Glenn Ligon “We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is” at Luhring Augustine Bushwick

Luhring Augustine Bushwick is pleased to present We Need To Wake Up Cause That’s What Time It Is, a new exhibition by the artist Glenn Ligon.

The exhibition features Live (2014), a silent seven channel video installation based on the 1982 film Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip.  Pryor is famous for his darkly humorous and often explicit critiques of society, and Ligon has previously incorporated his standup material in a series of colorful text paintings.  In Live, Ligon removes Pryor’s voice, and thereby, the incisive comedy for which he is best known.  One channel depicts Pryor in full, while the other six channels each focus on a specific part of his body – his hands, head, mouth, groin, and shadow – to concentrate our attention on his animated delivery and emphatic body language.  Each screen is illuminated only when that particular part of the body is visible in the original film, thus the screens flicker off and on intermittently, prompting the viewer to walk around them in order to take in the whole installation.