RECENT WORKS BY MALAQUIAS - Malaquias Montoya
RECENT WORKS BY MALAQUIAS - Malaquias Montoya
RECENT WORKS BY MALAQUIAS - Malaquias Montoya
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<strong>RECENT</strong> <strong>WORKS</strong> <strong>BY</strong> <strong>MALAQUIAS</strong>
PREMEDITATED :<br />
MEDITATIONS ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT<br />
<strong>RECENT</strong> <strong>WORKS</strong> <strong>BY</strong> <strong>MALAQUIAS</strong> MONTOYA<br />
An exhibition organized by the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame
For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would<br />
have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim<br />
of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death<br />
on him and who, from that moment onward, had<br />
confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster<br />
is not encountered in private life. 1<br />
Albert Camus<br />
3
4<br />
Acknowledgments<br />
<strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong> and Lezlie Salkowitz-<strong>Montoya</strong> gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions<br />
toward the publication of this catalogue. Major support has been provided by:<br />
Institute for Latino Studies<br />
Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas, Director<br />
Caroline Domingo, Publications Manager<br />
Snite Museum of Art<br />
Charles Loving, Director<br />
Gina Costa, Exhibit Curator<br />
University of Notre Dame<br />
The Center for Mexican American Studies<br />
Dr. José E. Limón, Director<br />
Dolores García, Assistant to the Director<br />
University of Texas @ Austin<br />
Ricardo and Harriet Romo<br />
San Antonio,Texas<br />
Special thanks to Carlos Jackson, MFA<br />
University of California, Davis,<br />
for the research conducted for this project<br />
Design, photography, and research: Lezlie Salkowitz-<strong>Montoya</strong><br />
Production: Jane Norton, Creative Solutions<br />
Printing: Harmony Marketing Group<br />
Co-published by <strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong> and Lezlie Salkowitz-<strong>Montoya</strong>, and the Institute for Latino Studies,<br />
University of Notre Dame.<br />
For ordering information contact either of the addresses below:<br />
Lezlie Salkowitz-<strong>Montoya</strong><br />
Post Office Box 6<br />
Elmira, CA 95625<br />
lsmontoya@earthlink.net<br />
www.malaquiasmontoya.com<br />
Cover image: The Killing of the Mentally Ill, 2002, Charcoal/Collage, 30x22 inches<br />
Chicana/o Studies Program<br />
Dr. Adela de la Torre, Director<br />
Committee on Research &<br />
Office of the Deans<br />
University of California, Davis<br />
The Chicano Studies Research Center<br />
Chon Noriega, Director<br />
University of California, Los Angeles<br />
Aztec America<br />
Carlos <strong>Montoya</strong>, President & CEO<br />
Chicago, Illinois<br />
Institute for Latino Studies<br />
250F McKenna Hall<br />
University of Notre Dame<br />
Notre Dame, IN 46556<br />
www.nd.edu/~latino/art<br />
© 2004 <strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong> and Lezlie Salkowitz-<strong>Montoya</strong><br />
All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. No artwork from this book may be reproduced<br />
in any form whatsoever without written permission from the publishers.
Introduction<br />
Visual artist, poet and teacher, <strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong><br />
is one of an endangered species—a contemporary<br />
artist who believes that art can make the world<br />
a better place.<br />
<strong>Montoya</strong> is deeply ideological in the leadership<br />
role he fills for the Chicano Art Movement; he<br />
is iconoclastic, to American eyes, in his opposition<br />
to capitalism and imperialism; he is<br />
humanistic in his opposition to<br />
discrimination based on race, sex or<br />
class. Moreover, after lifelong<br />
devotion to “the cause,” he remains<br />
profoundly idealistic.<br />
Regardless of one’s politics, any thinking<br />
person has to admire an artist who has so<br />
selflessly “dedicated his life to informing<br />
and educating those neglected and<br />
exploited peoples whose lives are at risk in milieus of<br />
racism, sexism, and cultural oppression.” 2 In short, it<br />
is truly invigorating to find a contemporary artist<br />
who shares this institution’s belief that art can be the<br />
catalyst for positive change in individual lives.<br />
For all of these reasons it was a pleasure and an<br />
honor for the Snite Museum of Art, University of<br />
Notre Dame, to participate in the exhibition and<br />
publication of <strong>Montoya</strong>’s most recent body<br />
of work. We were especially grateful to be able<br />
to prepare this exhibition since <strong>Montoya</strong> seldom<br />
ventures into the mainstream American art<br />
system—namely, he does not produce his art<br />
for the purpose of selling, he does not exhibit<br />
in commercial galleries, and he is suspicious<br />
of museums.<br />
Premeditated: Meditations on Capital Punishment is the<br />
artist’s prolonged consideration of the death penalty<br />
What concerns me<br />
is, why do we kill,<br />
what happens to<br />
our humanity and<br />
to us, as a culture?<br />
-<strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong><br />
in America, as realized through the creation of<br />
a series of images depicting individuals being put to<br />
death.These images challenged faculty and students<br />
of Notre Dame, as indicated by their thoughts<br />
shared in the exhibition comment book. One<br />
student stated, “This exhibit struck me in<br />
a profound way. Indeed, our indifference to the<br />
systematic execution of our fellow human beings<br />
is a disturbing thing.” Another asked,<br />
“Where are the pictures of the victims<br />
of those portrayed here?”<br />
While <strong>Montoya</strong> promises to consider<br />
the plight of crime victims in future<br />
work, this exhibition focuses on those<br />
who are put to death as punishment for<br />
crimes they committed—or, possibly,<br />
did not commit. As such, it features<br />
important historical references. The<br />
Electrocution of William Kemmler (2002, charcoal)<br />
depicts the first person to be executed in the<br />
electric chair. The first attempt to kill Kemmler<br />
with a seventeen-second-charge of electric current<br />
was a failure. The severely–burnt Kemmler was in<br />
agony throughout the time required to recharge the<br />
chair. The second, successful attempt lasted over<br />
one minute, and several witnesses expressed<br />
revulsion at Kemmler’s moans of pain, the odor of<br />
burning flesh and the smoke emanating from his<br />
head. Ruth Snyder; First Woman Executed, Sing Sing<br />
Prison, 1928 (2002, acrylic painting) depicts two<br />
firsts. Not only was Snyder the first woman to be<br />
executed in the electric chair, but a newspaper<br />
photographer who had smuggled a camera onto the<br />
scene documented the event. The following day a<br />
photograph of the electrocution appeared on the<br />
front page of the Daily News. George Jackson Lives,<br />
Murdered in 1971 by San Quentin Prison Guards (1976,<br />
offset lithograph) depicts the killing of this Black<br />
5
6<br />
Panther, an event that was immortalized in Bob<br />
Dylan’s song “George Jackson.” Mumia Abu-Jamal<br />
(1999, charcoal/collage) celebrated a series of<br />
public events that occurred on September 11,<br />
1999, to protest the continued incarceration of<br />
Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been on death row<br />
since 1982. Additional images depict more<br />
generic executions, lynchings, and hangings.<br />
The images are paintings, drawings, and silkscreen<br />
prints. Some have collage elements; others<br />
include texts from eyewitness accounts to<br />
executions or statements made by journalists and<br />
other writers. For example, Abolish the Death<br />
Penalty (2000, silkscreen) includes the following<br />
statement by Susan Blaustein, “We have perfected<br />
the art of institutional killing to the degree that it<br />
has deadened our natural, quintessentially human<br />
response to death.” The images are either black<br />
and white or they utilize strong, primary colors;<br />
the strokes are expressionistic, aggressive and<br />
gestural; drips suggest blood, vomitus, and other<br />
body fluids.<br />
In short, they are intentionally graphic—<br />
effectively designed products of the graphic arts<br />
and unpleasantly, vividly descriptive—designed<br />
to shock us out of the indifference described in<br />
Blaustein’s quote.<br />
Finally, and so typical of <strong>Montoya</strong>, proceeds from<br />
the sale of this catalog will benefit organizations<br />
opposed to the death penalty.<br />
Charles R. Loving<br />
Director and Curator of Sculpture<br />
Snite Museum of Art<br />
University of Notre Dame<br />
April 14, 2004<br />
Numerous studies…report that the death penalty<br />
has no deterrent effect.
Meditations on Capital Punishment<br />
by <strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong><br />
This project was conceived during the presidential<br />
election of 2000.There was a lot of media concentration<br />
on the state of Texas because our selected<br />
president was governor there. A great deal of<br />
attention was placed on the immense number<br />
of people being executed in that state’s death<br />
chambers. 3 I also started giving the death penalty<br />
a lot of consideration when I did the poster design<br />
for the Mumia 911 day. 4 The possibility of this<br />
brilliant man being murdered, on the<br />
basis of a flawed trial that left a lot of<br />
uncertainty behind his conviction, was<br />
hard to digest. 5<br />
I have always been against the death<br />
penalty. It is an irrational idea that you<br />
kill a person because s/he has killed<br />
another. It seems that the State,<br />
composed of intelligent people, could<br />
find another way of seeking justice;<br />
revenge seems too infantile a way of settling<br />
a dilemma. So how does the victim obtain justice? In<br />
a recent murder of a young woman and her unborn<br />
child, the victim’s mother said, “she hopes that<br />
whoever killed her daughter would hear her<br />
daughter’s pleas not to be killed for as long as he<br />
lives.” 6 Life imprisonment without parole would<br />
allow this torment to continue. For proponents of<br />
the death penalty, however, this punishment is too<br />
easy; there is no immediate satisfaction; it is<br />
anticlimactic after a long and agonizing trial, which<br />
kept us in daily suspense with headlines and TV<br />
news briefs. Death penalty proponents argue that<br />
life imprisonment would not be enough admonition<br />
to those preparing to murder; that those convicted<br />
must be killed in order to deter others from<br />
committing such heinous crimes. Numerous studies<br />
We create the<br />
situations that lead<br />
our children to<br />
commit monstrous<br />
acts, and then we<br />
kill them..<br />
though, conducted by various researchers, report<br />
that the death penalty has no deterrent effect. 7<br />
What concerns me is: Why do we kill and what<br />
happens to us as a humanity, as a culture? Why is<br />
state-sanctioned killing any different from a killing<br />
that takes place in the streets? One is planned and<br />
the other is not? Amadou Diallo, shot forty-one<br />
times by the NYPD, had no weapon, was innocent,<br />
and yet the police officers were set<br />
free. 8 I personally remember the<br />
young man, José Barlow Benavides,<br />
shot to death by Peace Officer Cogley<br />
in Oakland, CA.The investigation was<br />
futile—no one was charged for the<br />
crime. One must ask oneself, who lives<br />
and who dies?<br />
In August of 1945 the United States<br />
pulled off two incredible flybys<br />
awakening the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,<br />
killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of<br />
civilians, forever changing the global perspective<br />
of war and the balance of power. Eight years later,<br />
afraid of losing that power, our government killed<br />
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for alleged espionage.<br />
The sentencing judge stated, “By your betrayal, you<br />
have undoubtedly altered the course of history to<br />
the disadvantage of our country.” 9 Disadvantage? For<br />
years our government and its corporate backers<br />
have committed carnage against world citizens, and<br />
since World War II the great majority of these<br />
atrocities have been committed against people of<br />
color. South and Central America, the Caribbean,<br />
Asia, and the Middle East have all been playgrounds<br />
for testing our latest “killing technology” and flexing<br />
our imperial power.<br />
7
8<br />
This insensitivity to human life not only takes<br />
place on an international level but is also displayed<br />
in our own country. Our communities—the poor<br />
and people of color—are recipients of daily<br />
violence. Dilapidated schools, crumbling buildings,<br />
and service programs almost nonexistent due to<br />
cutbacks are a type of violence committed on the<br />
human psyche. Pain and violence are pervasive<br />
throughout poor communities as drugs flourish<br />
on street corners and police, ignorant and fearful,<br />
perpetuate further terror. Mothers, fathers,<br />
brothers and sisters are all walking around in<br />
a state of shock waiting for the next violent act.<br />
These poor communities are the victims of selfinflicted<br />
violence, and then to compound the<br />
We reap what we sow.<br />
situation, they feel they are to blame, not the<br />
greater structural mechanism. Our country’s<br />
solution to all of this is to build more prisons and<br />
increase the number on death row. 10 This act of<br />
concentrating the country’s poor into a cycle of<br />
economic and physical violence seems to be<br />
a purposeful act by the State. When billions and<br />
billions of dollars are spent on war and we refuse<br />
to educate our youth, house our homeless,<br />
provide medical care to our elderly and ill, and<br />
feed our hungry, one can only wonder what the<br />
real intentions are. We create the situations that<br />
lead our children to commit monstrous acts and<br />
then we kill them.<br />
Amadou Diallo, shot forty-one times in 1999 by the NYPD, had<br />
no weapon, was innocent, and yet the police officers were set free.<br />
Amadou Diallo, 2001<br />
Acrylic Painting
10<br />
George Jackson, a member of the Black Panthers, was jailed with<br />
a sentence of one year to life, ostensibly for stealing 70 dollars, and<br />
later killed in a San Quentin prison riot in 1971. Many believe that<br />
he was initially framed by the state in a racist response to his political<br />
activism and subsequently murdered by prison guards because of his<br />
attempts to organize his fellow inmates.<br />
After Jackson’s death, prison officials charged six prisoners—the so-<br />
called San Quentin Six—in a 97-count indictment. Charges ranged<br />
from attempted murder, conspiracy, escape, and assault to the killing<br />
of the prison guards and inmates.<br />
Their trial, at the time the longest in California history, lasted 17<br />
months. Four days each week the six, shackled and chained, were led<br />
into the Marin County Courthouse under heavy security. Eventually,<br />
three were acquitted and three were convicted of lesser charges. 11<br />
George Jackson Lives, 1976<br />
Offset Lithograph
12<br />
Luis Talamantez is a human rights activist and artist who speaks<br />
on the prison–industrial complex. A former political prisoner<br />
(one of the San Quentin Six whose trial gained international<br />
attention during the 1970s), Talamantez was acquitted and released<br />
in 1976. Drawing on his experiences of 30 years behind bars, he<br />
works to expose conditions at maximum security prisons like<br />
California’s infamous Pelican Bay, Corcoran State Prison, and Valley<br />
State Prison for Women.Talamantez is co-founder of California Prison<br />
Focus and currently pens a column for their publication. He has<br />
published two books of poetry and is an accomplished visual artist. 12<br />
Poem written and dedicated<br />
to <strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong><br />
at the opening of his preview<br />
exhibition at the Asian Resource<br />
Gallery, Oakland, CA.
How time flies…<br />
Our memories fade, and fall (on Silence)<br />
The Silence of<br />
Death Row—<br />
is a “thing alone” never to forget,<br />
—never to fall “Into”—<br />
Inspiration<br />
Reaches into the Dungeon Hole<br />
Creativity Comforts our “Waiting,”<br />
Our Silence<br />
until—<br />
the Final<br />
Scream—<br />
that Waits<br />
inside us.<br />
- Luis Talamantez, 2003<br />
13
14<br />
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning Pennsylvania journalist who<br />
exposed police violence against minority communities. On death<br />
row since 1982, he was wrongfully sentenced for the shooting<br />
of a police officer. New evidence, including the recantation of a key<br />
eyewitness, new ballistic and forensic evidence, and a confession from<br />
Arnold Beverly (one of the two killers of Officer Faulkner) points<br />
to his innocence. Mumia had no criminal record.<br />
For the last 21 years Abu-Jamal has been locked up 23 hours<br />
a day, been denied contact visits with his family, had his confidential<br />
legal mail illegally opened by prison authorities, and been put into<br />
punitive detention for writing his first of three books while in prison,<br />
Live from Death Row.<br />
His case is currently on appeal before the Federal District Court<br />
in Philadelphia. Mumia’s fight for a new trial has won the support<br />
of tens of thousands around the world. Mumia Abu-Jamal’s fate rests<br />
with all those people who believe in every person’s right to justice<br />
and a fair trial. 5<br />
Mumia Abu-Jamal, 1999<br />
Charcoal/Collage
16<br />
Lynching<br />
During the heyday of lynching, between 1889 and 1918, 3,224<br />
individuals were lynched, of whom 2,522 or 78 percent were Black.<br />
Typically, the victims were hung or burned to death by mobs of<br />
White vigilantes, frequently in front of thousands of spectators, many<br />
of whom would take pieces of the dead person’s body as souvenirs<br />
to help remember the spectacular event. 13<br />
Lynching Series 1, 2002<br />
Charcoal<br />
Overleaf:<br />
Lynching Series 2, 2002<br />
Silkscreen<br />
Lynching Series 3, 2002<br />
Silkscreen
20<br />
No matter what anyone may say about vengeance or deterrence,<br />
it is a matter of social control. 14<br />
- Joseph Ingle<br />
The five countries with the highest homicide rates that do not<br />
impose the death penalty average 21.6 murders per 100,000 people.<br />
The five countries with the highest homicide rate that do impose<br />
the death penalty average 41.6 murders for every 100,000 people. 15<br />
It’s a Matter of Social Control,<br />
2002<br />
Silkscreen
22<br />
Hanging<br />
Survival time: 8–13 minutes<br />
After the hanging, the sentenced loses consciousness almost<br />
immediately; the death occurs by asphyxiation, because of a slipknot<br />
put around the neck and fixed to a support by the other end. The<br />
weight of the body, hanging in mid-air or inclined forward, rests<br />
on the slipknot, determines its closing and the compressing action<br />
on respiratory tract. The hanging leaves different signs, both inside and<br />
outside the body: the sentenced becomes cyanotic, the tongue hangs<br />
out, the eyes pop out of his head, there is a groove on the neck;<br />
there are also vertebral lesions and internal fractures. 16 Three states,<br />
Delaware, New Hampshire, and Washington, currently provide for<br />
hanging as an option. Since 1977 three inmates have been executed<br />
by hanging: two in Washington, and the last, in 1996, in Delaware. 17<br />
The Hanging Series 1, 2002<br />
Charcoal/Pastel<br />
Overleaf:<br />
The Hanging Series 2, 2002<br />
Silkscreen<br />
The Hanging Series 3, 2002<br />
Silkscreen
26<br />
When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal<br />
of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised<br />
on the promise that capital punishment would be administered<br />
with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel<br />
and empty mockery. If not remedied, the scandalous state of our<br />
present system of capital punishment will cast a pall of shame over<br />
our society for years to come. We cannot let it continue.<br />
- Justice Thurgood Marshall, 1990 18<br />
Ruth Snyder, first woman<br />
executed, Sing Sing Prison 1928,<br />
2002 Acrylic Painting
28<br />
Electrocution<br />
In 1888 New York became the first state to adopt electrocution<br />
as its method of execution.William Kemmler was the first man<br />
executed by electrocution in 1890. Eventually twenty-six states<br />
adopted electrocution as a “clean, efficient, and humane” means of<br />
execution.Today, six states retain electrocution as their only method;<br />
five others offer it as an option. It is the second most common<br />
method of execution utilized in the modern era. 19<br />
The Electrocution<br />
of William Kemmler, 2002<br />
Charcoal
30<br />
The Electrocution of William Kemmler<br />
“Good-bye, William,” Durston said as he rapped<br />
twice on the door.<br />
Within the room, Davis sent the two-bell signal to<br />
the dynamo room. The voltage was increased,<br />
lighting the lamps on the control panel.Then Davis<br />
pulled down the switch that placed the electric<br />
chair into the circuit. The switch made<br />
a noise that could be heard in the execution<br />
chamber. Kemmler stiffened in the chair. The<br />
plan had been to leave the current on for a full<br />
20 seconds.<br />
Dr. Spitzka, who had stationed himself next to<br />
Kemmler in the room, watched Kemmler’s face<br />
and hands. At first they turned deadly pale but<br />
quickly changed to a dark red color.The fingers of<br />
the hand seemed to grasp the chair. The index<br />
finger of Kemmler’s right hand doubled up with<br />
such strength that the nail cut through the palm.<br />
There was a sudden convulsion as Kemmler strained<br />
against the straps and his face twitched slightly, but<br />
there was no sound from Kemmler’s lips.<br />
Dr. Spitzka held a stopwatch before him and<br />
counted the seconds while examining Kemmler.<br />
After just ten seconds had passed he shouted,<br />
“Stop!” which was echoed by other people in the<br />
room. Durston gave the order to the control<br />
room, and Davis pulled the lever back, switching<br />
the chair out of the circuit. The current had been<br />
on for just 17 seconds.<br />
Kemmler’s body, which had been straining against<br />
the straps, relaxed slightly when the current was<br />
turned off.<br />
“He’s dead,” said Spitzka to Durston as the<br />
witnesses who surrounded the chair congratulated<br />
each other.<br />
“Oh, he’s dead,” echoed Dr. MacDonald as the<br />
other witnesses nodded in agreement. Spitzka<br />
asked the other doctors to note the condition<br />
of Kemmler’s nose, which had changed to a bright<br />
red color. He then asked the attendants to loosen<br />
the face harness so he could examine the nose<br />
more closely. He then ordered that the body be<br />
taken to the hospital.<br />
“There is the culmination of ten years’ work and<br />
study,” exclaimed Southwick. “We live in a higher<br />
civilization from this day!”<br />
Durston, however, insisted that the body was not<br />
to be moved until the doctors signed the certificate<br />
of death.<br />
Dr. Balch, who was bending over the body looking<br />
at the skin, noticed a rupture on the right index<br />
finger of Kemmler’s right hand, where it had bent<br />
back into the base of his thumb, causing a small cut,<br />
which was dripping blood.<br />
“Dr. MacDonald,” said Balch, “see the rupture?”<br />
Spitzka then gave the order, “Turn on the current!<br />
Turn on the current instantly.This man is not dead!”<br />
Faces turned white, and the doctors fell back from<br />
the chair. Durston, who had been next to the chair,<br />
sprang back from the doorway and echoed<br />
Spitzka’s order to “turn on the current.”<br />
“Keep it on! Keep it on!” Durston ordered Davis.<br />
This was not as easy as it might have been.When he<br />
had been given the stop order, Davis had sent the<br />
message to the control room to turn off the<br />
dynamo. The voltmeter on the control panel was<br />
almost back to zero. Davis is sent the two-bell<br />
signal to the dynamo room and waited for the<br />
current to build up again.
The group of witnesses stood by horror-stricken, their<br />
eyes focused on Kemmler, as a frothy liquid began to drip<br />
from his mouth. Then his chest began to heave and a heavy<br />
sound like a groan came from his lips.Witnesses described<br />
it as “a heavy sound,” as if Kemmler was struggling to<br />
breathe. It continued at a regular interval, a wheezing<br />
sound that escaped Kemmler’s tightly clenched lips.<br />
The Human Experiment, 2003<br />
Silkscreen<br />
Durston continued to shout to the control room to turn on<br />
the current as some of the witnesses turned away from the<br />
chair, unable to bear the sight of Kemmler. Quinby was so<br />
sickened by the sight that he ran from the room. Another,<br />
unidentified, witness lay down on the floor. 20<br />
31
32<br />
Executions in the USA since 1976<br />
Amnesty International USA 21<br />
Updated Mar 28, 2004<br />
Total Cumulative<br />
Year Executions Total since 1976<br />
2004 18 903<br />
2003 65 885<br />
2002 71 820<br />
2001 66 749<br />
2000 85 683<br />
1999 98 598<br />
1998 68 500<br />
1997 74 432<br />
1996 45 358<br />
1995 56 313<br />
1994 31 257<br />
1993 38 226<br />
1992 31 188<br />
1991 14 157<br />
1990 23 143<br />
1989 16 120<br />
1988 11 104<br />
1987 25 93<br />
1986 18 68<br />
1985 18 50<br />
1984 21 32<br />
1983 5 11<br />
1982 2 6<br />
1981 1 4<br />
1980 0 3<br />
1979 2 3<br />
1978 0 1<br />
1977 1 1<br />
1976 0 0<br />
Failed Electrocution, 2002<br />
Charcoal
34<br />
The Killing of the Innocent<br />
“Marge, tell Mom not to bring any more cigarettes. My day<br />
of execution has been set for Friday the 3rd. Tell Mother I will<br />
soon be in the House of the Lord. He knows I am innocent.<br />
Marge, don’t bring Mom.”<br />
The Killing of the Innocent, 2002<br />
Acrylic Painting
36<br />
…Since we are guilty of no crime we will not be party to<br />
the nefarious plot to bear false witness against other innocent<br />
progressives to heighten hysteria in our land and worsen the<br />
prospects of peace in the world…<br />
…Nobody welcomes suffering, honey, but we are not the only<br />
ones who are going through hell because of all we stand for<br />
and I believe we are, in holding our own, contributing a share<br />
in doing away with the great sufferings of many others, both<br />
at this time and in time to come.<br />
- Letter from Julius to Ethel Rosenberg, May 3, 1953 22<br />
Executed, 2003<br />
Silkscreen
38<br />
Texas is the nation’s foremost executioner. It has been responsible for a third<br />
of the executions in the country and has carried out two and a half times as<br />
many death sentences as the next leading state. During the period when Texas<br />
rose to become the nation’s leading death penalty state, its crime rate grew by<br />
24 percent and its violent crime increased by 46 percent, much faster than the<br />
national average.Texas leads the country in numbers of its police officers killed,<br />
and more Texans die from gunshot wounds than from car accidents. 23<br />
The Gentle Sleep 1, 2002<br />
Charcoal
The Gentle Sleep 2, 2002<br />
Silkscreen<br />
His head pointed up, his body lay flat and still for seconds. Then a harsh<br />
rasping began. His fingers trembled up and down, and the witnesses standing<br />
near his midsection say that his stomach heaved. Quiet returned, and his head<br />
turned to the right, toward the black dividing rail. A second spasm of wheezing<br />
began. It was brief. His body moved no more. 24<br />
39
40<br />
Lethal Injection<br />
When the IV tubes are in place, a curtain may be drawn back from<br />
the window or one-way mirror to allow witnesses to view the<br />
execution. At this time, the inmate is given a chance to make a final<br />
statement, either written or verbal. This statement is recorded and<br />
later released to the media. The prisoner’s head is left unrestrained —<br />
in states that use regular windows, this enables the inmate to turn<br />
and look at the witnesses. In states that use one-way mirrors, the<br />
witnesses are shielded from view. 25<br />
A More Gentle Way of Killing...<br />
2003<br />
Silkscreen
42<br />
By using medical knowledge and personnel to kill people, we do<br />
more than undermine the emerging standards and procedures for<br />
good, ethical decision-making about the sick and dying. We also<br />
set off toward a terrifying land where the white gowns of physicians<br />
are covered by the black hoods of executioners. 26<br />
The Executioner, 2003<br />
Silkscreen
44<br />
The Killing of the Mentally Ill<br />
I remember very clearly the case of a mother watching her son<br />
with mental retardation standing trial for his life. One could see she<br />
had given a lot of thought to what she could do to comfort him,<br />
or to make some connection with this son who had such a low<br />
I.Q. Finally, the one thing she found to do all day was to give him<br />
a small candy bar. That at least, was something he could understand<br />
during his trial. 27<br />
The Killing of the Mentally Ill, 2002<br />
Charcoal/Collage
46<br />
We as a society are fed daily acts of violence.The legalized killing<br />
of another human being seems to satisfy our violent and vengeful<br />
impulses. We are becoming more grotesque than the most hideous<br />
crimes—and we have allowed it to happen.<br />
The Victim, 2003<br />
Silkscreen
48<br />
Racial minorities are being prosecuted under federal death penalty<br />
law far beyond their proportion in the general population or the<br />
population of criminal offenders. Analysis of prosecutions under<br />
the federal death penalty provisions of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of<br />
1988 reveals that 89 percent of the defendants selected for capital<br />
prosecution have been either African-American or Mexican-<br />
American…race continues to play an unacceptable part in the<br />
application of capital punishment in America today. 28<br />
Racial discrimination pervades the US death penalty at every stage<br />
of the process…There is only one way to eradicate ethnic bias, and<br />
the echoes of racism, from death penalty procedures in the United<br />
States—and this is by eradicating the death penalty itself. 29
We have perfected the art of institutional killing to the degree that<br />
it has deadened our natural, quintessentially human response to death. 30<br />
Abolish the Death Penalty, 2000<br />
Silkscreen<br />
49
Death Row Exonerations, 1973–2004<br />
Between 1973 and February 2004, 113 inmates on<br />
death row have been exonerated and freed.The most<br />
common reasons for wrongful convictions are mistaken<br />
eyewitness testimony, the false testimony of informants<br />
and “incentivized witnesses,” incompetent lawyers,<br />
defective or fraudulent scientific evidence, prosecutorial<br />
and police misconduct, and false confessions. In recent<br />
years, DNA played a role in overturning 12 of these<br />
wrongful death row convictions. 31
52<br />
Exhibition Tour<br />
Snite Museum of Art, Milly and Fritz Kaeser Mestrovic Studio Gallery, Notre Dame, IN. January11–February 22, 2004<br />
Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago, IL. August 20–November 14, 2004<br />
Julia C. Butridge Gallery, Dougherty Arts Center, Austin,TX. January 2005<br />
Instituto Mexicano, San Antonio,TX. February 2005<br />
Preview exhibition, Asian Resource Gallery, Oakland, CA. May–June, 2003<br />
The exhibition tour will continue during the next several years.<br />
Contact Lezlie Salkowitz-<strong>Montoya</strong>: 707-447-4194 or lsmontoya@earthlink.net regarding new bookings,<br />
tour schedules, and new venues.<br />
Works in the Exhibition<br />
Amadou Diallo, 2001<br />
Acrylic Painting, 51x42 inches<br />
George Jackson Lives, 1976<br />
Offset Lithograph, 22x17.5 inches<br />
Mumia Abu-Jamal, 1999<br />
Charcoal/Collage, 30x22 inches<br />
Lynching Series 1, 2002<br />
Charcoal, 24x18 inches<br />
Lynching Series 2, 2002<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
Lynching Series 3, 2002<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
It’s a Matter of Social Control, 2002<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
The Hanging Series 1, 2002<br />
Charcoal/Pastel 24x18 inches<br />
The Hanging Series 2, 2002<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
The Hanging Series 3, 2002<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
Ruth Snyder, first woman executed,<br />
Sing Sing Prison 1928, 2002<br />
Acrylic Painting, 55x51 inches<br />
The Electrocution of William Kemmler, 2002<br />
Charcoal, 24x18 inches<br />
The Human Experiment, 2003<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
Failed Electrocution, 2002<br />
Charcoal, 24x18 inches<br />
The Killing of the Innocent, 2002<br />
Acrylic Painting, 53x50 inches<br />
Executed, 2003<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
The Gentle Sleep 1, 2002<br />
Charcoal, 24x18 inches<br />
The Gentle Sleep 2, 2002<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
A More Gentle Way of Killing..., 2003<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
The Executioner, 2003<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
The Killing of the Mentally Ill, 2002<br />
Charcoal/Collage, 30x22 inches<br />
The Victim, 2003<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches<br />
Abolish the Death Penalty, 2000<br />
Silkscreen, 30x22 inches
<strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong> is a<br />
leading figure in the<br />
Chicano graphic arts<br />
movement, a political and<br />
socially conscious movement<br />
that expresses itself<br />
primarily through the<br />
mass production of silkscreened<br />
posters. <strong>Montoya</strong>’s works include acrylic<br />
paintings, murals, washes, and drawings, but he is<br />
primarily known for his silkscreen prints, which<br />
have been exhibited both nationally and<br />
internationally. He is credited by historians as being<br />
one of the founders of the “social serigraphy”<br />
movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-<br />
1960s. His visual expressions, art of protest, depict<br />
the struggle and strength of humanity and the<br />
necessity to unite behind that struggle. Like that of<br />
many Chicana/o artists of his generation, <strong>Montoya</strong>’s<br />
art is rooted in the tradition of the Taller de Gráfica<br />
Popular, the Mexican printmakers of the 1920s,<br />
’30s and ’40s, whose work expressed the need for<br />
social and political reform for the Mexican<br />
underprivileged. <strong>Montoya</strong>’s work uses powerful<br />
images, which are combined with text to create his<br />
socially critical messages.<br />
© Alan Pogue<br />
<strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong><br />
<strong>Montoya</strong> was raised in a family of seven children in<br />
the San Joaquin Valley, California, by parents who<br />
could not read or write. His father and mother were<br />
divorced when he was ten and his mother continued<br />
to work in the fields to support the four children<br />
still remaining at home so they could pursue their<br />
education. Since 1968 he has lectured and taught<br />
at numerous universities and colleges in the<br />
San Francisco Bay Area, including Stanford and<br />
the University of California, Berkeley. He was<br />
a professor at the California College of Arts and<br />
Crafts for twelve years, during five of which he was<br />
chair of the Ethnic Studies Department. As director<br />
of the Taller de Artes Gráficas in Oakland for five<br />
years, he produced various prints and conducted<br />
many community art workshops. <strong>Montoya</strong>,<br />
a visiting professor in the Art Department at the<br />
University of Notre Dame in 2000, continues as<br />
a Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Latino Studies,<br />
also at Notre Dame.<br />
Since 1989 <strong>Montoya</strong> has been a professor at the<br />
University of California, Davis. His classes, through<br />
the Departments of Chicana/o Studies and Art,<br />
include silkscreening, poster making, and mural<br />
painting, and focus on Chicana/o culture and history.<br />
This exhibition features recently created silkscreen<br />
images and paintings and related text panels dealing<br />
with the death penalty and penal institutions—<br />
inspired by the escalation of deaths at the hands of<br />
the State of Texas in recent years. <strong>Montoya</strong> has<br />
created images so powerful, so disturbing,<br />
so introspective, that viewers will not be able to<br />
examine them and walk away without feeling that<br />
they have witnessed an atrocity that has been<br />
committed in their names. As <strong>Montoya</strong> states,<br />
“I agree with journalist Susan Blaustein when she<br />
says that ‘we have perfected the art of institutional<br />
killing to the degree that it has deadened our<br />
natural, quintessentially human, response to death.’<br />
I want to produce a body of work depicting the<br />
horror of this act.” In these works <strong>Montoya</strong><br />
illuminates the inhumanity of the horrendous act<br />
of premeditated murder committed by the state—<br />
a situation where the use of punishment to<br />
discourage crime encourages criminality.<br />
Gina Costa<br />
Snite Museum of Art<br />
53
54<br />
References and Notes<br />
1. Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1960), 199.<br />
2. Joseph Zirker, <strong>Malaquias</strong> <strong>Montoya</strong> (San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Art Institute, 1977), 10.<br />
3 Tom Brune, “Convention 2000 / The Republicans / George W. Bush’s Texas / Strong Backer of Death Penalty,” Newsday,<br />
August 3, 2000 (Washington Bureau, HighBeam Research, LLC).<br />
http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?docid=1P1:30361052&refid=ink_d6&skeyword=&teaser=<br />
Texas Moratorium Network (TMN), an all-volunteer, grassroots organization formed in August 2000 with the primary goal<br />
of mobilizing statewide support for a moratorium on executions in Texas. http://texasmoratorium.org/?group=5<br />
Death Penalty Information Center, 1320 18 th Street NW, 5 th Floor,Washington DC 20036.<br />
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/<br />
4. MUMIA 911:The Artists Network helped launch and organize the National Day of Art to Stop the Execution of Mumia<br />
Abu-Jamal, held on September 11, 1999, 305 Madison Ave. #1166, New York City, NY 10165.<br />
http://www.artistsnetwork.org/mumia/mumia911.html<br />
5. The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, 298 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA 94103, 415-255-1085.<br />
http://www.freemumia.org/<br />
6. Cynthia McFadden, Mike Gudgell, Steffan Tubbs, and Taina Hernandez, contributors, “‘I Am Not Guilty’ Scott Peterson<br />
Pleads Not Guilty; Laci Peterson’s Family Vows Justice,” April 21, 2004, ABC News.<br />
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/SciTech/laci030421.html<br />
7. Hugo Adam Bedau, The Case against the Death Penalty (Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center and the American<br />
Civil Liberties Union OnLine Archives, copyright 1997, in English and Spanish).<br />
http://archive.aclu.org/library/case_against_death.html<br />
8. Frank Serpico, “Diallo Speaks to Serpico, Amadou’s Ghost,” The Village Voice, Features, March 8–14, 2000.<br />
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0010/serpico.php<br />
9. Walter & Miriam Schneir, Invitation to an Inquest (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1965), 1.<br />
10. Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans, “The Prison-Industrial Complex and the Global Economy,” posted at globalresearch.ca,<br />
October 18, 2001. http://globalresearch.ca/articles/EVA110A.html<br />
11. Walter Rodney, “George Jackson: Black Revolutionary,” World History Archives, November 1971.<br />
http:// www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/index-beb.html<br />
12. SPEAKOUT! Institute for Democratic Education and Culture, PO Box 99096, Emeryville, CA 94662, 510-601-0182.<br />
http://www.speakersandartists.org/<br />
13. Richard M. Perloff, “The Untold, Forgotten Story of the Press and the Lynching of African Americans,” Department<br />
of Communication, Cleveland State University, February 17, 2000.<br />
http://www.csuohio.edu/clevelandstater/Archives/Vol 1/Issue 13/news/news2.html<br />
14. Joseph Ingle, The Machinery of Death, a Shocking Indictment of Capital Punishment in the United States (New York: Amnesty<br />
International USA, 1995), 114.<br />
15. National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP), “The Death Penalty Has No Beneficial Effect on Murder Rates,”<br />
Fact Sheet: Deterrence. http://www.ncadp.org/fact_sheet5.html<br />
16. The Oracle Education Foundation, a California not-for-profit corporation, “When Life Generates Death (Legally),”<br />
ThinkQuest: Death Penalty. http://library.thinkquest.org/23685/data/hanging.html<br />
17. Florida Corrections Commission, 725 South Calhoun Street, Suite 109 Bloxham Building,Tallahassee, FL 32301.<br />
http://www.fcc.state.fl.us/
18. Justice Thurgood Marshall, speech delivered at the 1990 annual dinner in honor of the judiciary, American Bar<br />
Association, and quoted in the National Law Journal, Feb. 8, 1993. www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.<br />
19. Florida Corrections Commission. http://www.fcc.state.fl.us/<br />
20. Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair, an Unnatural American History (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company<br />
Inc. Publishers, 1999), 176–77.<br />
21. Amnesty International USA, 322 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10001, “Executions in the USA since 76.”<br />
http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/listbyyear.do<br />
22. Walter and Miriam Schneir, Invitation to an Inquest, 233.<br />
23. Richard C. Dieter, “The Future of the Death Penalty in the US: A Texas-Sized Crisis,” Death Penalty Information<br />
Center, May 1994. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=489<br />
24. Amnesty International USA, “According to Witnesses...” http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish<br />
25. Kevin Bonsor, “How Lethal Injection Works.” http://people.howstuffworks.com/lethal-injection.htm<br />
26. Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment, the American Conscience, and the End of<br />
Executions (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.), 96.<br />
27. Ronald W. Conley, Ruth Luckasson, and George N. Bouthilet, The Criminal Justice System and Mental Retardation:<br />
Defendants and Victims (Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1992).<br />
28. Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights Committee on the Judiciary, “Racial Disparities in Federal Death<br />
Penalty Prosecutions 1988-1994,” Staff Report, One Hundred Third Congress, Second Session, March 1994.<br />
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=528<br />
29. Amnesty International, “Killing with Prejudice: Race and the Death Penalty in the USA,” May 1999.<br />
Quoted at http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/racialprejudices.html<br />
30. Susan Blaustein, “Witness to Another Execution,” Harpers Magazine, May 1994, p. 53.<br />
31. Alan Gell, “Death Row Exonerations, 1973–2004,” latest release recorded Feb. 18, 2004.<br />
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908211/html<br />
An electronic version of this catalogue, with live links, can be viewed online at www.malaquiasmontoya.com and<br />
www.nd.edu/~latino/art.<br />
55
56<br />
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this catalogue will go to the following<br />
organizations actively working to abolish the death penalty.<br />
THE NATIONAL COALITION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY provides information, advocates<br />
for public policy, and mobilizes and supports individuals and institutions that share our unconditional<br />
rejection of capital punishment. Our commitment to abolition of the death penalty is rooted in several<br />
critical concerns. First and foremost, the death penalty devalues all human life—eliminating the possibility<br />
for transformation of spirit that is intrinsic to humanity. Secondly, the death penalty is fallible and<br />
irrevocable—over one hundred people have been released from death row on grounds of innocence in<br />
this “modern era” of capital punishment.Thirdly, the death penalty continues to be tainted with race and<br />
class bias. It is overwhelming a punishment reserved for the poor (95 percent of the over 3,700 people<br />
under death sentence could not afford a private attorney) and for racial minorities (55 percent are people<br />
of color). Finally, the death penalty is a violation of our most fundamental human rights—indeed, the<br />
United States is the only western democracy that still uses the death penalty as a form of punishment.<br />
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty<br />
920 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E.<br />
Washington, D.C. 20003<br />
202-543-9577<br />
www.ncadp.org<br />
CITIZENS UNITED AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY works to end the death penalty in the United<br />
States through aggressive campaigns of public education, and the promotion of tactical grassroots activism.<br />
Invigorated education involves the use of mass media to effectively communicate to the US public the<br />
message that the death penalty is bad public policy on economic, moral, and social grounds. To effect<br />
political change, alternatives to the death penalty must be made attractive to the majority of US voters.<br />
Mass public education must be reinforced at the grassroots level by local organizations and respected individuals.<br />
Politicians must be provided the support to lead on this issue, even in the face of unpopular public<br />
sentiment. CUADP is committed to act as a catalyst for continued development and implementation<br />
of a national grassroots strategy.<br />
Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty<br />
PMB 335<br />
2603 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Hwy<br />
Gainesville, FL 32609<br />
800-973-6548<br />
cuadp@cuadp.org<br />
JOURNEY OF HOPE...FROM VIOLENCE TO HEALING is an organization led by murder victim<br />
family members that conducts public education speaking tours and addresses alternatives to the death<br />
penalty. Journey “storytellers” come from all walks of life and represent the full spectrum and diversity<br />
of faith, color and economic situation. They are real people who know first hand the aftermath of the<br />
insanity and horror of murder.They recount their tragedies and their struggles to heal as a way of opening<br />
dialogue on the death penalty in schools, colleges, churches, and other venues.The Journey spotlights<br />
murder victims’ family members who choose not to seek revenge and instead select the path of love and<br />
compassion for all of humanity. Forgiveness is seen as a strength and as a way of healing. The greatest<br />
resources of the Journey are the people who are a part of it.<br />
Journey of Hope…From Violence to Healing, Inc.<br />
PO Box 210390<br />
Anchorage,AK 99521-0390<br />
877-9-24GIVE (4483)<br />
http://www.journeyofhope.org/
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this catalogue will go<br />
to organizations actively working to abolish the death penalty.