If the museum is the repository for all that society values, how is the prison the repository for all society seeks to disown? What, then, is the social role and responsibility of the artist in times of political urgency? What functions can only art and artists fulfill in the social and political landscape? Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the Justice System brings together contemporary artists working across the United States who mobilize communities to bring visibility to hidden offenses and veiled histories within the justice system. Published on the occasion of the exhibition by the same name, Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the Justice System is co-published by [NAME] and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. This volume, which includes comprehensive readings of works in the exhibition as well as commissioned essays and primary source material, is authored and edited by the exhibition’s curator Risa Puleo. Representing the full range of contemporary art production made in the studio and the social realm, the exhibition and publication consider artists who reimagine justice in images and objects, position the prison and court systems as structures for dismantling through institutional critique, and aim to change legislature through social practice. Puleo frames artist-led activism and activist-inspired art directed towards the criminal justice system and the prison-industrial complex.

The publication includes forewords by [NAME] directors Gean Moreno and Natalia Zuluaga and CAMH Director Bill Arning; a 36-page comic book insert by Sam Gould; a poster by Ashley Hunt and contributions by:

Elizabeth Alexander, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Evan Bissell and Ora Wise, Andy Campbell, Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, Melanie Crean, Stephen F. Eisenman, Nicole R. Fleetwood, Michel Foucault, Et Al., Che Gossett, Unique Holland, Ben Jones, David Joselit, Theodore Kerr, Chaédria Labouvier, Roger Lancaster, Shaun Leonardo, K. Tsianina Lomawaima, Shoshana Magnet, Erica R. Meiners and Sarah Ross, Gean Moreno, Robert Morris, Robert S. Nelson, Isamu Noguchi, Otabenga Jones & Associates, Anthony Papa, Mary Patten, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Cameron Rowland, Jared Sexton, Rashad Shabazz, Sable Elyse Smith, Shawn Michelle Smith, Daniel Tucker And Rosten Woo, Rebecca Zorach.

Author(s): Various
Year: 2018
Pages: 464
Dimensions: 8.5 x 11 in.
Cover: Softcover
ISBN: 9780984056651
Language: English