Capitalizing on Justice

March 14-28, 2019

Opening Reception hosted by The Gallatin Galleries and The NYU College of Global Public Health Justice Initiative: March 14, 2019

A blue and white drawing of a prison exterior.

Picture frame filled with candy wrappers, a promotional ad, and a million dollar bill

Abstracted human figures stand on a conveyer belt, only to be turned into money bags.

A young woman wears a red coat and stands behind blue jail cell bars. Two handprints are faintly over-layed over the image.

Over the last 40 years, incarceration has grown into an $80 billion industry. One that depends on the human caging of 2.3 million people to extract wealth and resources from the economically-distressed, and disproportionately black and brown, communities unjustly targeted by our criminal legal system. Companies like Securus and Union Supply charge spouses $3.95 to listen to a voicemail from their partners and mothers $4.15 to deposit $10 on the commissary accounts of their children.

Incarcerated people know best that profits in the prison industry are directly linked to suffering. Often, however, words fall short in conveying the harms that commercialization inflicts.

Capitalizing on Justice features the works of incarcerated artists from across the nation who have used their talents to express the ways they and their loved ones have been commodified. Spanning a variety of genres and styles, the works in this exhibition were made using limited resources: state-issued materials, prison contraband, and yard scraps. They were shipped in makeshift envelopes and tattered boxes from as deep in our criminal legal system as Arkansas’ death row and come together to make a strong statement against the prison industrial complex.

Importantly, thanks to funding support, the incarcerated artists whose works are showcased in this exhibit have received financial awards in compensation for their labor.

Text and images courtesy of Worth Rises.

people viewing art at the reception in the gallery

Drawing of graffiti on a brick wall reading "justice" painted in the colors of the American flag

Joshua McGiboney, “Justice”. Image courtesy of worthrises.org

Drawing of a man at a typewriter on one side while faceless convicts line up on the other side. There is a municipal building in the back and a scale in between the two sides of the drawing

Gary Butler, “Justice Scale Imbalance”. Image courtesy of worthrises.org

Image of onlookers and a sculpture in the gallery made of money

Acknowledgments:

We want to extend a special thanks to our curatorial committee without which the exhibition would not have been possible: Dwayne Betts, Kimberly Drew, Nicole Fleetwood, Jesse Krimes, and Ché Morales. We also want to extend our deep gratitude to our generous exhibition sponsors: Jess Jacobs, Robert Lourie, Kaitlyn Krieger, Raymond McGuire, Michael and Sukey Novogratz, Cat Gund, and Hillary Hamm. Finally, we extend our deep gratitude to all the artists who submitted works for this exhibition.