Detained In Purgatory: America`s Abandoned Prisons

Co nta ct
s h e et
N U M B E R 11 0
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This issue features work from the sixty-third exhibition in
Light Work’s Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery.
ISSN: 1064-640X • ISBN: 0-935445-19-6
Contents copyright © 2001 Light Work Visual Studies, Inc.,
except where noted. All rights reserved.
State of the Arts
NYSCA
Margaret Stratton
Detained
in
Purgatory
January 16–Ma r c h 1 8 , 2 0 0 1
Reception: February 23, 6 –8 PM
RO B E RT B . M E N S C H E L P H O T O G R A P H Y G A L L E R Y
Schine Student Center, Syracuse University
Gallery hours are 10
am–10 pm
daily, except for school holidays
Main Entrance, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 25,1997, 3:29 p.m.
2
Cell Block “D”, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 24,1997, 3:45 p.m.
3
W
ithin Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
religions the belief in purgatory asserts
that....... ADD ESSAY HERE...a
Modica’s photographs something is slightly askew. The
full activity of every frame is never entirely revealed,
nor ever completely concealed. Focus shifts from back
to front and side to side. Hands obscure faces, and torsos stretch out of the frame or only appear in the background as distant details. Even when she abandons the
devices of framing and focus to throw us off center, she
can achieve the same results with the clarity of her juxtapositions, like the image of a young boy holding the
severed tail of a goat. In these moments, and they occur
throughout her work, Modica creates open-ended narratives where fact and fiction are merged and blurred in
order to show us the rough edges of experience where
uncertainty and caution meet anticipation and hope.
The work in this exhibition and catalogue includes
images from Treadwell, an extended and ongoing project that has occupied Modica for over 15 years, along
with seemingly random pictures made in a variety of
locations, from the Italian countryside to the foothills
of Colorado. Modica uses an 8x10 view camera and
makes platinum palladium contact prints from her
negatives. Both her camera and printing techniques are
throwbacks to the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries which give her work a timeless and ethereal
look and feel. Even when we look hard for clues of
time and place, the near absence of any evidence far
outweighs the few times where a logo on tee shirt, a
Halloween mask, or piece of period furniture appear
in her pictures. Without these reference points Modica
makes it difficult, and perhaps unnecessary, for us to
attach our cultural baggage, or our understanding of
photographs as a document, to her luminous images.
This timeless quality is an essential clue for entering
her work. She is not telling us some specific informa4
tion or showing us how something looks; she is inviting us into what she describes as a selfish process of
risk and reward. In that process she gives as much as
she takes. Where she chooses to go with her camera
and who she chooses to photograph are as much about
her appetite for the unknown and confronting her
own fears as they are about revealing the stories of the
people and places that inhabit her pictures.
The camera can be an entry into places or people’s
lives that otherwise would be off limits. An 8x10 camera can be an extravagant stage to perform in front
of and a good place to hide behind. In her series
Treadwell, which is primarily an intense collaboration
between Modica and a young girl named Barbara,
Modica employees all these qualities of her camera to
produce what Vince Aletti, writing in the Village Voice,
describes as “…a metaphor for childhood as another
country.” By using the camera as an entry into a world
or reality so unlike her own, Modica reinvented her
process of making pictures, and in Barbara found a
refuge from her own everyday life. Her process begins
with the desire to understand and embrace difference,
and this approach has become as important to her
work as any other consideration or concern.
The most recent work in the exhibition was made
in Colorado where Modica lives. In these new pictures
Modica again finds refuge in photographing children
in collaborative theatrical narratives. She has also been
making pictures around a slaughterhouse in rural
Colorado, and with the exception of a series about
minor league baseball players completed in the mid
nineties, her work seems to have made a detour from
childhood to death without a stop in the middle years.
But the middle is where Modica is now, and the work
that she has produced up until this point serves more
to enlighten her outlook than merely advance a particular point of view. This stretch and this struggle both
describes and defines her work. Her images keep us off
balance and at the same time they draw us back into
the center of a process that celebrates reaching beyond
one’s own experience.
Even when there are no people in her pictures we
sense that Modica is stretching for something she has
been told is beyond her grasp—carving perspective,
depth, and an ominous mood from tangled branches,
barren hillsides, or a roaring bonfire. Her landscapes
can also reveal fantastic discoveries like a cow that has
rolled over and died on an otherwise idyllic hillside
or a horse that has come across the bones of a not
too distant relative. The drama that Modica coaxes
from the landscape is fully realized in her photographs
where children take the stage. Clearly Barbara, from the
Treadwell series is Modica’s primary collaborator, but
she is adept at drawing others into her circle so that the
link between a picture of Barbara sitting in a chair at
the edge of a forest in Upstate New York shouting or
screaming up at the sky to unknown demons or heroes
fits easily with a picture of a young boy in Colorado
caught in Modica’s slow shutter and reduced to a blur
spinning out of control.
The territory that Modica covers in her work has
been visited by many other photographers. Most are
drawn to certain genres like landscape, portraiture, or
narrative constructions in order to explore or celebrate specific passions, interests, or points of view.
Throughout her career Modica has looked at those
same genres only as a starting point to explore the
unknown in the process of making a picture. While
her techniques may be straightforward and time-tested,
her pictures reveal that her clearest expression is realized in those moments where we all might be expected
to lose control.
Jeffrey Hoone
5
Desk, Immigrant Hospital, Island II, Ellis Island, New York City, June 28, 1999, 10:45 a.m.
6
File Drawers, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 29, 1999, 1:00 p.m.
7
Maximum Security Cell Block, Jamesville Penitentiary, Jamesville, New York, April 19, 1998, 1:15 p.m.
8
Bed, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 24, 1997, 2:15 p.m.
9
Guard Station, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 24, 1997, 2:25 p.m.
10
Women’s Solitary Confinement, Jamesville Penitentiary, Jamesville, New York, April 19, 1998, 5:05 p.m.
11
Visiting Room, Jamesville Penitentiary, Jamesville, New York, April 19, 1998, 3:10 p.m.
12
Shooting Gallery, Alcatraz Island Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, January 21, 1997, 4:50 p.m.
13
Isolation Room, Alcatraz Island Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, January 21, 1997, 12:00 p.m.
14
Hospital Cells, Alcatraz Island Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, January 21, 1997, 11:00 a.m.
15
Examination Room, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 24, 1997, 10:20 a.m.
16
Basement Staircase, Island II, Ellis Island, New York City, July 1, 1999, 3:22 p.m.
17
Bathroom, Immigrant Hospital, Island II, Ellis Island, New York City, June 28, 1999, 11:15 a.m.
18
Mop Station, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 25, 1997, 9:19 a.m.
19
Coast Guard Mess Hall, Immigrant Hospital, Island II, Ellis Island, New York City, June 29, 1999, 5:35 p.m.
20
Supply Station, Isolation Ward, Island II, Ellis Island, New York City, June 29, 1999, 2:05 p.m.
21
Basement, Laundry and Industries Building, Alcatraz Island Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, January 21, 1997, 9:30 a.m.
22
Laundry and Industries Building, Alcatraz Island Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, January 21, 1997, 11:17 a.m.
23
Hydrotherapy Room, Alcatraz Island Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, January 21, 1997, 10:30 a.m.
24
Bathroom, Alcatraz Island Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, January 21, 1997, 10:50 a.m.
25
TB Sinks, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 12, 1997, 10:40 a.m.
26
Courtyard Window, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 29, 1999, 12:10 p.m.
27
Hospital Ward, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 25, 1997, 1:20 p.m.
28
Morgue Refrigerator, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 28, 1999, 3:28 p.m.
29
Autoclave, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 10, 1997, 12:13 p.m.
30
Basement Storeroom, Immigration Hospital, Island II, Ellis Island, New York City, June 28, 1999, 9:45 a.m.
31
Side Staircase, Jamesville Penitentiary, Jamesville, New York, April 18, 1998, 12:05 p.m.
32
Dining Room, Jamesville Penitentiary, Jamesville, New York, April 18, 1998, 2:45 p.m.
33
Barber Chair, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 24, 1998, 11:20 a.m.
34
Morgue View #1, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 28, 1999, 1:15 p.m.
35
Morgue Sink, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 10, 1997, 5:15 p.m.
36
Morgue Scrub Room, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 10, 1997, 4:40 p.m.
37
Shower Stalls, Montana Territorial Prison, Deer Lodge, Montana, August 3, 1994, 4:25 p.m.
38
Maximum Security Lock-up, Montana Territorial Prison, Deer Lodge, Montana, August 5, 1994, 2:17 p.m.
39
Hydrotherapy Room, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 12, 1997, 3:10 p.m.
40
Psychiatric Department, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 25, 1998, 2:00 p.m.
41
Open Window, Measles Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 12, 1997, 12:30 p.m.
42
Recovery Room, Immigrant Hospital, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 12, 1997, 2:25 p.m.
43
W
ithin Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
religions the belief in purgatory asserts
that....... ADD ESSAY HERE...a
Modica’s photographs something is slightly askew. The
full activity of every frame is never entirely revealed,
nor ever completely concealed. Focus shifts from back
to front and side to side. Hands obscure faces, and torsos stretch out of the frame or only appear in the background as distant details. Even when she abandons the
devices of framing and focus to throw us off center, she
can achieve the same results with the clarity of her juxtapositions, like the image of a young boy holding the
severed tail of a goat. In these moments, and they occur
throughout her work, Modica creates open-ended narratives where fact and fiction are merged and blurred in
order to show us the rough edges of experience where
uncertainty and caution meet anticipation and hope.
The work in this exhibition and catalogue includes
images from Treadwell, an extended and ongoing project that has occupied Modica for over 15 years, along
with seemingly random pictures made in a variety of
locations, from the Italian countryside to the foothills
of Colorado. Modica uses an 8x10 view camera and
makes platinum palladium contact prints from her
negatives. Both her camera and printing techniques are
throwbacks to the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries which give her work a timeless and ethereal
look and feel. Even when we look hard for clues of
time and place, the near absence of any evidence far
outweighs the few times where a logo on tee shirt, a
Halloween mask, or piece of period furniture appear
in her pictures. Without these reference points Modica
makes it difficult, and perhaps unnecessary, for us to
attach our cultural baggage, or our understanding of
photographs as a document, to her luminous images.
This timeless quality is an essential clue for entering
her work. She is not telling us some specific informa44
tion or showing us how something looks; she is inviting us into what she describes as a selfish process of
risk and reward. In that process she gives as much as
she takes. Where she chooses to go with her camera
and who she chooses to photograph are as much about
her appetite for the unknown and confronting her
own fears as they are about revealing the stories of the
people and places that inhabit her pictures.
The camera can be an entry into places or people’s
lives that otherwise would be off limits. An 8x10 camera can be an extravagant stage to perform in front
of and a good place to hide behind. In her series
Treadwell, which is primarily an intense collaboration
between Modica and a young girl named Barbara,
Modica employees all these qualities of her camera to
produce what Vince Aletti, writing in the Village Voice,
describes as “…a metaphor for childhood as another
country.” By using the camera as an entry into a world
or reality so unlike her own, Modica reinvented her
process of making pictures, and in Barbara found a
refuge from her own everyday life. Her process begins
with the desire to understand and embrace difference,
and this approach has become as important to her
work as any other consideration or concern.
The most recent work in the exhibition was made
in Colorado where Modica lives. In these new pictures
Modica again finds refuge in photographing children
in collaborative theatrical narratives. She has also been
making pictures around a slaughterhouse in rural
Colorado, and with the exception of a series about
minor league baseball players completed in the mid
nineties, her work seems to have made a detour from
childhood to death without a stop in the middle years.
But the middle is where Modica is now, and the work
that she has produced up until this point serves more
to enlighten her outlook than merely advance a particular point of view. This stretch and this struggle both
describes and defines her work. Her images keep us off
balance and at the same time they draw us back into
the center of a process that celebrates reaching beyond
one’s own experience.
Even when there are no people in her pictures we
sense that Modica is stretching for something she has
been told is beyond her grasp—carving perspective,
depth, and an ominous mood from tangled branches,
barren hillsides, or a roaring bonfire. Her landscapes
can also reveal fantastic discoveries like a cow that has
rolled over and died on an otherwise idyllic hillside
or a horse that has come across the bones of a not
too distant relative. The drama that Modica coaxes
from the landscape is fully realized in her photographs
where children take the stage. Clearly Barbara, from the
Treadwell series is Modica’s primary collaborator, but
she is adept at drawing others into her circle so that the
link between a picture of Barbara sitting in a chair at
the edge of a forest in Upstate New York shouting or
screaming up at the sky to unknown demons or heroes
fits easily with a picture of a young boy in Colorado
caught in Modica’s slow shutter and reduced to a blur
spinning out of control.
The territory that Modica covers in her work has
been visited by many other photographers. Most are
drawn to certain genres like landscape, portraiture, or
narrative constructions in order to explore or celebrate specific passions, interests, or points of view.
Throughout her career Modica has looked at those
same genres only as a starting point to explore the
unknown in the process of making a picture. While
her techniques may be straightforward and time-tested,
her pictures reveal that her clearest expression is realized in those moments where we all might be expected
to lose control.
Jeffrey Hoone
45
Hallway, Contagious Disease Ward, Island III, Ellis Island, New York City, June 10, 1997, 2:14 p.m.
46
Prison Chapel, Alcatraz Island Penitentiary, San Francisco, California, January 20, 1998, 12:40 p.m.
47
Prison Chapel Mural, View #2, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 24, 1997, 4:10 p.m.
48
The work in this catalog has been generously supported by the following grants and awards;
The New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; New York State Council on the Arts
Decentralization Grant, distributed through the Upper Catskill Council of the Arts; the
John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship; the Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s
Grant; the Fulbright-Hays Research Grant; the Light Work Artist-in-Residence program;
the Center for Photography at Woodstock Photographer’s Fund Award; and the Colorado
Council of the Arts Fellowship.
Andrea Modica lives in Manitou Springs, Colorado, and works as a photographer. After
receiving her M.F.A. from the Yale School of Art in 1985, she was a professor in the Art
Department at the State University of New York College at Oneonta for 13 years. Her
work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Brooklyn Museum
of Art, Brooklyn, NY; the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; the National Museum
of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France.
Modica’s photographs have been exhibited extensively and published in three monographs:
Minor League (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), Treadwell (Chronicle, 1996) and
Human Being (Nazraeli, 2001). She is represented by the Edwynn Houk Gallery in
New York and the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago. She participated in Light Work’s
Artist-in-Residence program in 1993.
Front cover –Ship’s Passenger Log, December 1916, Ellis Island, New York City, June 29, 1999, 10:35 a.m.
Back cover –Main Entrance, Hospital Administration Building, Ellis Island, New York City, July 1, 1999, 11:12 a.m.
All photographs in this catalogue are 16x20" toned silver gelatin prints.
Contact Sheet 110: Margaret Stratton
Paperback: 48 pages
Publisher: Light Work (February 1, 2001)
ISBN: 0-935445-19-6
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