Life, Death and Food Julie Green’s “The Last Supper” Addresses Capital Punishment by Nabiha Rahman, public relations intern
Green painted each secondhand ceramic plate with cobalt blue mineral paint to illustrate death row inmates’ final meal requests as well as the state and date of their execution. Green, who used gender-neutral pronouns, planned to create 50 plates every year until they reached 1,000 plates or until capital punishment was abolished — whichever came first. They completed the thousandth plate in September 2021, one month before their death. Of the 1,000 plates, the Georgia Museum selected 377 that focus on the Southeast and neighboring states, encouraging local viewers to consider how their region has been impacted by capital punishment. “The goal was to create an immersive experience that communicates both the repetition and gravity of the practice itself,” said David Odo, the museum’s director at the time and the curator of the display. “Even in a reduced number, the accumulation of plates conveys the scale of the work and the persistence of the system it documents.”
Thanks to a generous loan from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as part of Art Bridges’ Partner Loan Network, the Georgia Museum of Art is displaying plates from Julie Green’s “The Last Supper” through August 16.
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