ART NOT
CRIME!
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#artnotcrime
We Thought You Could Do
with Some Cheering Up
HMP Shotts, Scotland
Koestler Awards 2014:
Highly Commended for
Painting
“The well-dressed
salad represents the
people at Koestler, led by the dapper
cucumber Tim
Robertson”
- letter from the artist
ART NOT CRIME
PART 1: arts in criminal justice
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how and why
research evidence
a Koestler judging approach
two Koestler artworks
PART 2: three personal cultural texts
 criminological
 political
 spiritual
HOW arts are created by offenders:
•  education
•  therapy
•  arts projects
•  independent creativity
Showman’s Traction Engine Stephen, HMP Stafford
Koestler Awards 2009: Highly Commended for Matchstick Modeling
WHY arts are created
by offenders
Three models:
(i) individual change
(ii) social change
(iii) human rights Portal to Freedom Mike, HMP Stoke Heath, Staffordshire
Koestler Awards 2013: Evelyn Plesch Platinum Award for Painting
(i) Individual change:
•  reduce re-offending
•  intermediate outcomes
•  desistance
The Pain I Cause HMP Full Sutton, York
Koestler UK Exhibition 2012
Visitors’ Choice Awards: Platinum
Individual change – the unique range and
depth of the arts:
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physical
intellectual
emotional/social
spiritual
The Moment
Mark, HMP Parkhurst, Isle of Wight
Koestler Awards 2012: Kate Massey-Chase Commended Award for
Drawing
(ii) Social change
Offenders cannot rehabilitate on their own: the rest of us need to change, too.
Koestler UK Exhibition 2012 at Southbank Centre, curated by Sarah Lucas
(iii) Human rights
model
Universal Declaration
of Human Rights,
Article 27:
“Everyone has the right
freely to participate in the
cultural life of the
community [and] to enjoy
the arts.” = arts model
Birds of a Feather HMP Pentonville
Koestler Awards 2012: Si Pickard Commended Award for Ceramics
Research
evidence
Heartbeat HMP Send, Surrey Koestler Awards 2013: Bronze for Mixed Media
(i) Individual change:
(ii) Social change:
www.artsevidence.org.uk
 Re-offending & intermediate outcomes: statistical data
almost no research
(iii) Artistic critical analysis:  Desistance: theory, observation, discussion
Result: a 2-all draw
almost none
A
Koestler Trust
approach:
no criteria –
judge
for yourself
Exhibitions
Sales
Awards
Mentoring
Curating &
other
projects
Lost and Forgotten HMP Watton,
Nottinghamshire
Koestler UK exhibit 2010
“My periods of confinement
in prisons and concentration
camps… each turned into a
spiritual blessing.” Arthur Koestler (1905-1983)
Arrow in the Blue (1952)
Back to the Sea
Show me the sea, the shining sea
and let me breathe it in
bit by salty bit.
I’ll close my arms around the waves and wash my soul in it.
From Night-time in Crapville HMP Stafford
Koestler Awards 2013: Gold Award for Poetry Collection
Dynamics of creativity in prison art
entrapment
release
aspiration
setback
CREATIVITY TRUTHFULNESS, GROWTH ART NOT CRIME PART 2:
three personal cultural
texts
“I have tried to lay out a path
between my personal themes
and obsessions and the
vastness of world culture.”
Grayson Perry on his exhibition at the
British Museum, 2011
Grayson Perry with the Koestler Trust 50th
birthday cake he decorated, 2012
Jeremy Deller with Koestler Award winners,
Venice Biennale, 2013
ART NOT CRIME Personal text 1:
criminological
Beatrix Potter
Natural scientist, children’s author, conservationist
Born 1866: Kensington, London Died 1943: Near Sawrey, Lake
District
Identity polarities in Peter Rabbit
LAW-ABIDING
OFFENDING
good naughty old young female male human animal ART NOT CRIME Personal text 2:
political
Erich Wolfgang
Korngold
Composer
Born 1897: Brno, AustriaHungary
Died 1957: Hollywood,
California
THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD!
Warner Brothers 1938
CAST
Robin Hood – Errol Flynn
Maid Marian – Olivia De Havilland
Sir Guy of Gisbourne – Basil Rathbone
Prince John – Claude Rains
Sheriff of Nottingham – Melville Cooper
Friar Tuck – Eugene Pallette
Little John – Alan Hale
King Richard – Ian Hunter
Will Scarlett – Patric Knowles
Bess – Una O’Connor
PRODUCTION
Studio Head – Jack Warner Director – Michael Curtiz (and William Keighley)
Producers – Hal B. Wallis, Henry Blanke
Screenplay – Norman Reilly Raine, Seton Miller
Editor – Ralph Dawson
Cinematography – Tony Gaudio, Sol Polito
Music – Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Orchestration – Hugo Friedhofer
Costumes – Milo Anderson
Art Direction – Carl Jules Weyl
Sound – C.A. Riggs
Radio broadcast of music from Robin Hood –
Korngold conducting, Basil Rathbone narrating!
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Korngold receiving his!
Oscar for Robin Hood
Ian Hunter as
King Richard the Lionheart
ART NOT CRIME Personal text 3:
spiritual
C 33
He has woven rose-vines
About the empty heart of night,
And vented his long mellowed wines
Of dreaming on the desert white
With searing sophistry.
And he tented with far truths he would form
The transient bosoms from the thorny tree.
O Materna! to enrich thy gold head
And wavering shoulders with a new light shed
From penitence, must needs bring pain,
And with it song of minor, broken strain.
But you who hear the lamp whisper through night
Can trace paths tear-wet, and forget all blight.
Hart Crane
Poet
Born 1899: Garrettsville,
Ohio
Died 1932: Steamship
Orizaba, Gulf of Mexico
The Cranes’ home, Cleveland, Ohio!
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The journal that published C 33
C 33
He has woven rose-vines
About the empty heart of night,
And vented his long mellowed wines
Of dreaming on the desert white
With searing sophistry.
And he tented with far truths he would form
The transient bosoms from the thorny tree.
O Materna! to enrich thy gold head
And wavering shoulders with a new light shed
From penitence, must needs bring pain,
And with it song of minor, broken strain.
But you who hear the lamp whisper through night
Can trace paths tear-wet, and forget all blight.
ART NOT!
CRIME