Like any artwork, things become richer if you know more about them; but I don't think that's crucial.

- Glenn Ligon

My job is not to produce answers. My job is to produce good questions.

- Glenn Ligon

One can take a neon tube and simply paint it black on the front. So it would read as a black letter or a line, but it would also read as neon because…

- Glenn Ligon

There's a kind of slowness and inefficiency about rendering text in paint. We're in a world that's very fast, so things that slow you for a minute-gi…

- Glenn Ligon

I think there's an interest right now in the performance aspect of artworks, instead of just hanging things on walls. We're in a moment when a lot of…

- Glenn Ligon

A key text for me is James Baldwin's essays. And, in particular, his essay Stranger in the Village. It's a text that I've used in a lot of paintings.…

- Glenn Ligon

Paint is a very sensual material. It's lovely to work with and lovely to look at.

- Glenn Ligon

I love Thelonious Monk's song "Just a Gigolo." It's probably a minor song for him, but whenever I hear a recording of him playing it, I'm mesmerized,…

- Glenn Ligon

I said to myself, "If the government thinks I'm an artist, I must be one."

- Glenn Ligon