Acting

Glenn Ligon

Born

1960-01-01 (66)

Place of birth

The Bronx, New York, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

6 titles

Glenn Ligon is an American conceptual artist whose work explores race, language, desire, sexuality, and identity. Based in New York City, Ligon engages in intertextuality with other works from the visual arts, literature, and history, as well as his own life.

Known for

The Andy Warhol Diaries poster
6.7

After he's shot in 1968, Andy Warhol begins documenting his life and feelings. Those diaries, and this series, reveal the secrets behind his persona.

The Andy Warhol Diaries

2022

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty poster
NR

Visual artist Marilyn Minter has been a major creative voice since the 1970s. Despite her undeniable talent, her provocative style—often blurring the lines between pornographic and commercial—has kept her at arm’s length from the art world’s inner sanctum. Marilyn’s steadfast commitment to her own creative instincts has carried her through eras of success and rejection and into the present, where she has become known for capturing cultural icons like Lizzo, Jane Fonda, Pamela Anderson, Monica Lewinsky, and many others. As the public appetite catches up to Marilyn’s vision, will the establishment’s gatekeepers finally accept her?

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty

2025

Black Art: In the Absence of Light poster
6.4

An introduction to the work of some of the foremost Black visual artists working today, inspired by the late David Driskell's landmark 1976 exhibition, "Two Centuries of Black American Art."

Black Art: In the Absence of Light

2021

Der Maler Philip Guston – Ein amerikanisches Leben poster
8.0

The extraordinary work of the American artist Philip Guston is a milestone in modern painting. Guston is one of the most discussed painters of his time and today a star of the younger generation of contemporary artists. ARTE is showing the documentary on the occasion of the major Guston retrospective at the Tate Modern in London.

Der Maler Philip Guston – Ein amerikanisches Leben

2023

No artwork available
NR

For this project Ligon originally intended to re-create the last scene of a 1903 silent film adaptation of the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin from 1852. In the film, white actors in blackface played the principal roles. Tom, the film's protagonist and a slave, dies in the final scene, and images of the future—including the end of the American Civil War and the emancipation of slaves—materialize behind him. After footage of his reenactment was processed, Ligon discovered that the film was blurred and the imagery had disappeared. Leaving the footage unedited, he added a commissioned score played by the jazz pianist Jason Moran. In the final work, a cinematic scenario deeply intertwined with the complex and painful history of representations of ethnic difference has been transformed into a series of abstract black, white, and gray traces.

The Death of Tom

2008

Aggie poster
1.0

An exploration of the nexus of art, race, and justice through the story of art collector and philanthropist Agnes Gund who sold Roy Lichtenstein’s painting “Masterpiece” in 2017 for $165 million to start the Art for Justice Fund to end mass incarceration.

Aggie

2020

Film credits

2020s · 4 titles

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty poster
NR

Visual artist Marilyn Minter has been a major creative voice since the 1970s. Despite her undeniable talent, her provocative style—often blurring the lines between pornographic and commercial—has kept her at arm’s length from the art world’s inner sanctum. Marilyn’s steadfast commitment to her own creative instincts has carried her through eras of success and rejection and into the present, where she has become known for capturing cultural icons like Lizzo, Jane Fonda, Pamela Anderson, Monica Lewinsky, and many others. As the public appetite catches up to Marilyn’s vision, will the establishment’s gatekeepers finally accept her?

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty

2025

Black Art: In the Absence of Light poster
6.4

An introduction to the work of some of the foremost Black visual artists working today, inspired by the late David Driskell's landmark 1976 exhibition, "Two Centuries of Black American Art."

Black Art: In the Absence of Light

2021

Der Maler Philip Guston – Ein amerikanisches Leben poster
8.0

The extraordinary work of the American artist Philip Guston is a milestone in modern painting. Guston is one of the most discussed painters of his time and today a star of the younger generation of contemporary artists. ARTE is showing the documentary on the occasion of the major Guston retrospective at the Tate Modern in London.

Der Maler Philip Guston – Ein amerikanisches Leben

2023

Aggie poster
1.0

An exploration of the nexus of art, race, and justice through the story of art collector and philanthropist Agnes Gund who sold Roy Lichtenstein’s painting “Masterpiece” in 2017 for $165 million to start the Art for Justice Fund to end mass incarceration.

Aggie

2020

Series credits

Behind the camera