For his first solo exhibition at Galerie Chantal Crousel, Glenn Ligon will present a new series of large and small silkscreen and ink marker paintings, based on abstracted letter forms; two figurative neon installations inspired by an uncompleted project of Pier Paolo Pasolini; ten oil stick and coal dust paintings on paper quoting a Gertrude Stein text.

Since the 1990s, Glenn Ligon has been exploring American history, literature and society by turning focusing on words, their meaning and illegibility. Relying on various literary sources such as texts by James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman or Jean Genet to name only a few, his approach gives palpable density and weight to the word.

With this new body of work presented in Paris, Ligon takes text to an even more abstract level.

A catalogue will accompany the exhibition, with an essay by Sara Nadal-Melsió, professor, writer, curator, poems by Gregg Bordowitz, artist, writer and scholar. It will be published in October 2018. A panel talk with the artist and Sara Nadal-Melsió will take place at the gallery on September 11.

Glenn Ligon opened his studio to Sara Nadal-Melsió during the whole preparation of the show. As a result, the author explores Ligon's presented works relying on three ideas: improvisation, frontality, opacity.