Untitled from Runaways
Glenn Ligon
American, born 1960
1993
A lithograph from Glenn Ligon’s Runaways series that reproduces the clinical language of a nineteenth‑century runaway advertisement alongside a small emblematic image to show how description constructs racial identity.
You first notice the heavy, formal block of black type boxed on a white sheet, its staccato, forensic voice set beneath a small kneeling figure, so the flattened text and the tiny human image press against one another.
Ligon’s work exposes how seemingly neutral, documentary language encodes power and prejudice, and helped open up text‑based portraiture as a way for contemporary art to interrogate race and historical representation.
Medium
One from a portfolio of ten lithographs
Dimensions
composition (irreg.): 11 13/16 x 8 15/16" (30 x 22.7 cm); sheet: 16 x 12" (40.7 x 30.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
The Ralph E. Shikes Fund
Accession
675.1993.10
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
