The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 25, 2024
Untitled (Four Etchings)
1992
(American, b. 1960)
published by
Sheet: 64 x 44 cm (25 3/16 x 17 5/16 in.); Platemark: 60 x 40.2 cm (23 5/8 x 15 13/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1994.159
Location: not on view
Description
In this suite of four etchings, Glenn Ligon appropriated passages from the published works of two renowned black authors and printed them in black and white reminiscent of a letterpress poster to draw attention to racism in America. The two etchings printed in black on white paper, which are progressively more difficult to read as the text descends, repeat quotes from Zora Neale Hurston's 1928 essay "How It Feels to Be Colored Me." Hurston describes whiteness as being used as a category by which to assess blackness. Ligon explains, "the prints play with the notion of becoming 'colored'" and how "one is not born black; 'blackness' is a social construction." The two other prints, printed in black on black to render them intentionally hard to decipher, repeat the first lines of Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel Invisible Man. Here, Ligon builds upon Ellison's use of the metaphor of invisibility to describe the position of blacks in America—as present and real yet still often unseen due to persistent structural racism.- Who RU2 Day: Mass Media and the Fine Art Print. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 18, 2018-March 24, 2019).The Cleveland Museum of Art (1/26/2014 - 5/18/2014); "Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings"Main Gallery Rotation (gallery 229): April 13, 2009 - September 11, 2009.
- {{cite web|title=Untitled (Four Etchings)|url=false|author=Glenn Ligon, Max Protech, Inc.|year=1992|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1994.159