GLENN LIGON

As if to deny or redact what has already been disclosed, X‘s appear across the nine diptychs presented here, in-line, atopthe essay and then more freely. Complicating the legibility of Baldwin’s words, the X‘s push toward abstraction and createnew meanings. The X proffers the possibility of excision or negation. To cross or x out is a literal embodiment of a familiarcolloquialism presented en masse. And yet, Ligon courts its capacity to create perhaps more than evacuate meaning—recalling various forms of asemic writing, concrete poetry, and artistic touchstones including Henri Michaux, Norman Lewis,and Cy Twombly. A fundamental mark, the X arises even when other writing systems are absent, as in the use of the X todenote a signature. It also suggests political action, alluding to figures such as Malcolm X, whose adopted surname replacedone tied to a legacy of white supremancy.

In a 2021 profile of the artist for T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Megan O’Grady observed that, “Ligon has in manyways inherited Baldwin’s mantle to become the foremost philosopher on race and identity in America.” Ligon’s picturesof Baldwin’s words are worth, and bear, repeating. Underscoring the difference ushered in by every mark made, Ligon’sDOUBLE NEGATIVE imagines a perpetual or generational conversation, a spectral call-and-response between Ligon,Baldwin, and innumerable others that exceeds language as we know it.