Prison Rodeo

Prison Rodeo gathers found photographs of the rodeos held inside American prisons, part of the found-image research Will Boone drew on for his paintings and sculpture.

Published by Karma in 2014 in an edition of 750, the book reproduces black-and-white photographs of inmates competing in bull riding and bronco events, the kind of amateur rodeo photography Boone collects as raw material. The 48-page softcover, printed at roughly 10½ × 8¾ inches, presents the images without captions, letting the record of the events stand on its own.

The book belongs to a run of Karma publications, alongside Elvis (2014) and Car (2016), in which Boone circulates the found photography and vernacular imagery that inform his studio practice. Its subject, the improvised sport practiced at institutions such as the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, sits inside the Southern iconography that runs through Boone's paintings and sculpture.