Gary Tyler, Sentenced to Death at 16, Now Has His First Solo Museum Show
NPR tells Gary Tyler's story as a murder he didn't commit, an adult life spent behind bars for it, and a release at 58 — followed now by his first solo exhibition.
His conviction followed a judge's instruction to an all-white jury to assume the 16-year-old meant to kill multiple people; the jury convicted him and sentenced him to death.
At the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan, Tyler points to a black-and-white quilt that's based on a photograph. He has always maintained his innocence. The exhibit also carries portrait quilts of the incarcerated men and women he met behind bars, his art now honoring those still locked up.
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Four friends testified against Tyler and then recanted, and the jury was told to assume a teenager meant to kill multiple people. That is a conviction that asks to be distrusted, whatever the courts eventually did with it.
The quilts aren't a brief for his own case. The portraits are of people he met inside, so the show spends its wall space on the imprisoned rather than on one man's vindication — which is a stranger and better choice.