When the Frist’s Rome exhibit closed prematurely due to nearby construction, the museum was left with an empty gallery on its hands. But moving the Slavery, the Prison Industrial Complex from its original space inside the museum’s contemporary gallery into the more prominent Ingram Gallery was a stroke of genius. The important exhibition of photography was an unusual choice for an art museum, and that made its placement much more effective. The black-and-white photographs of prison inmates by Calhoun and McCormick, who have been documenting the Louisiana State Penitentiary since the 1980s, are strikingly similar to what we know of the reality of American slavery. But these are contemporary photos, taken of men who are legally imprisoned and forced to work in a penitentiary complex that’s larger than Manhattan. This kind of powerful exhibition should take center stage more often. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
Best Radical Exhibition
Slavery, the Prison Industrial Complex: Photographs by Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick at the Frist Art Museum
"DITCH DIGGING, 1980," by Keith Calhoun
