The art: Danny Lyon, Boss, from the series “Conversations with the Dead,” ca. 1968-69.
The news: “Prison Rape and the Government,” by David Kaiser and Lovisa Stannow in the New York Review of Books. Prisoners are sexually abused at the rate of 600 per day, mostly by prison guards.
The source: Collection of the Chrysler Museum. Selections from Lyon’s Conversations with the Dead series and book (1971) — including this picture — are on view now at the Baltimore Museum of Art in “Seeing Now: Photography Since 1960,” an exhibition of contemporary photography from the museum’s collection. Among other themes, Lyon’s series examines the power dynamic between prisoners and their guards.
