Titled A Small Band by Glenn Ligon
The inspiration for Ligon’s work came from Daniel Hamm, a teenager who was arrested in 1964 and beaten by police for a murder he didn’t commit. He was arrested with five others, who came to be known as the Harlem Six.
Hamm was held in prison for eight years before being exonerated. After a night of being brutalized by police officers with billy clubs, Hamm needed to be taken to the hospital, but he wasn’t bleeding. In a tape-recorded testimony upon his release, he said, “I had to, like, open the bruise up and let some of the blues … bruise blood come out to show them.”
Ligon discovered Hamm’s story through a sound piece by Steve Reich, an innovative composer, who made a looping, haunting song out of Hamm’s words.
“The genesis is this notion of police brutality. But it’s also about believing in the power of speech,” the New York-based artist said while visiting the VMFA earlier this month.
Ligon said he was drawn to Hamm’s slip of the tongue: blending blues, bruise and blood together.
“Ralph Ellison said the blues is personal catastrophe expressed lyrically. This notion of the blues and trauma being connected somehow seemed to be in that slip of the tongue between blues, bruise and blood,” Ligon said. He also said that he thought the three words went together — blues, bruise, blood — like “a small band.”
i love the open space of the photo too