Stranger in the Village (Excerpt), #7
Date1997
Label TextLigon’s work contains an excerpt from writer James Baldwin’s celebrated essay, Stranger in the Village: An Essay in Black and White, which was first published in 1955. Baldwin compares his experience in a sheltered European village—a place, he speculates, in which no black man may have ever set foot—to his experiences as a black man growing up in the United States. Ligon, who is of a younger generation, is equally concerned with the politics of race and racial conflict. He presents Baldwin’s text as black on black, and with this, Ligon turns the hyper-visibility of the black man in a Swiss village that is entirely homogenous and white into its camouflage opposite, making the text nearly illegible.
Object number98.13
ProvenanceThe artist; [Max Protetch Gallery, New York]; purchased from gallery by Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 1998
Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Kind of Abstract, Dec, 19, 1997 - June 14, 1998.
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Language Let Loose, July 15, 2000 - Apr. 29, 2001.
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Hero/Antihero, Dec. 21, 2002 - Aug. 17, 2003.
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, In A Silent Way, May 18 - Dec. 1, 2013.
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Reverberations: Contemporary Art and Modern Classics, Dec. 22, 2022 - ongoing.Published ReferencesIshikawa, Chiyo et al. "Seattle Art Museum Downtown." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 2007, illus. p. 59
Hackett, Regina. "SAM's Modern Art Curator has High Hopes for his Expanded Collection". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. March 14, 2007. A&E
Copeland, Huey, Representations 113, "Glenn Ligon and Other Runaway Subjects", University of California Press, Winter 2011, pg. 73 - 110Credit LineGift of William and Ruth True and the Margaret E. Fuller Purchase Fund
Dimensions72 x 84 in. (182.88 x 213.36 cm)
MediumCoal dust and oil stick on linen
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