Artists Glenn Ligon and Amanda Williams and scholar Joseph M. Pierce will discuss the importance of color in Jack Whitten’s work. Ligon will speak about his profound exploration of black and blackness as a conduit to questions of race and identity. Williams will consider blue and discuss her project of reviving the blue hues patented by the scientist and inventor George Washington Carver. And Pierce will share his research into the color red: as a valued pigment, a symbol of war in indigenous governance, a racial trope, and an aesthetic tool for indigenous artists.
This event is part of Whitten Talks: Artists on Artists, a series of conversations on the occasion of the exhibition Jack Whitten: The Messenger in which contemporary artists reflect on Whitten’s pathbreaking exploration of race, technology, jazz, love, and war from the 1960s through to his legacy today. Please join us for what will be illuminating conversations revealing what only artists see.
Glenn Ligon is an artist who explores US history, literature, and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and Conceptual art. He is best known for text-based paintings that draw on the writings and speech of 20th-century cultural figures including James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Pryor.
Joseph M. Pierce is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a 2024–25 MoMA Scholar in Residence. He is an associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University and the inaugural director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative there. He is the author of Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair (2025).
Amanda Williams is a visual artist based in Chicago. In her paintings, sculptures, installations, and photographs, she uses color as a tool to examine the complex ways in which race informs our assignment of value to physical, social, and conceptual spaces.
This program is organized by the Department of Research Programs and the Jack Whitten: The Messenger curatorial team.