"It is central to their deconstructive force, rather than trivial, that Ligon re-presents Pryor's jokes as statements lodged between the verbal and the visual, the perceptual and conceptual—in effect, between the scene of the myth and that of its possible verification. Pryor's joke purports but fails to make visible what can exist only in fantasy, and Ligon's paintings literally realize this, monumentalizing the necessary failure at the joke's core."
Darby English, "Glenn Ligon: Committed to Difficulty" in Exh. Cat., Toronto, The Power Plant, Glenn Ligon – Some Changes, 2005, p. 63