MEI KAZAMA<\/p>\n
In her essay, \u201cCharacteristics of Negro Expression,\u201d Zora Neale Hurston speaks of the importance of action to Negro life. \u00a0As Hurston notes, \u201cHis words are action words. His interpretation of the English language is in terms of pictures. One act described in terms of another. […] It is easier to illustrate than it is to explain because action came before speech.\u201d Hurston speaks to two important points here: that pictures, images, illustrations are essential to Negro life, and that action and doing<\/span> precedes any naming of acts. \u00a0Such characteristic facts are reflected upon in Glenn Ligon\u2019s etchings, <\/span>Untitled, <\/span><\/i>1992. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The bold and clear language at the top of the paper and running throughout the entire landscape of the piece is immediate: \u00a0\u201cI DON\u2019T ALWAYS FEEL COLORED\u201d and \u201cI FEEL MOST COLORED WHEN I AM THROWN AGAINST A SHARP WHITE BACKGROUND.\u201d Ligon\u2019s use of language causes us to ask: How do the prints show the importance of action, and action that comes before the naming of acts (ie. speech and language), if the piece is primarily constituted of words? <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The complexity of Ligon\u2019s visually simple and seemingly straightforward piece can be found in \u00a0the process of printmaking. \u00a0Ligon uses various printmaking techniques in creating these works, specifically: etching, sugar-lift, aquatint, and spit-bite. \u00a0All require an application of or submergence into solutions and\/or chemical substances that eat away at the plate (which then create the grooves that allow the ink to catch onto the plate and print onto the paper). \u00a0Ligon\u2019s process is thus <\/span>active<\/span><\/i> — melting, dissolving, destroying, scarring, rubbing, and wiping are what create the works — and such action came before the creation of the immediately visible text of the piece.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The importance of act before language is also visually manifest within the piece itself. \u00a0The text, as it runs down the page, becomes increasingly difficult to read due to patches of black ink. \u00a0These patches read as splattering and, thus, action. \u00a0They also further confuse and negate the presence of language, alluding to Hurston\u2019s point that, \u201cthe white man thinks in a written language and the Negro thinks in hieroglyphics.\u201d The letters become increasingly like symbols as they come into contact with the splotches of black ink. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yet what persistently lingers is how Ligon\u2019s piece emphasizes the idea that action comes before any naming of action. \u00a0The active making results in a visual form we can identify as text, and it directly refers to Hurston\u2019s claim that \u201caction and doing precedes any naming of the acts\u201d are essential to Negro life. \u00a0However, the immediately identifiable text makes invisible the action of the making process that precedes it. It becomes a fixed communication of text rather than a form of possibility. In other words, there is a troubling reduction of action by way of its naming. \u00a0Ligon is reaching and returning to action as action, action without naming, as he splatters. \u00a0He distances us farther and farther from \u201clegibility\u201d and closer to a confrontation of unnamed action: action without determined shape, action with potential. \u00a0Ligon\u2019s etchings are a site at which action and the naming and reduction of action necessarily coincide.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MEI KAZAMA In her essay, \u201cCharacteristics of Negro Expression,\u201d Zora Neale Hurston speaks of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/afk2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}