What would you order from a menu of final dishes? What would you say when the moment of your execution arrived?In Covivant Gallery's small gallery hangs a disquieting exhibit by New York artist Jacquelyn C. Black: Last Meal, photographs of death row inmates and what they chose as their last meal.
The exhibit consists of a series of 12-inch by 24-inch diptychs. Each spread features a photo of the person and what they ate. Included is background information such as level of education, job at the time of arrest and the last words of the condemned. Some apologize for their crimes. Some stick to claims of innocence.
Accompanying the exhibit is the photo book … Last Meal (Common Courage Press, April 2003). The 80-page book, Black's first, handles the subject in the same simple manner — refining the focus on a convict's life to a cupcake or an apple — presenting images as statements and allowing readers to form their own opinions about the state of capital punishment in America.
Christopher Hitchens, author of The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, offered this quote for the book's dust jacket: "Last Meal is a menu of disgust: a sure way of putting you off your daily fare of judicial murder."
Jacquelyn C. Black grew up in Louisiana, Texas and Florida — all states that uphold the death penalty. She attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and her work has been exhibited in Boston and at The Alternative Museum in New York City, where she currently lives and works as a photographer.
All profits from the sale of her diptychs are donated to the Southern Center for Human Rights. A limited number of signed books are available.
In the main gallery at Covivant is Transatlantic Relations: Berlin Meets Tampa, an assortment of artworks by four women who found themselves in Berlin — whether native to Germany or just passing through — Sabrina Small, Elyce Semenec, Sybille Hotz and Gaby Ray.
The exhibits run through June 15.
Covivant Gallery, 4906 N. Florida Ave., Tampa. 813-928-4661.
This article appears in May 21-27, 2003.