Death Penalty Art Show
The Network held an international, all-media, juried art show on the death penalty in Austin, Texas at Gallery Lombardi May 6–22, 2006 entitled "Justice for All?: Artists Reflect on the Death Penalty". The show was juried by Annette Carlozzi, head curator of the Blanton Museum of Art's Contemporary and American Art collection; Lora Reynolds of Lora Reynolds Gallery; and Malaquias Montoya, artist and professor at UC Davis. More than 300 artists from 19 countries submitted more than 700 pieces of art to the show. The jury selected 55 works for the exhibition at Gallery Lombardi. The art show was funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts. The death penalty art show was investigated under the "Notoriety for Profit" law by the Austin Police Department at the request of Andy Kahan, the City of Houston Mayor's Director of Crime-Victim Services. Kahan opposes the sale of art created by incarcerated people. A Gallery Lombardi spokesperson said they did indeed sell a drawing of a cross by an inmate for $50 - to a nun.
The Austin Chronicle called the art show "nothing short of powerful".
The art show was exhibited at Houston's M2 Gallery February 10–18, 2007.
A selection of the artworks from the show were exhibited in the Texas Capitol Building March 12–17, 2007, but a state representative personally removed two pieces of art on display at the Capitol that he found objectionable. State Rep. Borris Miles said the artworks were "extremely inappropriate and highly objectionable."
Read more about this topic: Texas Moratorium Network
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“Then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death
Ere death dare come to us?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Wilful sterility is, from the standpoint of the nation, from the standpoint of the human race, the one sin for which the penalty is national death, race death; a sin for which there is no atonement.... No man, no woman, can shirk the primary duties of life, whether for love of ease and pleasure, or for any other cause, and retain his or her self-respect.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“The art of leadership ... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.... The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.”
—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
—Bible: New Testament, 2 Corinthians 3:2-3.