An etching from the work of Glenn Ligon.
Kimberly Rae Connor, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the School of Business and Professional Studies,will be the guest curator of an exhibit in the USF Thacher Gallery in the Gleeson Library of some of the formative works of the artist Glenn Ligon whose visual materials explore the American slave narrative tradition as well as issues of identity and race in contemporary America. USF BPS will be a co-sponsor in collaboration with the Departments of African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Philosophy,and Art + Architecture, the Black Student Union, and Gleeson Library/Geschke Center.
Some of the works on display will be from Professor Connor’s personal collection. Others are on loan from Regen Projects and the GLBT Historical Society of San Francisco. Connor will give a presentation — Introduction to Textimonies — in the Donohue Rare Book Room, Gleeson Library on February 2 at 1.00 PM.
In the early 1990s Professor Connor — at that time in the process of authoring a book on the slave narrative tradition — discovered similar themes in Ligon’s work, then on exhibit at the Hirshhorn Gallery in Washington, DC.
Subsequently, she dedicated a chapter of her book to Ligon’s work, and acquired some of the pieces from that show.
Professor Connor has donated the pieces to her undergraduate alma mater, Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania — both to honor its support of her academic development, as well as to recognize the college’s crucial location in the historic war against slavery — so this exhibit will be the last chance to see this work on the West Coast.
