The American photographer once again exhibited photos dating from the 1980s showing her naked children. Works that certain elected Republican officials and associations consider « child pornography ».
Several photographs by American artist Sally Mann have been removed from a group exhibition named Diaries of Homeat the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. The operation came after local republican leaders and associations compared his work to child pornography a few days before the end of the exhibition which was inaugurated in November. In a statement sent to Dallas Expressthe elected officials believed that « some of the images on display in this museum are, at best, completely inappropriate. They should be removed immediately and investigated by law enforcement for any potential criminal offenses ».
The seized photographs, taken in the 1980s, are well known for having been exhibited several times and still visible on the sites of American institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum or the Smithsonian. We see the artist’s children, a young girl sleeping in a bed or another dancing on a table, naked. One of the most commented on since it was taken in 1985 shows the trunk and genitals of her prepubescent son, stained with sorbet according to the legend.
According to the management of the Forth Worth museum, who say they are stunned, an investigation was opened by the local police, leading to the seizure of the works. The museum, however, expresses its incomprehension to the Hyperallergic site, recalling that the photographs seized were « widely published and exhibited for over thirty years in some of the country’s major artistic institutions and abroad ».
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The National Coalition Against Censorship stated that « The allegation that these works constitute child sexual abuse material is not only spurious, it is profoundly dangerous to the freedom of millions of Americans who wish to document the growth of their own children without the threat of prosecution on the part of the government. Furthermore, it takes the pedophile’s point of view and devalues the seriousness of real incidents of child abuse. »
In 2015, an article in the New York Times intitulé « The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann » (« The disturbing photography of Sally Mann ») questioned the artist’s intentions and specified that a federal prosecutor had informed him that some of his works could be subject to seizure. In response to which, the artist explained that “far too often nudity, even that of children, was confused with sexuality », sending those who criticized it to reflect on their own views.
