JESSE KRIMES, PURGATORY, 2009
“Purgatory is a series of 300 prison-issued soap remanants depicting "offenders.". Using a hand-printing technique, Krimes transferred the New York Times portrait heads onto wet soap fragments, leaving inverse traces of the appropriated image.
Krimes concealed and protected the printed soaps within playing card containers as he smuggled them through the prison mailing system over the duration of a year. To create the containers, he designed a makeshift tool from the interior connector of a AAA battery, in order to cut window-like structures into each card which were then adhered together using toothpaste.
The resulting card containers depict altered suits and face cards outside of the traditional symbols associated with the game. “ - Jesse Krimes