Installation view: Christian Patterson: Redheaded Peckerwood

In Christian Patterson’s largest solo museum show to date, the artist takes as his subject the killing spree of 19-year-old Charles Starkweather. In January 1958, Starkweather murdered 11 people, including his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate’s entire family. The two teenagers then drove across the Great Plains of Nebraska and were captured in Wyoming on January 29th, 1958. Over the course of five winters, Patterson retraced the teenagers’ path, revisiting places of significance to the story, combing through various archives, interviewing people whose lives were impacted by the murders and, incredibly, uncovering evidence that had gone unnoticed for fifty years.