Ligon's Work Ligon 1991 -

¶ … Ligon's Work Ligon 1991 - I Am an Invisible Man Glenn Ligon was a prolific artist that produced works in a range of different themes and in different mediums. Ligon is a contemporary artist that was born and raised in the projects of New York City and this undoubtedly influenced much of his work. He was fortunate to have an extraordinary intelligence and his aptitude awarded him the opportunity to go to some of the finest schools in the area.

His education provided him the foundation to be able to broaden his perspective which is also evident in the breadth of the material he covers. He dabbled in sculptures, prints, drawings, neon signs, and whatever else his imagination allowed. He is controversial in a way because some of his work tackles socially delicate themes. Ligon is a gay African-American male and he certainly let this part of his personality show in a range of his work.

Some of his more controversial pieces are pornographic and portray homosexual men in various positions. However, these pieces are also deeper than just the controversial surface and integrate other issues that include topics such as race, AIDS, and even politics. These collections are often shocking to most people, other than a narrow target audience that was receptive.

Therefore, it is argued that if Ligon would have bypassed to pornographic aspect in these works he probably would have been better received and reached a larger audience which would have allowed him to have a bigger impact on some of the background issues he wanted to raise. Furthermore, it is also argued that by exaggerating the Negro themes that he illustrates he almost acts to create a greater divide among races than he does to close the gap.

Discussion Ligon documents much of the upbringing he had in NYC in an essay called A Feast of Scraps. In this essay he points out the lack of coherence that his family unit had. He recalls flipping through the family picture book and not recognizing many of the family members. This is paper personal reflection and also part illustration to point of the familial problems that black families had in the project with many broken homes.

The issue has been described as (DeLand, 2012): The belief that the black family, the black home, is in crisis, in ruins, has been one of the most palpable realities of U.S. culture. It has been bemoaned and pronounced upon by both black and white, from both the left and the right. It has been used as an argument for the erection of the welfare state -- and for its dismantling.

From at least the mid-nineteenth century, American social commentators have been announcing the death of the black family and administering last rites. Thus this work does much to illustrate many of the challenges that black families had in the projects of NYC and represents one of Ligon's more respectable ambitions. However, the Gay Treasures work that Ligon produces is one of his more controversial creations.

He portrays "well endowed" black men in the nude that some have argued is to create a divide in the races by illustrating images that would play to the fears of other races. Ligon elaborates on this problem in his accompanying essay to A Feastof Scraps (DeLand, 2012): Pornographic images of black men usually fall into a narrow range of types: black men as closer to nature, sexually aggressive, enormously endowed. Black men as phallus.

[Frantz] Fanon and others have argued that these stereotypes allay the fears of whites while serving their needs and desires. These photos are definitely pornographic and nature and certainly could have been left out of Ligon's collection. In my opinion, his career would have been better developed without experimenting in this medium. However, at the same time, as a homosexual black male, it is undoubtedly his right of self-expression. Yet at the same time he.