Nan Goldin's 'Art' Photography of her daughters

[NadineBaggott]

has been removed from an exhibition in Newcastle and is now in the hands of the police.

It depicts her daughters playing - one standing clothed astride her naked sister on the floor, leg akimbo facing the camera.

Comment on BBC news just now 'what parent allows their child's genitals to be depicted as art?'

I have a certain sympathy with that.

What do you think?

Sophable - it's ok - nice message to you from LucyEllensMum..but it's getting very very repetitive now as the thread has gone past the length where people read it all.

I've just looked at her other work. If that is Art I'm off to sell our holiday snapshots.

As an Artist then composition will be second-nature to her. That being the case, the subject snapped from the side rather than full-on would have been more appropriate surely?

yeah soph, i sent you a grovelling apology

lucyellen...what did you say originally that was so bad? no need for apologies, it's all debate innit. i don't do the 'ooo, you are so nasty and horrible how very dare you thing'.

but she didn't stage it evenhope. they were'nt posing. So she didn't have much choice at what angle she shot it. It is children. Playing. That's it.

ok to answer nadines original post:

I would not depict my children and put their images on public display. but that is at least in part cause i am not a documentary photographer. genitals are neither here nor there for me.

i do think she saw the photo afterwards and knew what kind of reactions it would provoke, so deliberately selected it for exhibitions. The actual debate it provokes is a worthy one I think.

sophable - i forgot!!!

soph, you make a really good piont there - i remember a while back seeing a really lovely picture for sale in a local gallery, not mega money, but enough, of someones child, it was a sweet picture, fully clothed i hasten to add, i have to admit that i found it odd, why would i want to look at someone elses child, and i cant imagine my dds picture being viewed by strangers in that way, just odd. Of course if someone took a picture of my dd that was that good, id love to have it on display, in my home!"

I think it's a stunning picture and shows sharp-minded genius on the part of Nan Goldin.

My guess is that while watching these 2 girls 'belly dancing' she spotted a (this) pose that had a dualistic meaning; yes it's just 2 kids playing but the pose is one that would be highly sexual if it were adults, and Goldin knows this: the viewer as adult is going to have an adult thus sexualised perception. Even non-paedophiles (ie us) would interpret the pic as challenging, disturbing, eroticised, etc.

Because the fact is it IS just 2 kids playing. Their nakedness is incidental, to them. Who's looking at their vulvas is incidental, to them. They don't care. We do. That's kinda the point of the photo, IMO; it's one that bears repeated viewing simply to decide how we feel about it.

Am disappointed by everyone who slags Goldin's work off as being mere 'snapshots'. I for one am glad that we're at a point where life in real-time can be recorded and displayed as art. It's taken a long time to get to this point and I think it's great that art is no longer the preserve of men in ivory towers, and no longer has to be aesthetically undemanding.

And if I had Goldin's skill in making one 'snapshot' the pivot of an enduring debate about the nature of art, beauty, childhood, sexuality and innocence then too goddam right I would be putting pictures of my child's genitalia on public display. (He's a boy btw. Would he be similarly 'defiled' by such exhibition, I wonder?)

well said tamz77 (seems like all i do is applauding someone else's post... . But I'm too lazy and my English's crap anyway)

agree Tamz77.

"sharp-minded genius on the part of Nan Goldin"

that's an insult to geniuses imvho

How do you know those kids don't care? - they surely don't at the moment of the snap because they are just playing. Do they even know they've been enlarged and sold for mega money? Maybe they will care hugely when they are older, maybe not.

The 'viewer as an adult' is NOT necessarily seeing it as sexualised although everyone keeps banging on about it being sexualised. It's about an adult making the decision (probably) to use this image without the child's consent, and a child of that age is in no way capable of making a sound judgment on this anyway, they rely on the adult to make the proper judgement for them and in this case they've failed miserably.

oh yes, it takes a sharp minded genius to know that a picture wherein your child's vulva is the focus, that a massive furore will be created and people who have never heard of you before will be talking about you

exploiting the times we live in and her daughter by using this pic as part of her collection, IMHO

have we gone so far over to being so PC that admitting that a pic containing a child;s vulva , is not allowed to be criticised for fear of being hysterical and small minded

"in this case they've failed miserably."
well, in your opinion.
in the opinion of many others, this is a perfectly legitimate and in fact meaningful and challenging piece of art, which is no way exploits the child concerned.

If if you have to do these days to produce a 'challenging piece of art' is to snapshot you kids in the nuddy having fun I should be the next David Bailey, as would anyone with children and a digital camera and no regard for their childrens privacy...

les sum up
woman takes photos of kids minges?

hooha

can seh not take a photo of a sunset fgs?

am i hearign this right?
she photogrpahs her kdis privates aand hten sells them?
thast not wrong?

I think we have to contextualise this piece in Nan Goldins' work as a whole. We are talking about an extremely revered photogropher, who's pictures historically have actually foregrounded drug abuse, sexuality and issues of gender and "otherness". One would be v naive in this sense to simply dismiss it as an innocent family snap of girls at play. She is certainly communicating issues of sexuality through the image - this is her preferred subject as it were. I even think (my assumption here) she might be playing with notions and perceptions of paedophilia, inspiring the exact debate we are having here. Artist Sally Mann encountered the same problems with erotic photos of her fully nude daughters a few years back.

I DO think, however, that pictures like this can get into the wrong hands and that is an awful reality, but to an artist, holding back on exhibiting because of this would go against freedom of expression.

Personally, although I think it is beautiful as so much of her work is, to me the image feels a bit "icky" and it does disturb me that some weirdo may get a thrill from it, in that sense it dosen't seem fair on the subjects.

actually the Sally Mann photos worried me more, IIRC. They were more posed, and seemingly more deliberate. Of course Goldin knows what she is doing in exhibiting this photo, but there is a spontaneity to the photo that can't be faked.

but was the nudity faked? i.e did she encourage them to be nude

who knows?

it just does not sit right with me at all

even if she did, children do play naked. It is possible she encouraged the girls to do something they had done before. But the integrity of the photo still stands I think.

In answer to OP, no I wouldn't allow my child to be portrayed in this way, for privacy reasons more than anything else.

Comments have been made about paedophiles. IME one picture like this wouldn't make much difference to the hoardes of images that some of them have, but why give them something so readily available?

I do agree with the point that we start out trying to protect our children, which then turns into oppressing them.

I don't have a problem with the photo itself. But I do have a problem with the fact it has more than likely been looked at by paedophiles, that the child herself has been an innocent and exploited party in this, and that (IMO) the photo has been staged for Goldin's own selfish indulgence.

As an aside, does anyone else keep thinking the clothed child is weeing on the naked one? It's just the sheen on the fabric she's using as a skirt, obviously, but it gets me every time.

Still a sh*te photo. DS2 (6) has taken better ones.