Art - or tantamount to child abuse?

[emkana]

make your mind up here

I don't like the photos they're shiny and wierdie but ffs get a grip, taking a kid's lolly away is not abuse.

And I agree with Jampots - a kid who reacts with that amount of hysteria to having its lolly taken away, wouldn't bloody well get it back in my house. So call the NSPCC.

I stand corrected!! really thought all those videos and pictures were done using a soft focus lens and retouching with Photoshop Elements or some such software.

bloody messy iyam!!

Chandra, I mean this kind of thing, only dressed in Mexican peasant-esque whites and with a big opalescent tear dripping from one eye, and printed on faux velvet.

Bloody GORGEOUS it was

at that. Now all we need is that idiot Gary Bushell, telling us this is "working class art", denigrated by the chattering classes because they're classist, not because it's crap.

In fact... the more I think about it it's actually an insult to the truly abused to call this abuse...what nonsense

Perhaps someone from the lovely child modelling thread owns one of these children? Anybody checked??

i dont think this is abuse, of course not....i also dispair at the random use of the word abuse....it ditracts from what is ACTUAL abuse and in some ways devalues the word.

but anyway.....the pictures are disturbing, because we know the method used to get such photo's.

had she came out and said.....we wanted a shoot of lovely cherub looking children but when they had a paddy we kept on shooting, we'd be fine about and say how cute they are, or compare them to our own LO's outburts.

i agree with the comment that art should be a caption of a moment, such posed and manufactured 'art' is just tacky and cheap.

nasty contrived art. Quite happy with the idea of capturing raw emotions in children. Not happy about ehr methods and dislike the way she has staged it - nasty lighting and silly skin effects.
Contrived, pointless art. She wanted to show real emotions. All she has shown is what happens to a child who is given a lollypop by a nasty woman and then taken away for her own artisitic gratification. Not what I feel like hanging on my wall

I think the problem is that the children can't give permission for their images to be used in this way - images of themselves at a very vulnerable and exposed moment. I find the pictures themselves oddly beautiful and compelling, but feel uncomfortable about the ethics of provoking and capturing such emotions.

I don't think it is pointless art - I think she is using very powerful images to convey her pain and anger about political and social issues, as stated on the website. The problem is that she has used others' expressions of that pain to get her message across.

How revolting - I can imagine all the sicko's getting off on those images. An utterly pointless exercise.

It's horrible and she sound like a bloody loon. She wants her head testing.

I like them actually, and don't have a problem with it. I'd quite like these piccies as a calendar actually

I would never subject my kids to child modelling anyway, but I don't think removing a lolly for 30 seconds is particularly bad. The idea of standing around waiting for hours and hours for castingsphoto shoots sounds far more hideous to me!

I'm off to provoke my kids into screaming now, to see if I can get some attractive shots

If they were smacked or hurt that would be disturbing to me... she took away their lollipops fcol...again I say nonsense imo

Art is what it is... definitions in themselves do not change the fact that art can be and almost certainly will be contrived Art can be an idea, an expression a reaction ...what is a portrait or still life if not contrived?

At the end of the day imo there is good art or bad art.

I don't think it's abuse ... but I do wonder why someone would want to take pictures of naked children in distress, and who would want to look at them. I can't see any valid reason to do so, and I can't see any valid point to the photographs either, really.

I.m with madrose, they show the innocence and vulnerability of little children.
i think they're bloody awful and she's a bloody awful person for taking them. Not to mention the Parents who offered them.

I do think "naked" is an over-reaction - you can see their shoulders, ffs. Please don't let us get like the United States where an accidental viewing of a nipple provokes national outcry and creates a small forest's worth of column inches.

I have no problem with nudity. I have no problem with showing nipples or anything like that ... but these are children who aren't able to give informed consent for being shown in this way. The fact that their shoulders are bare is part of the effect that the photographer is aiming for and is designed to provoke a particular reaction - I find that distasteful. The fact that nakedness is implied rather than explicit doesn't make it any less distasteful to me, and smacks of exploitation to me.

Am I the only one who just feels irritated when I look at them? Even though I can't hear them, my first thought is "oh fgs shut up screaming!"

Which wouldn't necessarily be my first thought if I saw (and heard) a child screaming in a supermarket for example, but I guess it's something to do withh the artificiality of it. Or perhaps I'm just an irritable ole bat today.

OMG Who is this woman? I am sitting here at the moment listening to my 2 yearold ds moaning because he was woken from his nap and its like having a sound track to these pictures. I feel like having a bloody good cry now. How dare she do this for political reasons? Just because she feels let down by them doesnt mean she has to take it out on these poor children. They dont undersatnd politics yet. Stupid woman!!

Interesting.
Thought provoking
Not my cup of tea

I wish they were wearing white t-shirts rather than being naked.

Abuse - not
Contrived - yes

I shut my sons figure in a shed door just as a professional photographer was about to take a picture of him. The resulting pictures are beautiful, natural and will forever remind me of my son (OK he was 2.5yr) when he needed me most.

But did you do it deliberately?

I think there's something ethically very wrong with deliberately causing another person (or animal) hurt or upset for the purpose of financial gain, fame or 'just to make a point' (which she misses IMO). Causing hurt and upset can only be excused when it was done unintentionally. I think the parents are just as to blame as the artist btw, I'd never put my son in that position.

well I think the photos are hideous - not neccesarily because of the taking away of the lolly, but because of the lighting, background, and ESPECIALLY the wanky titles. the photos are also too air brushed & shiny.

God No ! It wasn't deliberate, it was an accident