Medical care was one of only four basic rights granted to prisoners in the Alcatraz penitentiary, along with food, clothing, and shelter. Inmates exercised their right at sick call: every day after lunch, prisoners could line up to ask to be taken to the Hospital, upstairs from the Dining Hall. One former officer claimed that as many as 10 percent of inmates would appear in the sick line on a given day, either suffering from genuine illness or hoping for an escape from regular life in the cellblock.
A fully functioning hospital was maintained on Alcatraz throughout the military and federal prison years. Instead of sending sick or injured inmates to San Francisco, where they might have a chance to escape, Alcatraz administrators brought the doctors to the prisoners. A Bureau of Prisons bulletin boasted:
The Alcatraz Hospital, adjacent to the main cellhouse, is equipped with modern X-ray and physical therapy apparatus, operating theater, laboratories, and dental unit, and contains wards and individual rooms for the treatment and convalescence of inmate patients. It has been certified by the American College of Surgeons and compares favorably with the up-to-date hospitals and clinics in the free community.
The Hospital was staffed by a general practitioner who lived on the island, while specialists, surgeons, and psychiatrists from the San Francisco Public Health Service and the Presidio military base visited when needed. Female nurses or assistants sometimes accompanied the surgeons—the only time women were ever allowed inside the cellhouse.
One of the Hospital’s ward cells. Though designed to house multiple patients, for safety reasons a ward cell was usually occupied by a single inmate.
Entrance to the psychiatric observation rooms
Each cell in the Hospital could hold as many as six men, but inmates were usually kept separate for safety reasons. Among the prisoners who spent time in these cells were Al Capone, confined to the Hospital in 1938 after being diagnosed with syphilis, and Robert “The Birdman” Stroud, who lived in the infirmary for eleven years. A hypochondriac as well as an extremely disruptive inmate who had incited a riot in D Block, Stroud was permanently moved to the Hospital in 1948 to keep him out of the general population.
Set apart from the regular cells were two psychiatric observation cells, called “bug rooms” or “bug cages” by inmates. The number of prisoners who became mentally ill during their time on Alcatraz is hard to pin down: the official estimate of Warden James A. Johnston was 2 percent, but former inmate Jim Quillen said it happened “a lot more than that—all the time.” Many aspects of life on Alcatraz could drive inmates over the edge: the monotony, the lack of privacy, the threat of violence, even the knowledge that San Francisco and freedom were so close but impossible to reach. However, some prisoners tried to fake insanity, hoping for a chance to be transferred to another institution—anywhere other than Alcatraz.
In this work, Ai transforms the utilitarian fixtures in several Hospital ward cells and medical offices into fantastical and fragile porcelain bouquets. The artist has designed intricately detailed encrustations of ceramic flowers to fill the sinks, toilets, and tubs that were once used by hospitalized prisoners.
Like With Wind in the New Industries Building, Blossom draws on and transforms natural imagery as well as traditional Chinese arts. Rather than referring to national iconography, however, the flowers here carry other associations. The work could be seen as symbolically offering comfort to the imprisoned, as one would send a bouquet to a hospitalized patient. The profusion of flowers rendered in cool, brittle porcelain could also be an ironic reference to China’s famous Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956, a brief period of government tolerance for free expression that was quickly shattered by a severe crackdown against dissent.
Ai Weiwei, Blossom, 2014 (detail); installation: porcelain, hospital fixtures (sinks, toilets, bathtubs); part of @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, Alcatraz Island, 2014–2015
Ai Weiwei, Blossom, 2014 (detail); installation: porcelain, hospital fixtures (sinks, toilets, bathtubs); part of @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, Alcatraz Island, 2014–2015
One of the most haunting spaces in the prison—a pair of tiled chambers that were once used for the isolation and observation of mentally ill inmates—resonates with the sound of Tibetan and Native American chants in this austere and moving installation. The work features chanting recorded at Namgyal Monastery, a Buddhist monastery in Dharamshala, India, as well as traditional Hopi song. Hopi men were among the first prisoners of conscience on Alcatraz, held for refusing to send their children to government boarding schools in the late nineteenth century.
Drawing pointed parallels between China and the United States, the work pays homage to people who have resisted cultural and political repression—whether Tibetan monks, Hopi prisoners, or the Indians of All Tribes who occupied Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971. The placement of the chants in the psychiatric observation rooms suggests an unexpected analogy: like subjugated peoples, those who have been classified as mentally ill have often been dismissed, deprived of rights, confined, and observed. Under the severe circumstances of incarceration, chanting could serve as a source of emotional comfort, spiritual strength, and cultural identity.
Ai Weiwei, Illumination, 2014 (detail); sound installation: audio files, speakers; part of @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, Alcatraz Island, 2014–2015
Monks playing traditional music at Namgyal Monastery in Dharamshala, India. Namgyal Monastery was founded by the 3rd Dalai Lama in the late sixteenth century and has served the Dalai Lamas since that time.
A Native American drummer and dancers from the Hopi Reservation in Arizona, performing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2012
The masked kachinas (Hopi Indian rainmakers), Hopi Pueblo, Shongopavi, Arizona, stereo cards, c. 1870–1900
Two young men stand side by side, and as the eagle rides the air, so do these two dancers rise and fall on their toes. Around and around they circle, swooping with inconceivable grace. With arms extended, like the wings of the great bird, the dancers move their painted yellow bodies from side to side as they crouch and swoop and imitate the eagle’s sweeping gestures with their wing-like arms. The Hopi believe the eagle is always strong and therefore can “cure anything.” This dance, imitating the bird with its power, is part of a healing ceremony that is supposed to cure any disease. Since the eagle is considered a connecting link between earth and heaven, it is believed to have great powers, and its plumes are the prayer bearers.
Hopi Indian altar with three kachinas, 1906
The dance itself, which may be held at any time, is preceded by a four-day fast during which the sick are treated before an altar in the ceremonial chamber. Later, the dance is held for all to see and two men are selected to send medicine prayers heavenwards on the plumes of the mighty eagle as the old men chant and drum.
Ai Weiwei, Illumination, 2014 (detail); sound installation: audio files, speakers; part of @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, Alcatraz Island, 2014–2015
