An illustrated examination of Glenn Ligon's iconic Untitled (I Am a Man) (1988)-a quotation, an appropriated text turned into an artifact. The iconic work Untitled (I Am a Man) (1988) by the important contemporary American artist Glenn Ligon is a quotation, an appropriated text turned into an artifact. The National Gallery of Art in Washington presents the work as a "representation-a signifier-of the actual signs carried by 1,300 striking African American sanitation workers in Memphis, made famous by Ernest Withers' 1968 photographs." In this illustrated study of the work, Gregg Bordowitz takes the National Gallery's presentation as his starting point, considering the museum's juxtaposition of Untitled (I Am a Man) and the ca. 1935 sculpture, Schoolteacher, by William Edmondson, and the relation of the two terms, "markers" and "signs." After closely examining the canvas itself, its textures, brushwork, and structure, Bordowitz presents a theoretical framework that draws on the work of American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and his theory of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. He makes a case for Thirdness as a function, operation, or law of meaning-making, not limited by the gender, age, ethnicity, race, class, or personal history of the viewer. Bordowitz goes on to examine Ligon's work in terms of the representation of self, race, and gender, focusing on three series: Profile Series (1990-91), Narratives, and Runaways (both 1993). He cites such historical figures as Sojourner Truth and her famous 1851 speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" as well as influences ranging from Bo Diddley's 1955 song, "I'm a Man" to the cultural theories of Stuart Hall.

Glenn Ligon (b1960) is one of the most significant American artists of his generation. Much of his work relates to abstract expressionism and minimalist painting, remixing formal characteristics to highlight the cultural and social histories of the time, such as the civil rights movement. The exhibition brings together artworks and other material he references in his own work and writings, or work with which he shares certain affinities. This publication is both a comprehensive exhibition catalogue, which fully illustrating all works in the exhibition from artists including Chris Ofili, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Lorna Simpson, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Jasper Johns, accompanied by newly commissioned texts by Glenn Ligon, Francesco Manacorda, Alex Farquharson, and Gregg Bordowitz; and an anthology of around 20 texts selected/excerpted by Glenn Ligon.

College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism, February 2006. The HIV epidemic animates this collection of essays by a noted artist, writer, and activist. "So total was the burden of illness--mine and others'--that the only viable response, other than to cease making art entirely, was to adjust to the gravity of the predicament by using the crisis as a lens," writes Gregg Bordowitz, a film- and video-maker whose best-known works, "Fast Trip Long Drop" (1993) and "Habit" (2001), address AIDS globally and personally. In "The AIDS Crisis Is Ridiculous"--the title essay is inspired by Charles Ludlam, founder of the Ridiculous Theater Company--Bordowitz follows in the tradition of artist-writers Robert Smithson and Yvonne Rainer by making writing an integral part of an artistic practice. Bordowitz has left his earliest writings for the most part unchanged--to preserve, he says, "both the youthful exuberance and the palpable sense of fear" created by the early days of the AIDS crisis. After these early essays, the writing becomes more experimental, sometimes mixing fiction and fact; included here is a selection of Bordowitz's columns from the journal "Documents," "New York Was Yesterday." Finally, in his newest essays he reformulates early themes, and, in "My Postmodernism" (written for "Artforum"'s fortieth anniversary issue) and "More Operative Assumptions" (written especially for this book), he reexamines the underlying ideas of his practice and sums up his theoretical concerns. In his mature work, Bordowitz seeks to join the subjective--the experience of having a disease--and the objective--the fact of the disease as a global problem. He believesthat this conjunction is necessary for understanding and fighting the crisis. "If it can be written," he says, "then it can be realized."