Re:FORM:
Artists Against the Drug War. Using
art as a vehicle for social change. May
4,
2010
WELCOME TO THE ART OF ANTHONY PAPA
Anthony Papa at the Whitney Museum of American Art talking about his art and activism
Media:
WBUR
https://www.wbur.org/artery/2020/01/20/walls-turned-sideways-justice-system-tufts
In 'Walls Turned Sideways,' Artists Question The 'Justice' Of Our Justice System
Anthony Papa was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for a nonviolent drug offense in 1993. It was the same year that artist Mike Kelley ...
Jan 20, 2020
Tufts Now https://now.tufts.edu/articles/bringing-incarcerated-millions-view
Bringing the Incarcerated Millions into View
Anthony Papa, “Metamorphosis,” 1991, Mixed media on canvas. Photo: Courtesy the artistOne artist, Anthony Papa, was sentenced to fifteen- ...
Feb 6, 2020
Anthony Papa at the Whitney Museum of American Art talking about his art and activism 4/2004 Click below for more photos
http://www.15yearstolife.com/htm.htm/whitney_museum_of_american_art_e.htm
Artistic Statement: "I use my art as a means of visually translating the deep emotional responses of the human condition. My life choices forced me to discover my hidden artistic talent. In the same way I try to make that intuitive connection with the viewer of my art by living through my work, breaking down barriers that separate us from truth
New York Times’ art critic Roberta Smith praised his most famous painting "15 Years To Life" as an "ode to art as a mystical, transgressive act that is both frightening and liberating, releasing uncontrollable emotions of all kinds."
Selected Exhibitions:
Whitney Museum of American Art "Mike Kelley" Retrospective NYC
Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University
Visual Arts Gallery, Purchase College NY "Death Penalty" - Loss of Conscience"
Hudson River Gallery, Ossining NY
New York Theological Seminary Gallery NYC
Outsider Gallery, L.I.C. NY
Maryknowl Seminary, Ossining NY
Northern Westchester Center for the Arts, Mt. Kisco NY
The Herbert Mark Newman Theatre, Pleasantville NY
The Interfaith Center of NY
The Landmark Conference Center, NY
Inframundo Gallery, NYC
Lunatarium, Brooklyn NY
Cheim & Read Gallery NYC
Sikkema Jenkins & Co. NYC
Honor Fraser Gallery. LA
C24 Gallery, NYC
Rush Arts Gallery , NYC
THE ART OF PROTEST : Tony Papa marching holding a victim of drug overdose in his hands
.jpg)
ush
Governors Island: Escaping Time:Art from U.S. Prisons Featuring Anthony Papa's art installation "The Drug War"
Press:
For Papa, art literally gave him a way out of prison, when Mike Kelley chose his painting “15 Years to Life – Self-Portrait" for inclusion in an installation at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Papa was eventually pardoned by Governor George Pataki.
Published on May 9, 2015
My painting "Three in Your Left Eye" appears in episode 4, titled "The Funeral", of season 1 of NETFLIX's original hit show "Grace and Frankie." It stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. In this episode Lily who plays an art teacher who teaches art to former prisoners comments on my painting and its contents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suvEq4wxdjQ
(I have a body of new work that has not been photographed)
If interested in collecting a piece of art or want to see new work contact me at anthonypapa123@gmail.com for availability or call 646-420-7290
In 2002 I arranged a press conference for Andrew Cuomo when he made his first run for governor in 2002. It was at my friend Julio Medina's church where he has a re-entry program called Exodus. Andrew Cuomo used my story and self-portrait 15 to Life to roll out his Rockefeller Drug Law reform platform.
Whitney Museum | Home Advisor - Home Advisor Reviews | Home Advisor - Wikipedia | Business Reviews - Lakewood | Galleries - Art in NY
Limited Edition Poster Available : Order Here
Papa`s art has been widely exhibited from places like the Whitney Museum of American Art to leading contemporary galleries. His art has been displayed as cover pieces for numerous books (see BOTTOM OF PAGE) and featured in Rita Gilberts college text "Living with Art" 5th Ed. by McGraw Hill. His work has been shown through slide shows at major Universities and many forms of printed media found in a mix of magazines, newspapers, and televison shows such as Cafe Review, Profound Word, Sandbox, In These Times, The Nation, High Times, Sojournal, The Humanist, Utne, Gotham Gazette, Salon, America, Hope, ColorLines, Counterpunch, Dark Field Notes, Impact Press, Socialist Worker, NY Press, NY Times, NY Post, Newsday, Washington Post, NY Daily News, Staten Island Advance, NY Law Journal, Court TV, Democracy Now, NPR, Global Visions Rights & Wrongs, C-Span, and NY 1
Anthony Papa’s art has won broad acclaim !
New York Times’ art critic Roberta Smith praised his most famous painting "15 Years To Life" as an "ode to art as a mystical, transgressive act that is both frightening and liberating, releasing uncontrollable emotions of all kinds."
Donatella Lorch of The NY Times has said his "reality is a canvas of rage and sorrow".
Salon.com exclaims "his despairing portraits of captivity -- some two-dimension and allegorical, like Diego Rivera, others roiling and impressionistic, like Francis Bacon".
The Amsterdam News exclaimed "Anthony Papa's self-portrait "15 Years To Life" is as unsettling as "The Scream" the masterpiece by Edvard Munch".
The Associated Press noted, ‘His paintings have brought him distinction both inside and out side prison walls.’
The Gannett Suburban Newspaper stated that Papa’s art ‘creates caustic political statements in vivid colors.’
´Democracy Now´ declares "Papa is an accomplished and acclaimed artist painting a powerful collection of images relating to his prison experience".
New York Press waxed "...he has astounding visual imagination...
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/06/nyregion/tony-papa-s-creative-block.html
The art displayed on this web site is in two parts plus a link to drawings and watercolors on facebook
Pen & Ink Drawings
Anthony Papa painted the Hudson River while incarcerated at Sing Sing. He was surrounded by miles of razor wire, which became a repetitive motif. Here are a selection of paintings and mixed media pieces showing the pathos of imprisonment against the beauty of the Hudson River
https://www.15yearstolife.com/hudson_pic.htm (click to see 41pieces of art )
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2549680223275.141718.1291939541&type=1&l=46afdc0e63 (click on link to see about 90 pieces of work)
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PART ONE / THE PRISON YEARS 1984 - 1996
Papa’s art displays what the uninitiated eye might miss. It captures the experience of time in prison, the moment-by-moment experience of the pains of imprisonment. In this sense, Papa’s art is existential and intentionally exaggerated. Papa finds symbolic expression of imprisonment, for example, in the blades of the many yards of razor wire woven around the sides, tops and bottoms of the many yards of multiple fences, which stand as guards protecting the thirty-foot walls, electrified fences and the well-armed guard towers from the prisoner’s touch—these blades loom large in Papa’s art. Papa often depicts these blades against the background of the Hudson Rive r. In Trinity, for example, each blade re p resents a double-edged sword, cutting the fabric of life between beauty and ugliness, between the freedom of the Hudson and the pathos of imprisonment, an all-consuming reminder about on which side of life the prisoner lives. 15 Years to Liife — Se l f – Portrait captures the emotional experience of this discovery, when Papa realized that the best years of his life would be lost floundering in the belly of the beast. But his deeply felt pain and sense of hopelessness matured into political consciousness. Papa expresses this consciousness in Politics of Reality, which depicts the politics of misery in its cultural manifestations—religious values and national pride— destroying the quality of human life. The destructive machinery of government finds its alter ego in Corporate Asset. Here, Papa paints an image of an industry of misery —what has lately been dubbed the prison industrial complex—legislated by small-minded, mean-spirited, tough-on-crime politics. Nightmare of Justice portrays the effects of the politics and industry of crime. They affect Papa where they affect every prisoner in the body and soul of his life. Fry Chicken, Not People takes the corruption of the American criminal justice to its logical conclusion, the death penalty. In this painting, the death penalty is the consummate symbol of political power: George Bush taking to himself the omnipotence of God, Papa lying in a coffin, a tombstone echoing Thrasymachus’ ancient quip:‘Justice is the advantage of the stronger.’ It is true, but there is also strength in perseverance. In Metamorphosis, Papa offers testimony to his own tenacity of spirit and refusal to give up. The change came for Papa when he picked up a paintbrush, then the hand of freedom was his own, and he has been painting his way to freedom ever since, turning barbed wire into butterflies.
_____________
Art Events:
Drug Policy Alliance's third re:FORM Art Auction, May 17th 2010 at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Birds of a Feather" Bought by collector Asha Bandela at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
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re:FORM art benefit at Cheim & Read Gallery September 3, 2008 (read below in Papa's op-ed )
"Unlocking the Power of Art to Counter
Injustice" By Anthony Papa
photo credit : Patrick McMullan
Ira Glasser & Ethan Nadelmann with Anthony Papa at the re:FORM art benefit on 9/3/08 at Cheim & Read Gallery in front of his painting "Blue Prana".
_________________
http://www.arttimesjournal.com/CultSpeak/Oct_08_cult%20speak/Oct08.htm
CULTURALLY SPEAKING
By Cornelia Seckel
By Cornelia Seckel
I’d first come in contact with
Tony Papa
when he was an inmate at
Sing Sing
on charges of drug possession under the Rockefeller Drug
Laws. He was having an art exhibit and was looking for
publicity. While in prison he discovered his talent as an
artist and since his release he has been working with the
Drug Policy Alliance
– according to their website: “The Drug Policy Alliance
Network (DPA Network) is the nation's leading organization
promoting policy alternatives to the drug war that are
grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. We
work to ensure that our nation’s drug policies no longer
arrest, incarcerate, disenfranchise and otherwise harm
millions of nonviolent people.” The fundraiser, held at
Cheim & Read Gallery,
NYC was well attended and paintings that were donated by 50
visual artists raised more than $125,000. For more
information:
www.drugpolicy.org
__________________
| Artist, Activist Tony Papa
to Highlight Cruel Drug War with Art Installation at
Criminal Justice Conference at John Jay College in
NYC on August 9-10 ... stopthedrugwar.org/in_the_trenches/ |
| 15 Years to Life,
The official site of Anthony Papa, artist, writer,
noted advocate against the war on drugs, and co-founder of
the Mothers of the New York ... |
March 29, 2005: Art Sale to Benefit the Drug Policy Alliance at Cheim Read Gallery www.cheimread.com
|
Randy & Charles Fisher from Hip Hop Action Summit for Youth with Anthony Papa, Teresa Aviles, Christiana Harvey in front of Papa's painting "Corporate Asset" exhibited at Cheim & Read Gallery NYC 3/29/05
SEAN LENNON & ANTHONY PAPA
CORPORATE ASSET- EXHIBITED
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Friday, 23 February 2007 by Julia Baxter
A Night of Life and Energy: Anthony Papa Art Opening at the Lower East Side Girls Club
The
cozy interior of the gallery at the Lower East Side Girls club seems worlds away
from the scenes displayed on the gallery’s walls on the opening night of the
exhibit Now & Then: The Art of Anthony Papa. The collection of oil works depicts
Papa’s twelve years spent battling prison reform and federal drug laws through
painting. While serving a fifteen years to life sentence for a nonviolent drug
offense under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, Papa took up his paintbrush to capture
individual moments from life in prison, and the ultimate dehumanization of the
system.
While some paintings, like “A View of the Hudson,” portray the feeling of being
constantly trapped by barbed wire (a “recurring motif” in his paintings from
this period, according to Papa) and limited to his solitary view of the river
from Sing Sing; others are complete pictorial narratives. Papa provides some
background to these stories to the patrons attending his art opening and the
Girls Club fundraiser. “Body Cavity Search,” for instance, speaks to his
experience undergoing excessive body cavity searches upon returning to prison
from a visit with his mother, and his subsequent mission to make public the
correct laws regarding body cavity searches by incorporating actual copies of
law book pages detailing the proper procedures into the body of the painting.
Untitled 4
The
other half of the 70-piece collection on display at the Girls Club through March
5 tells a different story. Papa began these works after being granted clemency
in 1997 by then-Governor Pataki and moving to Brazil. His more recent paintings
reflect the spiritual influences gained in the two-year stay. In addition to the
use of a softer and brighter color palette, these paintings evoke moods rather
than tell stories. Prana flowers replace the ubiquitous barbed wire, as Papa
aims to capture “the spiritual life energy” of his present rather than the
“nightmare of the justice system” of his past.
Life energy is plentiful at the Lower East Side Girls Club on this evening. A
group of cheerful young women greet guests at the front of the club, standing
before La Tiendita, a small store operated by the Club members on weekends and
selling “Girl Made, Fair Trade,” products, such as lead-free pottery crafted by
women in Mexico. The baked goods being served to event patrons at the cafÈ
counter were baked by the girls at the Club’s Sweet Things Bake Shop, and they
employed the curatorial skills they learned in the Club’s Arts+Community program
to create tonight’s display. These entrepreneurial and educational programs are
only a few of the activities available to the Club’s members to prepare them for
the future.
Scattered Visions
The Lower East Side Girls Club
has been thriving since its inception in 1996 to provide the resources for
economically disadvantaged girls and young women that had so far only been made
available to the community’s boys. The Club now boasts of a wide variety of
professional, educational and cultural training programs for 300 local girls,
ages 8-23 years old, including participation in income generating ventures such
as the Sweet Things Bake Shop on Avenue C, La Tiendita, the Arts+Community
Gallery and curatorial program, and opportunities to attend professional
training conferences. In addition to these programs, the Club’s full-time staff
and 100 plus volunteers are on hand daily tutoring the young women and
organizing cultural events such as Sunday’s craft corner and the members’
musical performances on Saturdays.
Looking forward for The Lower East Side Girls Club and for Anthony Papa:
The staff and girls look forward to their planned 2008 move to the Girls Club’s
new 25,000 square foot headquarters at a state-of-the-art, environmentally
sustainable facility currently being built on Avenue D.
Since the termination of his sentence, Papa has worked tirelessly in the drug law reform activism through his painting and writing. His book 15 Years to Life is currently being made into a feature film.
The
Lower East Side Girls’ Club:
http://www.girlsclub.org/
Julia Baxter is
a writer residing in the East Village.
You can email Julia at
juliabaxter51@gmail.com
_____________
Oakland, CA - Noted artist, activist and author Anthony Papa will highlight the casualties of the war on drugs at an art installation during the Harm Reduction Coalition conference in Oakland November 9-12. The Harm Reduction Coalition conference brings together hundreds of drug policy reform advocates from across the country to discuss effective public health approaches to dealing with drug use and misuse. The conference will take place November 9-12 at the Marriot Hotel, Oakland City Center, 10001 Broadway, Oakland ,CA 94607
“The Drug War” is an art installation by artist/activist Anthony Papa. The installation is a multi-media presentation that visually portrays some of the most compelling drug war issues in the news. The visual narratives in the installation are powerful reminders of the raging war on drugs that ravages many of our communities.
“The use of art as a political weapon is not new,” says Papa who discovered his political awareness through his art and has used his art as a vehicle to fight the drug war. “Through history, the role of the artist as a social commentator has been invaluable. Art is a great vehicle for expressing views to others in a way that is unmatched in any other media outlet for its truthfulness”.
“Like Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ and Goya’s ‘Third of May,’ which both powerfully portrayed the atrocities of war, my installation follows their lead in revealing the impact of Americas drug war.
Papa spent 12 years in prison for a first time non-violent drug offense. While imprisoned, he discovered his artistic talent. In 1995, after a showing of his art at the Whitney Museum, his case attracted national attention. Two years later, New York Governor George Pataki granted Papa executive clemency. Papa currently works for the Drug Policy Alliance.
The installation highlights issues that affect all Americans, whether they use drugs or not. It is steeped in a continuous motif of an upside down American flag, which signifies the universal concept of the state of distress in war.
“Justice in Black and White” shows the racial imbalance of the effects of the New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws. Ninety-four percent of those incarcerated under the laws are black and Latino. Ten crying babies dress in prison garb dangle in front of their incarcerated mothers and ask “where are our mothers?”
“Two Years in Jail for One Joint” shows the madness of the drug war. Mitchell Lawrence, an 18-year-old was sentenced to two years in jail for one joint by an over zealous prosecutor in Massachusetts. A single golden joint sits in a silver jewelry box surrounded by dozens of candles
“Give Them All Dirty Needles and Let Them Die” - taken from the cruel quote of TV’s “Judge Judy” - boldly illustrates how New Jersey is the only U.S. state that lacks a needle exchange program. Dozens of bloodied syringes penetrate a coffin draped with the New Jersey flag.
In “Cops or Docs” a marijuana plant asks the question who should decide what medicine we should put in our bodies.
Papa hopes the installation raises awareness for those in mainstream society who rarely think about the drug war.
“I use my art as a means of visually translating the deep emotional responses of the human condition. My life choices forced me to discover my hidden artistic talent. In the same way I try to make that intuitive connection with the viewer by living through my work, breaking down barriers that separate us from truth.” ...Anthony Papa
_________________________________
Anthony Papa in his studio in the country side of Sao Paulo Brazil 2/30/04
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PART ONE /THE PRISON YEARS 1984 - 1996
STATEMENT FOR THE ART OF ANTHONY PAPA
By Fielding Dawson , Author/Artist /written in 1996
In a
culture where cops, I mean all cops: FBI, CIA, down to the state level, down to
the local level sheriffs and deputies, where they never wrote a poem or did a
drawing in their collective life, while prisons overflow with creative talent,
this humble exhibition in this gallery space, heralds the new event of the
merger of Outsider Art with prison art. To
project onto the world an even more abrasive , annoying, childish and
embarrassing way of creating images often hard to forget, to educated snobs that
don't want to remember! Proving once again what art can do.
One of the essential realities of changes in art history is like it or
not, the viewer must accept the responsibility of seeing the work as it is,
before coming to judgement. No matter what the media or critics say, the viewer has a
chance to see the work, and judge for him/herself.
And as prisoners are on the icing on the cake of being outsiders, who, it
need not be argued, in fact it is more representative, than this gifted. Mr.
Papa, who while in prison discovered his talent.
15 Years To Life
Breakaway
The Kiss
She Flipped On Me
Politics of Reality
Abstract of the Hudson From Sing Sing
Vote
Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
Philosophia
Take Out Religion
Ultimate Reality
The Hudson River Viewed From Sing Sing
Fry Chicken, Not People
Life of Frank Papa
Trinity
After The Whitney
Rape of My Humanity
Manifestive Situation
Metamorphosis
White Butterflywires,Blue Hudson
Nightmare of Justice
Hell Cell
Aborted Dreams
Blue Balls
Lighting the Darkness
The Popes Holy Hand
The Birth
Corporate Asset
Religious Convictions
Disorder in the Disfunction
Body Cavity Search (see Contraband series below)
www.15yearstolife.com/contraband.htm
PART TWO : RECENT WORK
2019 (selected works)
"Radical Me" acrylic on canvas 3x4 feet 2019
Mothers of the NY Disappeared 2019 3x4 feet acrylic & oil on canvas
Pieces and Things 2019
(selected works)2018 Movement Series 1
2018 Movement Series 2
2018 Movement Series 3
2018 Movement Series 4
2018 Movement Series 5
2018 Movement Series 6
2018 Movement Series 7
most work from 2009 - 2017 is not posted at this time
"Buzzed" 2015
"Wired" 2014
"Radical You" 2013
"Tribute to asha" 2010
"Faceless" 10/2009
Diana Diablo: Three in Your Left Eye 5/2009
Prana Self-Portrait 2006
2004 - Red Portrait of Anthony's Prana
2004 - Scattered Visions
2006 Untitled 1
2006 Untitled 2
2006 Untitled 3
2006 Untitled 4
September 2005 : Blue Prana & White Flower
2005 : Orange Flower Prana
August 2005 :Blue Prana of the Orb
4 Pranas Purging into One Resulting in the Metaphysical Disappearance of the Middle
The Physical Vibrations of a Mantra
3 Fours Dancing a Chakra
JULY 2005 Significant Spritual Visions from the Consumption of Ayawasca
JULY 2005 - Duality
April 2005 Balancing The Bird Hiding Behind the Six Planets of Life
APRIL 2005 -Shifting Into Narvarna in a Dangerous Way
2004 - Natural Symbols
2004 - Pixie
2004 -
Chakras in Shades of Music
2004 -
Chakras in Shades of Music #2
2004 -
Three Worlds in an OM
2004 -
A Symbolic Natural View
2004 -
Sacred Chakras
2003-
Lila
1999 - Lila's Magical Transformation
The Journey into the Divine
Letting Go The Rope
Searching In a Particular Way
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BOOK COVERS AND POSTERS
The Humanist Magazine Cover 9/05 issue
BOOK COVER ART BY ANTHONY PAPA
(ST. MARTINS PRESS)
BOOK COVER ART BY ANTHONY PAPA
(NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS)
BOOK COVER ART BY ANTHONY PAPA (FERAL HOUSE)
COVER ART BY ANTHONY PAPA
POSTER ART BY ANTHONY PAPA (UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS)
