2016

Ladies of the Night was designed to fit into a 10” x 12” x ½” aluminum box. It was printed at Roland DGA, the pages on their VersaUV LEC-330 and the aluminum box on their LEF-300, a flatbed printer with white and gloss inks. Printed 57” long it folded as an accordion with six 9 ½” x 11 ½” pages inside and 6 pages outside. Ladies of the Night used photographs of twin performance artists, Abigail and Emily Taylor. The text on the back of Ladies reads: Prostitution is the practice or occupation of engaging in sexual activity for payment. As with other countries, prostitution in the US can be divided into three broad categories: street prostitution, brothel prostitution, and escort prostitution. There are an estimated 1 million prostitutes in the US. Most have a high school diploma and many have attended college. Many enter the sex industry to provide for their families when they have exhausted all other options. Nevada is the only state in the U.S. to allow legal prostitution – in the form of regulated brothels, although it exists in most parts of the country. Street prostitutes are attacked physically on average of once per month — 68% reported having been raped and 82% reported having been physically assaulted. Their death rate is 6 times that of the general population and more than double that of fishing workers, the highest fatality profession. Between 70,000 and 80,000 people are arrested each year for prostitution costing taxpayers approximately $200 million. Of arrests related to prostitution 10% are the customers, 20% are pimps or male prostitutes and 70% are female prostitutes. Prostitution in the US is estimated to generate $14 billion a year, more than drugs and guns combined. Approximately 10% of customers pay with credit cards. Craigslist no longer lists “adult services” however Backpage.com makes an average of $22 million a year from adult classifieds.