Sally Mann Photographs Removed from Texas Museum Exhibition after Outcry

[retina_restoration]

It's noteworthy that a photographer doesn't mount a show or publish a photo book without the involvement of a whole bunch of other people. However naive Sally Mann may have been, someone would've recognized the photos would be controversial.

And hopefully - having recognized there might be issues with certain groups or certain venues - they decided the work was too beautiful and important to edit out.

The image "Night Blooming Cereus" especially comes to mind (see for yourself). What an extraordinary photograph it is. The human figure in the photograph could conceivably be either male or female, and there is no part of the child's anatomy on display in the image that shouldn't be. This is about as benign as a photograph gets, and yet it is one of the photographs removed from the show as "obscene".

I don't expect everyone to agree with me, not at all. But that particular photograph - in my view - is about as innocent as it gets. To cull it from an art exhibition is outrageous to me. I think Juan Carlos (above) pretty much nailed it when he suggested that the art-viewing public ends up forced to endure a culling because a few people with power rushed to consider worst case scenarios and acted on those concerns.

I guess art is still "dangerous". If there were no artists who created controversial work, then we would not grow as a culture. I believe art - at least some of it - should play that role. Sometimes, art needs to be fearless. If there are consequences as a result, then we deal with them.

 

[koraks]

I guess art is still "dangerous". If there were no artists who created controversial work, then we would not grow as a culture.

So maybe it's good that it's still dangerous. If it ceases to be, it apparently ceases to have a meaningful impact. I agree with you that art functions as a means to recalibrate or further develop the moral compass of society (assuming you mean something along those lines with 'to grow as a culture').

 

[retina_restoration]

So maybe it's good that it's still dangerous. If it ceases to be, it apparently ceases to have a meaningful impact. I agree with you that art functions as a means to recalibrate or further develop the moral compass of society (assuming you mean something along those lines with 'to grow as a culture').

I do, yes.

Well, that's part of it, anyway. To "grow as a culture" includes many things. We've grown as a culture when it comes to movies and TV, for example: no longer do we find the simplistic entertainment of the 1960s sufficiently engaging, preferring more sophisticated storytelling. We've come a long way since "Leave it to Beaver", and that's a good thing.

 

[GregY]

" However naive Sally Mann may have been,..." (Don_ih)

I don't believe Sally Mann is/was naive...& she's walked her own path as an artist pretty fearlessly IMO.

 

[BrianShaw]

The Modern Releases Statement About Removed Photographs | Glasstire

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth released a statement regarding photographs that have been removed from the exhibition “Diaries of Home.”

glasstire.com

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The consent issue is also primarily about the publication, not so much the making of the photos. The societal response and its underlying motivations are multi-faceted. I don't agree with your statement that this particular perspective is somehow excluded.

Consent has no bearing on the Texas statute against child pornography I linked above. In fact, it can be AI computer-generated pictures and not actual children or adults in the photo. It's illegal to have photos showing children doing sexual acts. Period. (I'm not saying Mann's photos show this). Now, there are other statutes where it's illegal to have children engage in sexual acts themselves. I'm not familiar with Texas laws but they would include child abuse and other sexual crimes. Again, consent would not be included as a defense. Consent only applies when an adult is giving it which leaves out minors. Additionally, adults cannot consent for minors when it comes to sexual acts.

 

[warden]

The Modern Releases Statement About Removed Photographs | Glasstire

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth released a statement regarding photographs that have been removed from the exhibition “Diaries of Home.”

glasstire.com

Thanks for sharing that article, Brian. A good summary.

“A checklist for the exhibition indicates that these images are not part of the museum’s collection and are courtesy of Gagosian”

I was wondering about this. I thought it was unlikely that Mann would lend personal prints to the museum, favoring instead her other work that doesn’t fan these tired flames, especially in Texas. I imagine Gagosian would need her approval for images supplied though, but I don’t know.

I’ve been a part of several Fringe Festival performances now and I’m so delighted to hear that the governor of Florida, or any state for that matter, disapproves.

 

[Don_ih]

The consent issue is also primarily about the publication, not so much the making of the photos. The societal response and its underlying motivations are multi-faceted. I don't agree with your statement that this particular perspective is somehow excluded.

You're free to disagree with me and also to be incorrect. The issue of consent is a red herring. The people who condemn the images just don't care about consent - neither should the law.
And consent has nothing to do with publication in this instance. The person who could grant consent was the same person who sought publication.

I don't believe Sally Mann is/was naive

Neither do I.

it is one of the photographs removed from the show as "obscene".

From any objective standpoint, if anyone actually wanted to preserve a useful idea of obscenity, that photo would never be considered obscene.

 

[Chuck_P]

..............However naive Sally Mann may have been, someone would've recognized the photos would be controversial.

Exactly...............and I don't believe for a nanosecond that Mann just did not recognize it herself.

 

[koraks]

You're free to disagree with me and also to be incorrect.

Oh joy.

Here:

"The last word."
It's yours, take it.

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Exactly...............and I don't believe for a nanosecond that Mann just did not recognize it herself.

No such thing as bad advertising?

 

[BrianShaw]

It’s astonishing that a picture of a little boy’s penis is either offensive or considered pornography. All little boys have one. We all know that and most of us has seen them before.

 

[Cholentpot]

As for things not being what they were.

Go watch the first few seasons of Sesame Street and see how the main actors worked with the kids. There would be no such thing these days. It was completely innocent, zero harm. But having Bob pick up and a little girl and prop her up on his arm would never ever fly in this day and age.

And would this be a discussion if the kids were objectively 'ugly'? Yes, no kids are ugly but some kids are more photogenic that others. Would people be up in arms if it was a picture of Jimmy 'Skinny' Tubbs digging into a gallon of ice cream in his shorts? All in artistic B&W with shallow depth of field of course.

 

[Cholentpot]

It’s astonishing that a picture of a little boy’s penis is either offensive or considered pornography. All little boys have one. We all know that and most of us has seen them before.

I ain't posting that stuff. As we say 'you first'

 

[pentaxuser]

The police actions are consistent with police behavior. While the have discretion to resolve issues “curbside” they often perform investigations out of due diligence and consult/refer to the local prosecutor, whose job it is to decide if there is a crime and/or enough evidence to pursue prosecution. It can be complicated, as I’m sure you are already aware.

The analogy is just an analogy. Not worth overthinking. Life isn’t always fair and most people think that their opinion/assessment is right no matter what other evidence may exist. Logic and data isn’t always considered. For the coalition levying the complaint, the rationale is based on their interpretation of the Bible, so whether that represents the majority opinion or not doesn’t matter. If the case proceeds to trial, that might be different criteria, or not.

Yes I understand everything you have said above but my points were:
1 The police have to understand what the law states before they act as does the local prosecutor if it were he/she whose judgement they subsequently acted on. Otherwise the police at whatever level happens to be involved in the judgement effectively becomes the law inside the real law without accountability. In this case if the law is as clear as was stated then unless the police/ local prosecutor is held to account it can do what it likes
2. The coalition's rationale about what constitutes obscenity is irrelevant in terms of being able to bring about an execution of its wishes to impose its definition of obscenity on the rest of society

Society can shrug its shoulders if it likes or feel powerless on the basis that there is nothing it can do against powerful minority groups be that "moneyed" individuals or a uniformed group called the police who decídes what it does is the law because it says so in the face of actual law

What that can eventually led to is a state of affairs that most of us who do not control the levers of power would not wish to be part of

A more extreme form of this kind of "L'etat, c'est moi" action than that of removing 5 pictures from the Fort Worth Museum led to very serious consequences for the one who lived by that philosophy

pentaxuser

 

[BrianShaw]

I understood your points the first time. Thank you for reiterating, though. If we aren’t seeing eye-to-eye then we might be talking past each other… needlessly.

 

[pentaxuser]

Yes Interesting article, Brian. Based on what I read I suspect that it indícates the "New Wave" is gathering strength and coming shortly In the words of Ronnie, late of Hollywood and the White House "you ain't seen nothing yet "

pentaxuser

 

[BrianShaw]

And how!

(und wie!)

 

[Alex Benjamin]

It’s astonishing that a picture of a little boy’s penis is either offensive or considered pornography. All little boys have one. We all know that and most of us has seen them before.

 

[logan2z]

View attachment 387736

That wasn't without its own controversy either...

Federal court revives lawsuit against Nirvana over 1991 'Nevermind' naked baby album cover

A federal appeals court has revived a child sexual exploitation lawsuit filed by the man who appeared naked in a pool as a 4-month-old on the cover of Nirvana’s 1991 album “Nevermind.”

apnews.com

 

[Hassasin]

It looks clear to me the "art" world will continue to remain offended by disapproval of ANY piece it produces. Stubbornness has always been its prime virtue. Listening, more importantly hearing, hardly an option. Any opposing view can only come from illiterate and uneducated who cannot connect growth of society at large with uncontrolled display of associated production.

The simple diagnosis from this is: you're with us, or against us, no in-betweens. When we tell you this is art and outside of any scrutiny, you better not try pushing back. When we want to show it, nobody has any right to challenge that. And if anyone does, that is censorship.

So, being the artistic moron I am, let me just try to point out, this kind of discussion cannot be successful (meaningful) without talking politics (with all associated branches of thought). Since the latter is disallowed (even if some have tried to inject it in however sublime form), I just leave it here. If politics were allowed, it would have swiftly brought the whole discussion to a tragic crash.

Many of Mann's photographs are offensive to many, and in several cases one really needs to turn a blind eye not to see why. One may see a message that aligns with own beliefs, or try really hard and just see a play on lights and shadows that may look interesting. Is content relevant ? Depends on one's agenda.

Getting pissed at not getting 100% unequivocal approval is not a sign of strength. If you were asked to take your "art" to a private/closed exhibit, you would surely be offended.

No, I don't believe setting anyone to roam free uncontrollably has helped fix societal problems, let alone help it grow. In fact it's done the opposite. There is this thing called common sense, which used to bring people and keep societies together. Hopefully what-goes-around-comes-around still holds true.

 

[Maris]

While this thread survives here's a note from ARTnews:

The National Coalition Against Censorship issued a statement on Friday condemning the police seizure.

“The allegation that these works are child sexual abuse material is not just disingenuous, it is deeply dangerous to the freedom of the millions of Americans who wish to document the growth of their own children without the threat of government prosecution,” the organization said. “Furthermore, it assumes the perspective of the pedophile, and degrades the seriousness of real incidents of child abuse.”

The statement continued, “Such a seizure and investigation can only contribute to the perverse and troubling perception that all images of naked children are inherently sexual, thereby reinforcing the very sexualization of children that critics purport to oppose.”

I guess, in a general sense , it's all a consequence of legislators enacting their personal dirty minded moral fantasies into criminal law in order to prosecute those who do not care to participate in those same fantasies.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

That wasn't without its own ontroversy either...

Federal court revives lawsuit against Nirvana over 1991 'Nevermind' naked baby album cover

A federal appeals court has revived a child sexual exploitation lawsuit filed by the man who appeared naked in a pool as a 4-month-old on the cover of Nirvana’s 1991 album “Nevermind.”

apnews.com

Pretty sure in this case controversy, at least for Cobain, was the point.

From the wiki entry on the album:

Fisher sent a photographer, Kirk Weddle, to a pool for babies to take pictures. Five shots resulted and the band settled on the image of four-month-old Spencer Elden, the son of a friend of Weddle. Geffen was concerned that the infant's penis, visible in the photo, would cause offense, and prepared an alternate cover without it; they relented when Cobain said the only compromise he would accept would be a sticker covering the penis reading: "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile."

 

[MattKing]

To quote/paraphrase a law professor or two:
"Everything comes down to remedies".
Is it appropriate to prevent everyone and anyone from seeing this work on a public wall?
Is it appropriate to prevent everyone and anyone from creating them in the first place?
If one person, or a relatively small group of persons, object to them, should everyone be prohibited from creating or viewing them?

 

[Sirius Glass]

All the explanations, discussion, and logic that has been put forth in this thread means nothing to people with the agenda of the Texans sited in post #1 was, is and will be ignored by such people because they have their agenda and they do not care about anything put forth by anyone other than themselves.