I generally do not spend much time with the obituaries in The New York Times, although I know they are well-written and researched. I do tend to read The Economist's obituary, since they only publish one a week (and, like everything The Economist does, it usually has an interesting twist), but it is not a particular area of interest – something about looking forward, rather than back, I suspect. Anyway, the obituary in the url below caught my interest because it covers a number of issues that I care about (art as social commentary, the SCOTUS, constitutional law and, in particular here in the U.S., the death penalty):
"Six tacos, six glazed doughnuts and a Cherry Coke: That was the last meal of a man executed in Oklahoma in July 1999. Rendered in cobalt blue glaze on a white china plate the next year, it was the first in Julie Green's decades-long art project, 'The Last Supper,' which documented the final meals of death row prisoners around the country."
The motivation for Green doing what she did (and devoting her life to it), I think, is both noble and a searing commentary on this particular U.S. institution:
"To Professor Green, who taught art at Oregon State University, their choices put a human face on an inhumane practice. Some requests were elaborate: fried sac-a-lait fish (otherwise known as white perch or crappie, it's the state fish of Louisiana) topped with crawfish étouffée. And some were starkly mundane: two peanut butter cups and a Dr Pepper."
Green also had a clear goal in mind:
"She planned to paint the meals until capital punishment was abolished, or until she had made 1,000 plates, whichever came first. In September, she painted her 1,000th plate, an oval platter with a single familiar image: the bottle of Coca-Cola requested by a Texas man in 1997."
Ironically given the subject matter of her work, her death was a controlled intervention:
"She died a few weeks later, on Oct. 12, at her home in Corvallis, Ore., by physician-assisted suicide, which is permitted under Oregon's Death With Dignity Act."
For Green, the subject of her work, food, was central to the point of what she was doing:
"Professor Green was teaching at the University of Oklahoma when she read the details of a recently executed man's final meal in a local paper, The Norman Transcript. The menu's homeyness — those glazed doughnuts — and its specificity made her think of all the meals she had prepared and shared with her family. The man had committed a horrific crime, but his food preferences humanized him. 'I'm a food person,' she told The New York Times in 2013. 'I grew up with great cooks and great food. Food has always been a celebratory thing for me. That's part of why this whole thing is interesting to me, because of the contrast. It's not a celebration.'"
Part of her intention is to highlight the contrast in approaches across states to this relatively humane gesture that is part of such an inhumane process:
"Texas, which has executed more prisoners than any other state in the country (573 since 1976, including three men this year), no longer allows special meal requests; its menus are drawn from standard prison fare. But not all states are so rigid. In 2001 in Indiana, a prison granted an inmate's request to have his mother make him chicken dumplings in the institution's kitchen. Professor Green painted the word 'Mother' on the platter that pays homage to that meal. Another Indiana inmate told prison officials that he'd never had a birthday cake, so they ordered him one, along with the pizza he had requested, which he shared with 15 family members and friends in 2007. Professor Green painted a cake that bristles with candles."
In addition, she saw her work as an extension of the reason last suppers are published – to create a formal record of an act that is sanctioned by the state. And, of course because she was painting food, the canvas should be a plate:
"In 1917, a Montana man asked only for an apple. 'I have a bad taste in my mouth,' he was reported as saying. In Mississippi in 1947, two Black teenagers asked for fried chicken and watermelon before they went to the electric chair. Professor Green painted one ornate platter for each boy."
The photo in the article shows some of the hundreds of plates that Green painted. The description attached is pertinent:
"Julie Green in 2013 with some of the hundreds of plates on which she painted death row inmates' last meals. 'Andy Warhol said in the future the artist will just point,' she said. 'I paint to point.'"
Take care
David
David Chandler
© Sage Publications, 2020
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Julie Green, 60, Artist who Memoralized Inmates' Last Suppers, Dies
By Penelope Green
November 8, 2021
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
D7
