to attract. It was meant to cut through the darkness of the night. But here it spells out a word that is almost sacred for many people.

0:03:17.4 Gomez: I think it’s beautiful the way in which Glenn has utilized neon, specifically through the use of incorporating the black paint to show how there can still be the presence of light.

0:03:30.7 Dr. Zucker: These works are a provocation. They’re meant to upset us, to incite us, but mostly to make us think, to make us reflect. And it’s not a sculpture that we can become comfortable with. We never know when it’s gonna light up. It makes a terrible buzzing noise when it turns on, and then as we get used to that red glow, it’s gone again.

0:03:51.1 Gomez: It’s an invitation. An invitation to reflect, an invitation to have a conversation, and an invitation to think about our place and where we are going.

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This work at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

The artist’s website

Scott Rothkopf, et al., Glenn Ligon: AMERICA, exhibition catalogue (New York: The Whitney Museum of American Art, 2011).

Contemporary Art, an introduction

1980–now in the United States, an introduction