The artwork in the video of the post from two weeks ago is called Double America 2 by artist Glenn Ligon. Here is how the museum’s curators describe the work on their website: Glenn Ligon’s childhood love of literature evolved into a fascination with the political and social uses of language, which informs much of his current work. Ligon’s paintings and prints give weight and force to the written word as they contemplate issues about the formation and perception of identity and race.
In the app audio tour (brilliant website, by the way; thank you, The Broad) it says: His art is about his perception of life as an African American male in the United States.
How does this compare to our definition: Art – the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculptures, producing works to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power?
I cannot say that in this work there is a creative skill or imagination in terms of creating something new that didn’t exist before. Electrical signs like this are fairly common. The word America is virtually known to everyone. I don’t appreciate the finished work for its beauty, and it doesn’t strike me with emotional power, either. This last point can be argued, I know; emotion is a very personal thing. Still, I think the flickering letters rather provoke thinking and questioning than pure emotional power. (I find more emotional power in another Ligon’s work in the Broad, Remember the Revolution #1, where the red and blue grab my attention right away.)
This isn’t to say that the flickering America letters aren’t powerful and important, but I think it is worth noting what a different function they fulfill compared to “appreciated for their beauty and emotional power.” Double America 2 expresses a human’s entire worldview and experience in a small object in a way that another human can look into and share along. This to me is a very different definition.
Art and the Invisible 