<I>Stranger Study #38</I>
date: label: Date
content: 2021-2022
name: label: Created by
content: Glenn Ligon, American, born 1960
label: Subject of
content: James Baldwin, American, 1924 - 1987
notes: label: Caption
content: The legibility and illegibility of the text is what the work is about—the struggle to decipher something and find meaning.
label: Caption
content: Stranger Study #38 is based on James Baldwin’s 1955 essay, “Stranger in the Village.” In the text, Baldwin recounts his experience as the first Black person to visit a remote Swiss village in 1951. In turn, Ligon stencils an excerpt of the text, renders it in oil stick, and then layers it with coal dust. The composition becomes dense and complicated, like Baldwin’s writing, and eventually illegible. This disappearance of language into abstraction refers to Baldwin’s own statement that “Americans attempt until today to make an abstraction of the Negro, but the very nature of these abstractions reveals the tremendous effects the presence of the Negro has had on the American character.”
label: Description
content: A painting by Glenn Ligon from his Stranger series. The painting has a white painted canvas covered in black lettering depicting an excerpt from James Baldwin’s 1953 essay "Stranger in the Village." The lettering has been stenciled and layered with oil stick, acrylic and coal dust, making the black text dense and illegible in places. The painting is signed, titled and dated in red marker on the verso: [Glenn Ligon Stranger Study 38 2021-22].
topic: label: Topic
content: African American
label: Topic
content: Abstraction
label: Topic
content: Art
setName: label: See more items in
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
label: Portfolio/Series
content: Stranger
label: Classification
content: Visual Arts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Object number
content: 2025.1
objectType: label: Type
content: paintings
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: © Glenn Ligon; courtesy of the artist; Hauser & Wirth, New York; Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Thomas Dane Gallery, London; and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
label: Restrictions & Rights
content: Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: oil stick, coal dust, acrylic and graphite on canvas
label: Dimensions
content: H x W x D: 48 × 60 in. (121.9 × 152.4 cm)