“Rose laughed when she was happy but she had not the wide, abandoned laughter that makes the warm broad glow of negro sunshine,” Gertrude Stein wrote in her 1909 novel Three Lives. Nearly one hundred years later, Ligon decided to quote a fragment of Stein’s text for this black neon sign. The dark words remain clearly legible against a bright halo of light. In the glow of Ligon’s neon, Stein’s words—and her casual reliance on problematic racial stereotypes—are set in stark relief.
Gallery label from 2023
