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What IS ‘prisoner art’? Questions at the Rosenfeld Gallery

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ART, ALIBI AND AN ANONYMOUS WE, now on display at the Rosenfeld Gallery. Image courtesy of Treacy Ziegler.
ART, ALIBI AND AN ANONYMOUS WE, now on display at the Rosenfeld Gallery. Image courtesy of Treacy Ziegler.

“I don’t know if Fred’s art will ever be seen as ‘art’ or ‘prisoner art’,” BSR contributor Treacy Ziegler says.

Fred, who is serving a life sentence at a high-security Ohio prison, holds an MFA from Tyler School of Art. He says that question of whether his work can ever really be perceived outside the context of his incarceration is what stops him from contributing to prisoners’ art shows, and that idea is what launched Ziegler’s latest installation, ART, ALIBI AND AN ANONYMOUS WE, now on display at the Rosenfeld Gallery.

Art behind bars

Ziegler is more than an artist. She’s written about the intersections of creativity, acceptance and death, the question of how much our eyes really have to do with art, and about her experiences teaching art to incarcerated people. She launched her “An Open Window” project in 2009, through Cornell University’s Center for Transformative Action, donating her artwork to prisons, developing and leading art workshops inside prisons, and corresponding by mail with a network of 2,300 inmates throughout the country, many of whom are in solitary confinement.

Invading the viewer

The exhibition includes 84 anonymous works of art in a variety of media created on six-inch circles, hung in rows that surround the viewer. The pieces are from 55 different artists, half of whom are currently in prison and half of whom are not, many of the latter being Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art alumni, like Ziegler herself.

Since viewers can see both sides of each piece as they walk through the installation, the backs feature some of Ziegler’s art, pieces that many prisoners have mailed to her, and excerpts of letters they wrote. “I wanted the viewer to experience this anonymous art beyond viewing it on the wall,” she says. “I wanted the work to invade the space of the viewer.”

Ziegler insists the question she wants to ask with the show isn’t whether or not we should “experience art without the story of the artist,” but whether or not we can.

ART, ALIBI AND AN ANONYMOUS WE, an installation by Treacy Ziegler, is on view through March 30 at the Rosenfeld Gallery, 113 Arch Street, Philadelphia, with a gallery talk on March 13 at 5:30pm. For more information, visit the Open Window website.

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