ART REVIEW : Prison Videos That Unlock the Imagination

From 1986 to 1989, Gary Glassman was the artist in residence at a California men’s prison where he taught video skills to inmates. Over those four years, Glassman worked with more than 600 men and women throughout the state prison system; the fruits of his labors can currently be seen at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in “Walking Smooth,” a 53-minute compilation of 13 videos Glassman completed in collaboration with prison inmates.

On view through Sunday, these modest tapes are as emotionally rich as they are technically spare. Employing video in a variety of ways--as a form of therapy, a source of humor, a vehicle for poetry--Glassman attempts to focus on the humanity of the inmates and to restore some of the dignity they’ve lost in the course of their ill-fated lives. On that score he succeeds admirably; most of the approximately 40 inmates we see here come off like gentle, rational beings cursed with incredibly bad luck.

Indeed, the tapes lead one to forget the fact that most of these people probably did some pretty frightening things in order to end up in the prison video workshop, and one gets little sense of the volatility and violence that we know to be a part of prison life. Glassman addresses the darker side of his subject more directly in “Prisoners,” a widely seen video he completed in 1986 in collaboration with artist Jonathan Borofsky. In “Walking Smooth,” however, he takes the user-friendly approach.

To Glassman’s credit, none of the 13 tapes on view are remotely like rock videos (the cliche of choice for short tapes), and several take a surprisingly fresh approach to the form. Unfortunately, it’s never made clear who thought of what: Did Glassman conceive and direct the videos, or were the inmates given creative control of the tapes they appear in? Some information as to how the inmates felt about their participation in the video workshop, and how they perceive themselves in terms of their own creativity would add another dimension to this project.

Those kvetches aside, Glassman brings an uncommonly insightful and empathetic eye to his subject. In the video-as-therapy department, “Big I Little You” depicts a conversation between two aspects of the same man (the part of him that feels like a failure vs. the part that feels like a success), while “Hal and Hal” finds an inmate taunting his own image on a video monitor. Two tapes structured in the form of short narratives--”Walk This Way” and “Disrespect”--allude to the survival of the fittest Darwinism that permeates prison life, while “Ticket to Hell” finds a female inmate staring into the camera and declaring with hardened resignation that she’s hurt everyone who’s ever come near her (this tape, which also includes an anti-drug warning, has been shown as a public service announcement).

The most engaging pieces in the program include a tape of a dance workshop--there’s something inexplicably disarming about watching these fierce-looking men intently working on mastering dance steps--and “Walking Smooth,” a survey of various prison walking styles. This tape is fascinating, as is the prison slang that turns up throughout the program (to “burglarize the conversation” is a particularly hip bit of jive).

Not surprisingly, much of the program is profoundly melancholy. In “Stacy at the Sea,” (from a series titled “Where I’d Like to Be”), an inmate speaks with longing and regret about his dream of spending a day at the beach with his daughter. An eloquent expression of the part of this man’s soul that’s intact, and the part of his life that he’s lost, this simple tape finds Glassman achieving exactly what he set out to do; it establishes a common ground between a man in prison and the people outside who fear him.