CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/16/2024

192 Books presents Glenn Ligon and James Hoff on ‘Distinguishing Piss from Rain’

Wednesday, October 16 at 6:30 PM, 192 Books presents artist and Distinguishing Piss from Rain author Glenn Ligon in conversation with the book’s editor, James Hoff, for a discussion about Ligon’s new collection of writings and interviews, published by Hauser & Wirth Publishers. Seating is limited so please RSVP here, or stream the conversation directly on PCG Studio (no login required). A recording will be archived. Books will be available for sale after the conversation.

This long-awaited and essential publication collects three decades of writings and interviews by Glenn Ligon, whose work has been delivering an incisive examination of race, history, sexuality and culture in America since his emergence as an artist in the late 1980s. No stranger to text, Ligon has routinely used writings from James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein, Richard Pryor and others to construct work that centers Blackness within the historically white backdrop of the art world and culture writ large. He began writing in the early 2000s, engaging deeply with the work of peers such as Julie Mehretu, Chris Ofili and Lorna Simpson, as well as artists that came before him—among them Philip Guston, David Hammons and Andy Warhol. Throughout the publication’s 16 essays, Ligon combines razor-sharp insight with anecdotal and biographical details, providing the fullest picture yet of the artist and his ongoing evaluation of the art and politics of our time.

Photograph by Paul Mpagi Sepuya.

Glenn Ligon (b. 1960) is an artist living and working in New York. Throughout his career, Ligon has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and conceptual art. Important solo exhibitions include Post-Noir, Call and Response and Some Changes. Select curatorial projects include Grief and Grievance, Blue Black and Encounters and Collisions. Ligon’s work has been shown in major international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2015, 1997), Berlin Biennial (2014), Istanbul Biennial (2019, 2011), and Documenta XI (2002). His solo exhibition and curatorial project Glenn Ligon: All Over the Place is currently on view at The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge through March 2025.

James Hoff is an artist living in New York City. He is the co-founder and executive editor at Primary Information, a non-profit arts organization founded in 2006 to publish artists’ books and artists’ writings. Primary Information facilitates intergenerational dialogue through the simultaneous publication of new and archival books, providing a new audience for out-of-print works and historical context for contemporary artists. Since its founding, the organization has published over 150 publications.

Glenn Ligon and James Hoff on 'Distinguishing Piss from Rain'
Wednesday, October 16 at 6:30 PM
192 Books
192 10th Avenue at 21st Street
New York, NY 10011
Telephone 212.255.4022
RSVP here
Stream directly on PCG Studio