Past Installations

David Adler: Visions of the Free World

Nearly all prison visitation rooms in the U.S. feature photo backdrops, painted by the inmates themselves, to be used in inmate portraits. The portraits are in most cases sent to family and friends in “the free world.” The backdrops, typically painted either on canvas or cinderblock walls, often portray beaches, waterfalls, rainbows, city skylines, and other expansive landscapes. What do these aesthetic choices say about inmates’ portrayals of their experiences in prison? What messages are they sending to those on the outside? How are those messages received? What do portrait privileges say about prison officials’ attitudes toward incarceration? Adler’s Visions of the Free World explores these issues with real visitation room backdrops projected onto Eastern State Penitentiary’s cell walls.

Meet the Artist
Dave Adler is an artist and arts documentary producer. His work has been exhibited at the Athens Biennale and the Clocktower Gallery in New York, and his documentaries have been shown on the BBC and Cinemax. These include the BBC adaptation of his book on Elvis’ cuisine, The Burger and the King, as well as a profile of two Russian conceptual artists, The People’s Painting. He directed the documentary Mafia NY: Lifestyles of the Rich and Dangerous, which was part of an Arte (France) theme night. Additionally, Dave Adler has written about art for Frieze Magazine and the Financial Times. He was educated at Oxford University and Columbia University. Dave Adler lives in New York City and has lectured on documentary at a women’s prison in upstate New York. He has been researching the US prison photography system since 2007.

Eastern State’s artist installations receive state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support was provided by Frank Blood and Nancy Hellebrand Blood, and by Eastern State’s Halloween fundraiser, Terror Behind the Walls.

Read more

Judith Schaechter: The Battle of Carnival and Lent

Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site welcomes Guggenheim Fellow Judith Schaechter’s ambitious new work, The Battle of Carnival and Lent, to its 2012 artist installation program. These 17 stained glass windows are inspired by the prison’s dark history and installed in historic skylights throughout Cellblocks 8, 11, and 14 for the duration of the 2012 season.

The Battle of Carnival and Lent responds to the penitentiary’s narrow skylights and arched windows. The imagery, which Ms. Schaechter describes as “addressing in a non-religious way the psychological border territory between ‘spiritual aspiration’ and human suffering,” is evocative of theology but secular in purpose.

The figures depicted are literally confined by the unnaturally tall and skinny apertures of the window frames – squished, cropped, straining, and reaching – as a representation of the types of incarceration that are basic to the human experience. Ms. Schaechter balances them with more traditional, cathedral-esque stained glass windows, based very loosely on the design of 13th century European cathedral windows (e.g. Chartres). Her intention is to draw an association between the prison’s original purpose – to provide an environment conducive to self-reflection and, ultimately, penance – and the harsh realities of solitary confinement.

Ms. Schaechter’s past work has almost entirely been installed in museums and galleries as panels over lightboxes. The Battle of Carnival and Lent is unique for both its response to a specific environment as well as for its use of full-spectrum light to illuminate the windows. Ms. Schaechter is often asked which architectural setting she sees as ideal for her work, and her response is always the same…Eastern State Penitentiary. Explains Ms. Schaechter, “ESP is precious to me. It’s my hometown. It’s my place.”

The installation marks Judith Schaechter’s return to Philadelphia after more than ten years exhibiting nationally and internationally.

About the Artist:
Judith Schaechter has lived and worked in Philadelphia since graduating in 1983 with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design Glass Program. She has exhibited widely, including in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. She is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Crafts, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, The Joan Mitchell Award, two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awards, The Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and a Leeway Foundation grant, and she is a 2008 USA Artists Rockefeller Fellow. Her work is in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, and numerous other collections. Ms. Schaechter has taught at The Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle, The Penland School of Crafts, Toyama Institute of Glass (Toyama, Japan), Rhode Island School of Design, and The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She currently teaches at University of the Arts and the New York Academy of Art. Ms. Schaechter's work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and The 2011 Venice Biennale.

Artist installations are supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Arts programming is also made possible with funding from Eastern State’s Halloween fundraiser, Terror Behind the Walls.

Judith Schaechter’s work appears courtesy of Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY. It was funded on USA Projects, an initiative of United States Artists. The artist thanks the 81 generous donors who help fund the project through this initiative.

Read more