Wesleyan's Davison Art Collection is focused primarily on graphic art and photography. The breadth of the collection is equaled by its outstanding quality; exceptionally fine impressions by Rembrandt van Rijn and Francisco de Goya, rare early engravings, and important contemporary artwork by artists including Kara Walker and Jasper Johns are only a few highlights. The Davison Art Collection supports teaching, learning, and research in its study room, and presents public exhibitions in its gallery.
Reading Signs: Jasper Johns and Glenn Ligon in Print
Pruzan Art Center, Goldrach Gallery
New location between Wesleyan’s Olin Memorial Library and Frank Center for Public Affairs
238 Church Street, Middletown, Connecticut
FREE!
Glenn Ligon, Untitled (Four Etchings), 1992, Suite of four; softground etching, aquatint, spit bite, and sugarlift on paper, Each 25 x 17.38 inches (63.5 x 44.15 cm); Edition of 45 and 10 APs. © Glenn Ligon; Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris.
Wednesday, September 18 through Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Throughout their printed works, Glenn Ligon '82, Hon. '12 and Jasper Johns demand and disrupt the act of reading. Both artists frequently discompose the visual elements of language and communication: targets drip and letters smudge. Johns and Ligon exploit the processes of printing—which entail contact and separation, mirroring and reversals—to parse the distances between signs and their meanings, and also to address the mechanics of looking on the part of the spectator. This exhibition will feature etchings and lithographs by both artists as well as screenprints by Johns in the Davison Art Collection.
Curated by the Donald T. Fallati and Ruth E. Pachman Curator of the Davison Art Collection Miya Tokumitsu.
WESeminar: A Conversation with Glenn Ligon '82, Hon. '12: Friday, November 1, 2024 from 4:30pm to 5:30pm in the The Forum, Frank Center for Public Affairs, 238 Church Street, Middletown, Connecticut (adjacent to the Pruzan Art Center)
In conjunction with the exhibition “Reading Signs: Jasper Johns and Glenn Ligon in Print,” Claire Grace, Associate Professor and Program Director of Art History, and Associate Professor of American Studies, and artist Glenn Ligon '82, Hon. '12 will discuss forms of opacity, history, legibility, and reversal at stake in Ligon’s work, as well as the dialogues it stages with an earlier generation of artists, including Jasper Johns. This event is part of Wesleyan's Homecoming + Family Weekend.
Download the exhibition brochure with an original essay by Susan Tallman.
