Nude photo shuts down UK's Tate Modern exhbit

[delalluvia]

LONDON – Britain's Tate Modern has temporarily closed an exhibition that includes a nude image of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields, following a visit from a London police unit that deals with obscene publications.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_en_ot/eu_britain_exhibit_shut_down

[Kelda]

I'm *kind* of interested to see the photo... I mean its in a collection called "Spiritual America"?  I wonder what sort of shot it is?

[Front-Ranger]

Isn't that the shot from "Pretty Baby"? It's been around forever!

[Kelda]

I don' think so. (I'e now seen it btw.. its ..umm.. interesting)

I hadn't heard of pretty baby until yesterday but I beleive the photo was shot when she was ten and pretty baby at 12.

[delalluvia]

I don' think so. (I'e now seen it btw.. its ..umm.. interesting)

I hadn't heard of pretty baby until yesterday but I beleive the photo was shot when she was ten and pretty baby at 12.

Do you think it's worth shutting down the exhibit?

[Mikaela]

Huh. Turns out this photo is also on exhibit in the Astrup-Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo. And the director there claims they've never had negative reactions, and that they beleived the UK hoopla to be a PR stunt on TAte Modern's part! According to this guy the photo is the artist Richard Prince's "main oevre".  

It supposedly depicts an "extremely complicated image of a nude girl looking like a boy made-up like a woman."

The link to the full article is here, for anyone who reads Norwegian, and the photo in question (which supposdedly is worth millions of dollars according to the article) can also be seen in the background.

http://www.kjendis.no/2009/10/02/kjendis/kunst/utenriks/brooke_shields/tate_modern/8394636/

Personally I think it looks suggestive and not in a subtle way; - it looks like a peadophile's dream come true. Yuck. Is this art? Maybe Roman Polanski should be asked to opine on the matter.  
 

[Clyde-B]

Can hardly wait till they start complaining about the naked baby Jesus pictures and the cherubs.

Going to have to repaint that pornographic ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.

[Mikaela]

Oh come on, Clyde, have you seen the photo?

I mean, I don't disagree with your right to think it's art and perfectly OK displayed in the public space. But the baby Jesus isn't normally pictured in a suggestive pose with equally suggestive props, sporting a "come hither" look and covered in gleaming baby oil.

[delalluvia]

Going to have to repaint that pornographic ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.

Actually, didn't some of the great Renaissance painters get complaints from their pious patrons and have to put clothes - or at least well positioned drapery or shrubbery on or near some of their subjects?

[Mikaela]

With this picture and "Pretty Baby" in mind, I am not overly impressed with Brooke Shield's mother's care for her child not the discretion displayed in the management of her minor daughter's carreer.