Untitled (I Am an Invisible Man)
Artist
Glenn Ligon
(Bronx, New York, 1960 - )
Title
Untitled (I Am an Invisible Man)
Creation Date
1991
Century
late 20th century
Dimensions
30 x 17 1/4 in. (76.2 x 43.82 cm)
Object Type
drawing
Creation Place
North America, United States
Medium and Support
oilstick on paper
Credit Line
Museum of Modern Art, New York, gift of The Bohen Foundation, 218.1992, © Glenn Ligon; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Thomas Dane Gallery, London
Copyright
This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s
Copyright Terms and Conditions.
Glenn Ligon complicates and subverts typical notions of identity through works that provocatively interrogate the visual and semantic language of race. Speaking to the larger importance of narratives penned by African American authors, Ligon notes: “I was interested in the idea of invention and self-invention in autobiography as it speaks to counteracting essentialist notions of black identity. The ‘one’ that I am is composed of narratives that overlap, run parallel to, and often contradict one another.” Ligon’s "Untitled (I Am an Invisible Man)" employs the prologue of Ralph Ellison’s 1953 novel, "Invisible Man", a book the artist first read in high school. At once countering and emulating the forces that suppressed the social existence of Ellison’s narrator, Ligon boldly imprints the letters in a stencil, creating smudgy accretions that threaten to subsume the very message they seek to convey.