Artwork copyright Glenn Ligon. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artwork copyright Glenn Ligon. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

Invisible Man #2, 1992

Glenn Ligon
(American, born 1960)

Location: University of Washington, Seattle

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Artist Glenn Ligon explores race and identity in this print that incorporates a quote from African-American writer Ralph Ellison's seminal book "Invisible Man."

The text reads: “I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids —- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only themselves, or figments of their imagina”

This artwork is part of a collection of artworks located in the University of Washington's Kane Hall. The collection pays tribute to the diversity of UW's campus community and features nine artists whose art explores identity. Student leaders from the UW Minority Think Tank were involved in the selection of the artworks in 2005.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with University of Washington.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Conceptual artist Glenn Ligon explores race, language, and identity. His art often includes excerpts from literature, history, and his own life, to comment on American cultural and social identities and the African American experience.
Glenn Ligon lives and works in New York City. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University, Connecticut, in 1982. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and many more in the United States and around the world.