Glenn Ligon

Untitled from Runaways

1993

One from a portfolio of ten lithographs

Not on view

Runaways is a series of ten lithographs based on nineteenth-century advertisements published by enslavers to locate freedom seekers. Ligon asked friends to write descriptions of him as if they were reporting a missing person to the police. He then rendered the text in typography that mimicked the original ads and paired them with drawings from newspapers and anti-slavery pamphlets of the time. Ligon was surprised that the descriptions his friends wrote were similar to those from the ads. He explained, “‘Runaways is broadly about how an individual’s identity is inextricable from the way one is positioned in the culture, from the ways people see you, from historical and political contexts.”

Medium One from a portfolio of ten lithographs
Dimensions composition (irreg.): 10 1/16 x 8 15/16" (25.6 x 22.7 cm); sheet: 16 x 12" (40.7 x 30.5 cm)
Publisher Max Protetch Gallery, New York
Printer Burnet Editions, New York
Edition 45
Credit The Ralph E. Shikes Fund
Object number 675.1993.3
Portfolio Runaways
Department Drawings and Prints

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