Study for Negro Sunshine #2,

2004

Study for Negro Sunshine #2 borrows a phrase from Melanctha (1905–6), an experimental modernist novella by Gertrude Stein (1874–1946): “Rose laughed when she was happy but she had not the wide, abandoned laughter that makes the warm broad glow of negro sunshine.” Isolating the final two words, Ligon underscored the pattern of racializing language in Stein’s text: repeatedly stenciling it in oil stick, dragging the stencil and smudging the letters as he worked, and layering coal dust on top of the letters while still wet. Both his technique and the formal repetition accentuate the accumulative effect of language but also the possibility of change. Ligon notes: “Black joy exists, now and historically, despite the history of this country. There is such a thing as ‘negro sunshine,’ ‘negro joy,’ ‘Black joy.’ And that feels very of-the-moment, even though the text is 100 years old.”