What I’m Reading: Glenn Ligon

In the airport on my way home from the opening of the 2026 Venice Biennale, Christina Sharpe, author of the acclaimed book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016), spotted me eating lunch and came over to say hello. “You quoted my partner Dionne in an essay,” she said. “I’d like to introduce you to her.” The poet and essayist Dionne Brand, whose book A Map to the Door of No Return (2024) was a crucial point of reference for a text I had written on the painter Hurvin Anderson, stepped into view. The three of us spoke briefly about their work and the Biennale, and then they were off to catch a flight to Paris. To be honest, tears welled up in my eyes as they walked away, because I felt seen (as the kids say), recognized as a part of the discourse that constitutes Black studies. The memory of our encounter had me beaming all the way home to New York.

—Ligon