Send us a textPlease visit the following links to learn more:Shahn’s sketches for Rikers Island;Correctional History discussion of Shahn; Lucienne Bloch, Cycle of a Woman’s Life: Childhood: Shahn’s photo of an incarcerated painter at Blackwell’s Island; Larry Cook, The Visiting Room and Urban Landscapes;Groundswell murals at Rikers; Handwritten survey responses in the Shahn Papers at the Archives of American Art.SHOW NOTES:2:00 Ben Shahn’s and Lou Block’s proposed Rikers Island Penitentiary murals for the New Deal 4:45 West wall’s mural representing prison reform6:05 East wall’s mural of prisons in need of reform8:20 New York’s Municipal Art Commission rejects murals as psychologically unfit for prisoners and as anti-social propaganda 9:00 1935 survey of Blackwell Island prisoners about murals11:35 one incarcerated man likened Shahn’s murals to Diego Rivera’s Rockefeller Center mural12:40 concerns about making incarcerated life a spectacle14:10 responses by Ben Shahn and Lou Block to survey17:20 utility of survey for art historians19:10 survey archive21:30 Ben Shahn’s New Deal Murals: Jewish Identity in the American Scene by Diana Linden22:10 Ben Shahn’s New York by Harvard Art Musuems22:50 Art for the Millions: Essays from the 1930s by artists and administrators of the WPA Project by Francis O’Connor includes material from Lucienne Bloch23:10 Bloch’s “Cycle of a Woman’s Life” accepted for WPA Project in 193523:50 Bloch’s primary sources quote from letters by incarcerated females 29:30 Harold Lehman’s Man’s Daily Bread erected at Rikers and later removed35:20 Faith Ringgold’s 1971 For the Women’s House37:00 Reception to Ringgold’s For the Women’s House by male incarcerated population 38:45 2012 Prison Landscapes by Alyse Emdur42:10 Antoine Ealy’s opinion of prison landscapes43:20 utility of murals in correctional institutions44:15 Nicole Fleetwood’s book and exhibition Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration45:00 Shahn’s photograph of incarcerated man painting portrait at Blackwell’s Island 47:30 Utility of art as a direct and didactic tool 51:00 how a focus on art in correction facilities aids in facilitating justice 56:00 Marking Time includes incarcerated and non-incarcerated artists56:20 Artist Larry Cook 57:30 Groundswell NYC58:20 How Nowocki defines justice 59:20 Mariame Kaba’s view of justice in terms of accountability as compared with punishmentPlease share your comments and/or questions at [email protected] by Toulme.To hear more episodes, please visit Warfare of Art and Law podcast's website.To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at [email protected]. Thanks so much for listening!© Stephanie Drawdy [2025]

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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