Chaos in County Jail
1992, printed 1994
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet: 27.7 × 35.4 cm (10 7/8 × 13 15/16 in.) image: 21.3 × 32.5 cm (8 3/8 × 12 13/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Corcoran Collection (Gift of Betsy Karel)
Accession Number
2015.19.4845
Art Historical Context
"Chaos in County Jail" (1992, printed 1994) by Jim Goldberg is a compelling gelatin silver print that captures the raw disorder of life behind bars. Measuring 21.3 × 32.5 cm in its image area, this photograph from the National Gallery of Art's Corcoran Collection (gift of Betsy Karel) draws viewers into the turbulent atmosphere of a county jail, evoking the human struggles within America's correctional facilities during the early 1990s. Goldberg, a master of documentary photography, employs the gelatin silver process—a classic black-and-white medium prized for its rich tonal gradations and fi...
About the Artist
Jim Goldberg
Jim Goldberg, born in 1953 in New Haven, Connecticut, emerged as a pivotal figure in American documentary photography through his immersive, collaborative approach to capturing marginalized lives. He earned a BA in photography from Western Washington University in 1975 before studying at the San Francisco Art Institute under Larry Sultan, a conceptually oriented photographer whose influence shaped...