{"data":{"id":152428,"api_model":"artworks","api_link":"https:\/\/api.artic.edu\/api\/v1\/artworks\/152428","is_boosted":false,"title":"Stranger in the Village #13","alt_titles":null,"thumbnail":{"lqip":"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhDAAFAPUAABsVFxwXFxwXGBwXGR0YGh0ZGx4ZGh4ZGx4aHB8aHB8bHSAaHCAbHCAbHSAbHiEcHiEcHyIdHiIdHyIeICQfIiQgIiUhIiQgIyUhIyUiIyYiIyQhJCUhJCUiJCUiJSYiJCciJCcjJickJickJykmJyglKCkmKSomKConKSsnKSsoKiwpKwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACH5BAAAAAAALAAAAAAMAAUAAAY3wIABchl5OKOOaBQSJCiV0mhTEoUwn4gDdEqtTCgVKQNiLCSWjIbzsUwkEcDg0FAgHo7CgCAIAgA7","width":6157,"height":2950,"alt_text":"Large rectangular painting that is mostly black, shaded in black paint and coal dust. Many words and phrases in black paint span the canvas in horizontal lines, but they are barely legible."},"main_reference_number":"1999.303","has_not_been_viewed_much":false,"boost_rank":null,"date_start":1998,"date_end":1998,"date_display":"1998","date_qualifier_title":"","date_qualifier_id":null,"artist_display":"Glenn Ligon\nAmerican, born 1960","place_of_origin":"United States","description":"<p>Glenn Ligon is best known for text-based paintings that engage themes of authorship, history, and identity. Borrowing from writers such as Ralph Ellison and Zora Neale Hurston, Ligon systematically stencils quotations across his canvases. <em>Stranger in the Village #13<\/em> is part of a series that the artist began in 1997, in which he rendered passages from James Baldwin\u2019s 1953 essay of the same title in nearly illegible black paint. In response to Baldwin\u2019s experience as an African American living in a remote village in Switzerland, Ligon commented, &quot;The gravity and weight and panoramic nature of that work inspired me . . . and the addition of the coal dust seemed to me to do that because it literally bulked up the text.&quot; Allowing the words to degrade as part of his process, Ligon incorporated Baldwin\u2019s meditations on colonialism, race, and national identity while addressing language\u2019s inability to fully articulate experience.<\/p>\n","short_description":null,"dimensions":"193.1 \u00d7 335.3 cm (76 \u00d7 132 in.)","dimensions_detail":[{"depth":null,"width":335,"height":193,"diameter":null,"clarification":null}],"medium_display":"Enamel, silkscreen ink, oil and acrylic paint, gesso, and coal dust on canvas","inscriptions":null,"credit_line":"Gift of The Peter Norton Family Foundation","catalogue_display":null,"publication_history":null,"exhibition_history":null,"provenance_text":null,"edition":null,"publishing_verification_level":"Web Cataloged","internal_department_id":246,"fiscal_year":1999,"fiscal_year_deaccession":null,"is_public_domain":false,"is_zoomable":false,"max_zoom_window_size":843,"copyright_notice":null,"has_multimedia_resources":false,"has_educational_resources":false,"has_advanced_imaging":false,"colorfulness":3.4707,"color":{"h":319,"l":13,"s":5,"percentage":0.7895192625053511,"population":2416},"latitude":null,"longitude":null,"latlon":null,"is_on_view":false,"on_loan_display":null,"gallery_title":null,"gallery_id":null,"nomisma_id":null,"artwork_type_title":"Painting","artwork_type_id":1,"department_title":"Contemporary Art","department_id":"PC-8","artist_id":60870,"artist_title":"Glenn Ligon","alt_artist_ids":[],"artist_ids":[60870],"artist_titles":["Glenn Ligon"],"category_ids":["PC-8","PC-142","PC-830","PC-836"],"category_titles":["Contemporary Art","African American artists","African Diaspora","Contemporary works by BIPOC artists, summer 2021"],"term_titles":["oil on canvas","painting","modern and contemporary art"],"style_id":null,"style_title":null,"alt_style_ids":[],"style_ids":[],"style_titles":[],"classification_id":"TM-66","classification_title":"oil on canvas","alt_classification_ids":["TM-9","TM-155"],"classification_ids":["TM-66","TM-9","TM-155"],"classification_titles":["oil on canvas","painting","modern and contemporary art"],"subject_id":null,"alt_subject_ids":[],"subject_ids":[],"subject_titles":[],"material_id":null,"alt_material_ids":[],"material_ids":[],"material_titles":[],"technique_id":null,"alt_technique_ids":[],"technique_ids":[],"technique_titles":[],"theme_titles":["African American artists","African Diaspora","Contemporary works by BIPOC artists, summer 2021"],"image_id":"e1e1c62d-3273-a77d-2f27-7e89770775e0","alt_image_ids":[],"document_ids":[],"sound_ids":[],"video_ids":[],"text_ids":[],"section_ids":[],"section_titles":[],"site_ids":[],"suggest_autocomplete_all":[{"input":["1999.303"],"contexts":{"groupings":["accession"]}},{"input":["Stranger in the Village #13"],"weight":2103,"contexts":{"groupings":["title"]}}],"source_updated_at":"2026-04-13T18:19:16-05:00","updated_at":"2026-04-13T22:22:36-05:00","timestamp":"2026-07-12T01:57:16-05:00"},"info":{"license_text":"The `description` field in this response is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License (CC-By) and the Terms and Conditions of artic.edu. All other data in this response is licensed under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) 1.0 designation and the Terms and Conditions of artic.edu.","license_links":["https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/zero\/1.0\/","https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/terms"],"version":"1.14"},"config":{"iiif_url":"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/iiif\/2","website_url":"http:\/\/www.artic.edu"}}