Art and Krimes by Krimes is a documentary film which centers on the story of Jesse Krimes, a visual artist who, while serving six years in federal prison, secretly created monumental works of art - including a 40-foot mural made with prison bed sheets, hair gel, and newspaper. Each panel was smuggled out piece by piece with the help of fellow artists, with Krimes only seeing the complete mural when he returned home. As Krimes’ work captures the art world’s attention he struggles to adjust to life outside, living with the threat that any misstep will trigger a life sentence.
Following the screening Jesse Krimes is joined by Russell Craig, who is also featured in the film, and Alysa Nahmias, the film's director, in a conversation around the film and the ideas and themes it explores.This conversation is moderated by Jonathan Griffin.
Russell Craig is a self-taught Philadelphia-based artist. Craig is the co-founder of Right of Return, USA, the first national fellowship dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated artists. Craig’s work is a part of the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection and has been featured in institutional exhibitions including Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1.
Jonathan Griffin is an LA-based writer and art critic. He has been a contributing editor for Frieze magazine since 2011, and he also writes regularly for the New York Times, the Financial Times, Art Review, Apollo and others. He has contributed essays to monographs and exhibition catalogs on artists including William Copley, Andy Warhol, Derek Boshier, Ragen Moss, Alice Tippitt, Liam Everett and Aaron Curry. His book On Fire, about artists’ studio fires, was published in 2016 by Paper Monument.
Jesse Krimes is a Philadelphia based artist and curator, and the co-founder of Right of Return USA, the first national fellowship dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated artists. While serving a six-year prison sentence, Krimes produced and smuggled out numerous bodies of work exploring how contemporary media shapes or reinforces societal mechanisms of power and control.
Alysa Nahmias is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of AJNA. She directed and produced the feature documentaries Art & Krimes by Krimes (2021), The New Bauhaus (2019), and Unfinished Spaces (2011, co-directed with Benjamin Murray), which won a 2012 Independent Spirit Award and is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. As a producer, her work includes Wildcat and the Emmy-nominated and Oscar-shortlisted Unrest which won a Special Jury Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Alysa has been featured in Filmmaker Magazine as an independent film innovator. She is a 2020 Film Independent Fellow and a 2019 Sundance Institute Momentum Fellow. She was the co-author of a Sundance Creative Distribution Case Study on Unrest. Alysa is a founding member of FWD-Doc as an ally who is committed to advocating for disability rights and inclusion, and she is a member of the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs is organized by Alex Sloane, Associate Curator, with Amelia Charter, Producer of Performance and Programs and Brian Dang, Programming Coordinator.
Wonmi's WAREHOUSE Programs is founded by Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family.
