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I just came across one of Rigo‘s works in a book about prisons, but I can’t find it online so I wanted to share that which I could find.
I wondered if Rigo had done anything else. Turns out he has and he’s passionate about criminal justice abuses. Aside of his piece above in support of Mumia Abu Jamal*, Rigo has done works to rally support for America’s other most famous political prisoner, Leonard Peltier*.
Rigo also painted TRUTH (2002), an epic mural on Market Street in San Francisco, which I used to cycle past most days a without knowing its reason for being. It commemorates the 2001 quashed conviction of Robert H. King, one of the Angola 3, after 32 years of incarceration, 29 of which were spent in solitary confinement.
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* Yes, I know I could have chosen from thousands of links for Mumia and Peltier, but I chose their Twitter profiles with my eyes open to how bizarre it is. I have wondered if we live in a post-revolutionary world in which our radicals are reduced to blips of 140 characters, but then I figure the famous and infamous of the past have always survived on soundbites. I guess I ask that you use Mumia’s and Peltier’s Twitter feeds as one of many starting points for learning about their cases.
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February 16, 2010 at 6:31 am
Brendan
Rigo had a lot of murals in San Francisco and even used to live on Clarion for a long time. Next time you’re in the Bay Area you should try and find as many pieces as possible– made difficult by the need to view them from a distance. He also was a volunteer art teacher at my highschool for a brief period.
February 16, 2010 at 10:08 am
petebrook
I know the mural up at Franklin Square, and I know I’ve seen others in the SoMA district. That’s got to be the coolest art class-aide ever.
March 20, 2011 at 5:32 pm
RIGO 23: The Black Panther Party in Portugal and Leonard Peltier in Syracuse « Prison Photography
[…] have mentioned RIGO’s art in support of US political prisoners before. His TRUTH mural in San Francisco marked Robert H. King’s 2001 quashed conviction. RIGO […]