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There is a photo of an African-American man, separate from the other photos in the gallery. Across his striped shirt are the numbers "9778," with a large red question mark over the second seven. He stares at the camera with moist eyes and a haggard expression. No one knows why he is in prison.
No one knows why there is a question mark scrawled over his picture. The only apparent thing about the man known as "9778" is that his countenance is both bitter and despondent, giving the viewer a profound impression of the futility he must feel in his situation.
This is an example of one of the prints in Bruce Jackson's "Mirrors," running until Oct. 14 at the Nina Freudenheim Gallery. Jackson is a SUNY Distinguished Professor at UB and a documentarian who has made award-winning films in collaboration with fellow Distinguished Professor and wife Diane Christian. The exhibit is a small collection of about 200 identification photographs in an Arkansas penitentiary that were given to Jackson almost 30 years ago.
In an interview with The Spectrum, Jackson revealed that he had visited the penitentiary eight times between 1971 and 1975, and in that time he took around 5,000 pictures. He has had the photographs represented in this exhibit since 1975, but it was not until recently that digital technology enabled him to "interpret and render" the photos in a manner that would do them justice.
There were approximately five dormitories that housed 80 men, and 40 men stayed in cells either for their protection or as punishment. Women were on the same compound, but in a small, fenced-in, renovated chicken coop. Approximately 60 to 70 women lived in one larger dorm.
The men's photos were loose in a drawer, and their pictures dated from about 1915 to 1937, whereas the women's photos were gathered in an envelope and most likely all from 1936. The men's photos are both of white and black men, but no photos of black women were found. It is assumed they were separated from the white women.
"People are always making dossiers nowadays - schools, hospitals, police, the military. Those little photos are supposed to be us," says Jackson.
But of course, they are not. Jackson's exhibit subtly reminds that there is a system that controls, manages and tries to file people away. In response, he blows the photos up to life-size, forcing viewers to observe these prisoners as individuals, not little pieces of information.
These prints have no titles; the prison numbers serve as the identification of individuals within the prison system, as well as the title of each piece. Jackson is trying to restore some dignity to these people who would have otherwise been lost.
Men have more close-ups than women. Men are also indoors and in front of a white screen more often.
"Men tend to be more lifeless in the photos," said Jackson. In the pictures of women, more of their bodies are visible, especially the upper body. They also look away from the camera more often. For example, Prisoner 153 is a woman seated in a wicker chair beside a dog. There is a striking contrast between the pretty garden in which she is seated and the prison fence in the distance behind her. She also has a strange, perhaps seductive, hand placement, with one hand on her hip and the other on her thigh, pulling her dress up a bit.
On the other end of the spectrum, Prisoner 200 is a woman who looks less pleasant, but seems as if she is full of character. Her expression is perplexing; she gives the camera a careworn yet scornful glance. She appears to be very inwardly strong, perhaps explaining why she isn't let outdoors. Not to mention the black eye she has.
Most of the prisoners wore patched, shabby clothes, but some of the men are pictured in jackets, ties, and even fedoras suggestive of a "mobster" look. However, once Jackson had drastically enlarged the pictures, it became apparent that most of these "well dressed" men were in actuality wearing prison shirts underneath the nicer clothing, like Prisoner 11785, a white man whose suit and tie would at first glance give the impression of stateliness. In striking contrast to the other prisoners, his face betrays no expression except perhaps the blank stare that accompanies shock.
"Maybe they were dressed in street clothes so the police would be able to identify them on the street," said Jackson.
This leads the viewer to some speculation, though: Do the nice clothes belong to the prisoners, making them upper class, or did the police give them gangster-type clothing to enhance their criminal image?
Certainly, a major theme in this presentation is the weaker members of society comprising the majority of the prison population. The lower class, the mentally retarded, even children can be found in these pictures. Prisoner 24274 is a white man who appears to be disoriented or perhaps mentally retarded, given his confused, open-mouthed stare and messy demeanor.
Prisoner 12332 is a black boy, barely a teenager. He appears to be scared but is trying to look tough. The persecution of the poor and minorities is a persistent societal problem, even today.
"Martha Stewart is an anomaly," said Jackson.
There are few prisoners who appear to be healthy and well dressed, and those who are do not exhibit the typical expressions of fear, sadness and loathing. For example, there is a very clear photo of a pudgy white woman whose number can't be seen. There are bags under her eyes, but her hair is neat. She is wearing a floral dress, and she is smiling jovially (and smugly) at the camera. Indeed, if it weren't for the trademark white backdrop, this print would not seem to be a prison photo.
A frequent emotion displayed by the prisoners is anger. The best proof of this is a woman in perhaps the strangest print of all in the exhibit. Only her head, neck and hair are clearly visible to the viewer, so her odd facial expression becomes more potent. Her eyes are blurred slants above her wrinkled nose and twisted lip, giving her a rather spooky visage. Up close, the woman appears furious and disgusted; from farther away she seems sad and despairing. It is a thought-provoking subject: are these people expressing pride and defiant anger about their crimes, or were they targeted because of their lower economic status and became angry at the injustice done them?
Jackson also explains that his exhibit is not only about the people in the photos, but photography itself. Nowadays, people have formal photographs taken of themselves, their children, their families. The customers are concerned with their appearance, and the photographers are concerned with taking good pictures.
In these prints, the prisoners display raw, sincere emotion. There are no poses and few smiles - the photographer does not care about his work, nor do the people care about their representations. Prisoner 8389 illustrates this notion, an emaciated black man with forlorn, empty eyes. He appears to be very lost and devoid of a unique identity, and indeed even two of his prison numbers are backwards on his shirt.
The rooms that the prints are displayed in are small, white, barren - a perfect setting. We see the faces as they were, unchanged, but time has left indelible marks on the pictures.
"The photograph excludes everything beyond the border of the photo. All the rest of the world is outside ... the photo isolates space and time, but photographs themselves exist in and show the effects of time," said Jackson, explaining the blurry, yellowed photography.
One can see a person locked in a precise moment in a precise place, but his or her photograph will age and decay as he or she does. The deteriorating pictures also make the subject more pitiful, lost in the yellow decay and fingerprint smudges.
This exhibit is not about pictures. It's about images and what they depict. A viewer will see a person's physical image, and knowing nothing about the person, develop a meaning. These prints are all "mirrors" because they bounce people's own impressions back at them.
