Glenn Ligon (American, born 1960). <em>[Untitled] (Crowd/The Fire Next Time)</em>, 2000. Screenprint with coal crystals on paper, image: 12 × 18 1/8 in. (30.5 × 46 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Alfred T. White Fund, 2000.56. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2000.56_transp5856.jpg)

Glenn Ligon (American, born 1960). [Untitled] (Crowd/The Fire Next Time), 2000. Screenprint with coal crystals on paper, image: 12 × 18 1/8 in. (30.5 × 46 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Alfred T. White Fund, 2000.56. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2000.56_transp5856.jpg)

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This work by Glenn Ligon features black coal crystals spelling out the phrase "What will happen to all that beauty?" in front of a photo from the Million Man March in DC in 1995. The innumerable individual coal crystals used in this work signify the massive crowd of people who attended the march. The words come from a James Baldwin essay written in 1962 and printed in 1963 in the volume "The Fire Next Time."

[Untitled] (Crowd/The Fire Next Time)

Contemporary Art

In this piece, spelled out in sparkling coal crystals are the words “something in me wondered ‘What will happen to all that beauty?’” This quotation, from a 1962 essay by James Baldwin (reprinted the following year in the volume The Fire Next Time), is set over a blurred black-and-white image of the Million Man March, a gathering of black social activists in Washington, D.C., in 1995. The accumulation of crystals suggests the mass of participants in this historic event as viewed from above, while the juxtaposition of Baldwin’s words with the image of the march—separated by more than three decades—reminds us of the still-ongoing dialogue about race in America.

ARTIST Glenn Ligon, American, born 1960

PRINTERS Dusica Kirjakovic; Marc Lepson, American, born 1970

MEDIUM Screenprint with coal crystals on paper

DATES 2000

DIMENSIONS image: 12 × 18 1/8 in. (30.5 × 46 cm) sheet: 19 5/8 × 27 11/16 in. (49.8 × 70.3 cm) frame: 27 1/8 × 35 1/8 × 2 1/4 in. (68.9 × 89.2 × 5.7 cm) (show scale)

SIGNATURE Signed lower right in graphite: "Glenn Ligon"

COLLECTIONS Contemporary Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 2000.56

CREDIT LINE Alfred T. White Fund

EXHIBITIONS

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view

CAPTION Glenn Ligon (American, born 1960). [Untitled] (Crowd/The Fire Next Time), 2000. Screenprint with coal crystals on paper, image: 12 × 18 1/8 in. (30.5 × 46 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Alfred T. White Fund, 2000.56. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2000.56_transp5856.jpg)

EDITION Edition: 3/30

IMAGE overall, 2000.56_transp5856.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph

"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.

The Brooklyn Museum holds a non-exclusive license to reproduce images of this work of art from the rights holder named here. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.

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