Slant

Aftershock: Glenn Ligon

Glenn Ligon on the US presidential election

Artforum has invited artists to share a text, image, or video in the immediate wake of the United States presidential election and will be posting their contributions throughout the next week.

Glenn Ligon, Aftermath, 2020, neon, 9 1/2 x 60 1/2 x 2 3/8''. Photo: Ron Amstutz; Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Thomas Dane Gallery, London and Chantal Crousel, Paris.

AFTERMATH WAS LIT before November 4, 2020, and will remain lit after the date the neon illustrates. Although the title implies that November 4, 2020, is the date on which we will see how the United States will react to the election results, the neon being lit before that date signals that we are already in the aftermath, that the emergency started generations ago for Indigenous people who resided here before the colonizers arrived and for the enslaved Africans brought to these shores over four hundred years ago. 

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