Artist hangs her own arrest report at Spring/Break
The curator-run fair's 15th New York edition features over 100 exhibitions centered on the theme "Hide N Seek."
Shows and Exhibitions
The artist Alice Herbert hung two copies of her police arrest report at Spring/Break Art Show, each redacted differently, beside nude and partly clothed self-portraits made during house arrest with an ankle monitor.
The booth House Arrest, curated by Clio Herbert, is one of more than 100 exhibitions at the fair’s 15th New York edition. It opened September 23 in the former CBS News building at 555 West 57th Street and runs until September 28.
The arrest pages carry the header of the Davis Police Department in California and a June 3, 2023 report date. A red stamp at the bottom warns the document contains restricted information and is addressed to Herbert, dated May 13, 2026.
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Arrest Report A leaves a handful of phrases readable, including “her eyes were red and watery” and “I have been taught.” Arrest Report B leaves a different set, including “speeding,” “intoxication,” “she had drank” and “beer.”
The redacted pages do not show what charge Herbert faced or how her case was resolved.
Each report sells for $150 in an edition of 10, the booth’s checklist shows.
The seven photographs, all from 2023, show Herbert at home with the monitor strapped to her ankle and its cord running across the floor or bed. In House Arrest #59, the most expensive at $10,000, she kneels nude on a white bed with her head bowed.
“This collection of photographs represents Herbert’s desire to expose and reclaim the voyeurism and exhibitionism imposed on her by jail guards, police, and society,” the curatorial statement said.
“The artist’s position is explicit: these photographs do not challenge laws against drunk driving; rather, they aim to interrogate a system predicated on internalized shame and examine the potential for reconciliation.”
Spring/Break gives independent curators free exhibition space and charges galleries a low fee. This year’s theme was “Hide N Seek.” The call for proposals sought work “predicated on code, seeming malfeasance in the face of American imperialism,” the fair’s theme page said.
The fair’s 2026 creative partner, the nonprofit Slow Factory, turned the old recording studios into The People’s Newsroom. Visitors can step up to a working press podium, press a red button and talk into the microphones. The clips play back on a wall of monitors.
Artist heads to SPRING/BREAK as her studio faces relocation
This article was first published in Urgent Matter’s “print” edition, and is available to paid subscribers.
Adam Schrader
ARTnews reported that the installation was organized as the White House press pool suspended coverage after the Trump administration barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico. A court later ordered the White House to lift the ban.
Urgent Matter spent about 45 minutes at the fair before a school pickup and missed several booths, including this one.
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