Best known for intertextual works that re-present American history and literature - narratives of slavery and civil rights.  His work engages with a powerful mix of racial and gender oriented struggles for the self, leading viewers to reconsider problems inherent in representation.

(Above) Part of Ligon's Day of Absence series, this work constitutes an image of a banner from the 1995 'Million Man March' organised by the Nation of Islam, with the original words 'We're Black and Strong' erased by the artist - repurposed for the title of the work.  Women were excluded from the march, encouraged instead to take a day off work (referred to as a 'Day of Absence').  

The erasure of the text thus echoes the non-visibility of the women (and implied absence of gay men due to the Nation of Islam's extreme homophobia) - a gay man himself, Ligon watched from home.  The void in the image expresses Ligon's conflicted response to the event.

The Million Man March was controversial from its inception. Who was included and who was excluded? What image of masculinity did it put forward? And in the end, was it effective? Ligon doesn’t try to answer these questions, but the series serves as a complex meditation on them. (https://whitney.org/media/726)

(Above) Used enamel and oil paint, which don't work together well as they dry at different rates - the result is broken, cracked, fissured picture surface, some parts yellowing, others not.

'The process that that painting has undergone is something about the subject matter, which is ultimately history and how we process history from one generation to the next.  How our ideas about certain moments change over time, our ideas about the civil rights movement, about masculinity, about the role of art.

'We imagine that we can know everything about a subject.  But then some other information comes, or some other information comes.  And that changes our understanding of it.' - History is not static and painting is not static.

(nga.org video interview)

Media and subject are completely linked in his work and process
How the enamel and oil react together - mix, blend, antagonise, contrast - mirrors the cracks and fissures that exist between people, even those united against a common goal.  Within the message of unity there remains prejudice.
This work sat in his studio for years - he didn't know entirely what it meant or what to do with it

(Above) A discrepancy between the two neon versions of the same word - it takes a moment to realise they aren't mirrored though they might seem to be - these two Americas aren't the same.

He borrows language/words from others - something I could do?
Arrangement important to his work