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This is the third and final post about Photoville. We’ve had the beginning, the middle and so now, the end.
Of the two dozen photographers in the show, only three had actual objects (Sye Williams’ darkroom prints, Jane Lindsay’s bottle caps and Deborah Luster’s tintypes). Given the cost and hassle of shipping, it was decided that the re-used Noorderlicht exhibition prints would not be returned.
I was given instructions to destroy all prints.
It occurs to me that a lot of people don’t talk about this aspect of contemporary exhibition-making. It’s not really sad to see them go, because they never belonged to anyone. They only belonged to the show. And besides, knowing they were to be destroyed, I put most of them up with double sided sticky tape, so there was no preserving them after that ultra-adhesive abuse anyway. Super-strong magnets are hardly kind to bare prints either!
We do plan to travel Cruel and Unusual (make Hester, Noorderlicht and I an offer!) and as such we’ll see shiny versions printed again.
Until then, think on these images of photogaeddon, wanton destruction and image massacre.
I’ve spoken about artist Jeff Barnett-Winsby and his various photography projects in a Lansing prison, here and here. The main tangible object from JBW’s prison photography is the book Mark West and Molly Rose.
JBW is beginning a big push promoting Mark West and Molly Rose, starting with a book-signing at the International Center of Photography, 1133, Ave of the Americas #1A, NYC, on 6th May (6:00pm – 7:30pm).
From J&L Books:
Barnett-Winsby’s attraction to persons exiled to the fringes of society led him to photograph in Lansing Prison, in Lansing, Kansas. A year into his project, he found out that in February 2006, a convicted killer named John Manard had escaped from the prison, concealed inside a dog crate, with the help of a volunteer who worked at the facility named Toby Young. Manard and Young, operating under the aliases Mark West and Molly Rose, were captured two weeks later, after a high-speed chase, in Tennessee. Illustrated in color and black and white, this book is a collection of Barnett-Winsby’s photographs of and correspondence with the two lovers, both before and after the escape, and a unique record of an extraordinary tale of escape. “I have always been fascinated with loneliness and the outsider in society,” Barnett-Winsby writes, of his attraction to West and Rose’s extraordinary story. “Growing up, I felt pretty out of it (who doesn’t?) and was always in trouble for something.” His reconstructed narrative of their tale constitutes a highly original portrait.
ELSEWHERES
Week 38: Jeff Barnett-Winsby, Too Much Chocolate
Q & A : Jeff Barnett-Winsby, Providence, Feature Shoot
After my post about Safe Harbour series, the photographer Jeff Barnett-Winsby (diviner of pure-story-gold) got in touch. He told me he was going to advance the project further than the web-housed stills and weave the tale of escaped prisoner, manipulated lover and fugitive love-run into a book.
The photographic series Love, Notes and Promised Freedom has morphed into the mature bookspined Mark West and Molly Rose. Here’s the blurb:
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This is a wacky tale and a swift departure from the serious stuff that often weighs heavy on the soul at Prison Photography. Perhaps that why I like it so much. Buy Mark West and Molly Rose.
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Mark West and Molly Rose is published by J&L Books. The owner of J&L Books Jason Fulford was recently interviewed at Too Much Chocolate as was Jeff
Okay, Jeff Barnett-Winsby did not aide and abet anyone.
He was, however, indelibly tied to a fugitive pair of lovers – one an inmate, the other a prison volunteer. Winsby had done a couple of photo series at Lansing Correctional Center, Michigan. He knew – and photographed – both John Manard and Toby Young before Young drove a van out the prison with a dog-crate in the back. Manard was in the dog-crate. They were on the run for twelve days until the authorities caught up with them in Tennessee.
All the details about the police hunt and climactic high speed car chase, car crash and return to custody can be found here.
Toby was the founder and coordinator of the Safe Harbour Program, and John Manard, a dog-handler and Young’s escort within the prison. She was vulnerable, he was hopeful, they were close. Manard did most of the planning. “By the time he brought me in to what he was doing, I was in love with him and I couldn’t say no,” Young said. “I was not in a safe and sane place in my life, but I still could’ve said no, but I didn’t.” It seems like a straight up case of manipulation; a true power imbalance.
This tale is like something out of a movie. Jeff has muttered things about making a movie. We’ll see. At the very least, we can all look forward to his book Mark West & Molly Rose published J&L Books. Mark West and Molly Rose were Manard and Young’s aliases.
Barnett-Winsby dissects events as he experienced them over at Feature Shoot:
Barnett-Winsby’s gloss portraiture is pretty atypical of prisoner representations. It’s very giving.
The accompanying images of prisoners and their dogs work as a foil to the straight portraits. Instantly, our response to the inmate changes. Barnett-Winsby plays on visual dissonance. He exposes our inbuilt prejudice and softness toward animals: “If someone loves an animal they can’t be violent, right?”
As well as Safe Harbor, Barnett-Winsby also photographed the objects in single occupancy cells for his project Marks of Intention (below).
Barnett-Winsby has collapsed Safe Harbour and Marks of Intention along with images from the Mark West and Molly Rose story; it is a wide-reaching anthology of the Lansing facility and two lives that temporarily escaped its control.
You could say Barnett-Winsby had luck photographers only dream about when hunting for a good story.
Mark West and Molly Rose is published by J&L Books. The owner of J&L Books Jason Fulford was recently interviewed at Too Much Chocolate as was Jeff Barnett-Winsby.
Prison Photography 