Latest news with #SallyMann
Washington Post
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Are we ready to admit yet that Andrew Wyeth was great?
It's often taken for granted that artistic advances happen in cities. By and large, they do. And yet some great 20th-century American art has been made by artists who lived on farms — among them Georgia O'Keeffe, Sally Mann and Andrew Wyeth. When art made on farms comes to their attention, city-based critics and curators often don't know quite what to say about it. They have heard about farms, perhaps. They may even have visited a few. But they haven't experienced the calloused feet and filthy fingernails of a feral childhood. They haven't shared space with animals that saunter or stand about, flicking their tails, in muddy fields. And they haven't been present when those animals bellow, copulate, get sick and defecate, only to be slaughtered, skinned, drained of blood, cooked and eaten.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Texas Cops Seized Photographs From a Museum and Launched Child Pornography Investigation
Police in Fort Worth, Texas, seized photographs from an art exhibit in November after local politicians decried the images as pornographic. The photos, from artist Sally Mann's 1992 collection Immediate Family depict intimate details of Mann's family life, including several images of her young children nude. This week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas spoke out against the seizure, arguing the images are non-sexualized works of art protected by the First Amendment. "It's shameful that government officials would use the criminal legal process to censor art and expression," Adriana Piñon the legal director of the ACLU of Texas said in a Wednesday statement. "This is a clear violation of the First Amendment and of the guardrails against abuse of the criminal justice system. Artistic expression should not be subject to the whim and punishment of government officials' personal taste." Mann's photos were being exhibited at The Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, as part of an exhibit called "Diaries of Home," which featured photographs from female and nonbinary artists that "probe preconceptions about domestic, familial, and communal spaces in the United States, which are often considered feminine spheres." Intimate Family contains 13 photos depicting children in the nude. Some of the images displayed at the museum included "depictions of Mann's daughter jumping onto a picnic table in a ballet pose, Mann's daughter lying in bed with a stain from a nighttime accident, and Mann's son with a melted popsicle running down his body," according to the ACLU's press release. The exhibit went up in November 2024 and was quickly met with controversy. In December 2024, Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare told The Dallas Express that the photos "should be taken down immediately and investigated by law enforcement for any and all potential criminal violations." State Rep. David Lowe (R–North Richland Hills) also told the paper "it is crucial that our legal framework leaves no room for predators to misuse the realm of art to display child nudity." In early January, the Forth Worth Report reported that four images had been seized and were now subject to an investigation. Weeks later, the images were still being held in a police storage facility. "The images of children reported in the media at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth are deeply disturbing," O'Hare posted on X in January. "Sexual exploitation of a minor, including under the guise of 'art,' should never be tolerated. I have full confidence in law enforcement to thoroughly investigate this matter and take appropriate action. I will always be committed to protecting the most vulnerable members of society, our children." The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), and the ACLU of Texas teamed up to send a letter to the Fort Worth Police Department demanding that the investigation be stopped and the photos returned. "The Supreme Court has expressly rejected the suggestion that every depiction of nudity appeals to the prurient interest. Mann's images are not sexualized," the letter reads. "Like much art, the images' meaning may be ambiguous or controversial, there is no question they are intended to provoke thought and challenge viewers to engage with ideas, not to satisfy their sexual desires." The letter also highlighted the clearly censorious nature of the police's decision to remove the photos from the museum. "It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Fort Worth Police Department seized the photos— removing them from the exhibit for the back half of its duration—at least in part to block their exhibition. Seizing the works was not necessary to preserve them as evidence, as the police could have easily accessed them online or photographed them in the museum. And the seizure came on the heels of complaints about the art by local officials and politicians," the letter reads. "Courts do not look kindly on bad-faith prosecutions that target artistic expression under the guise of combatting child pornography." The post Texas Cops Seized Photographs From a Museum and Launched Child Pornography Investigation appeared first on
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fort Worth police seize photographs of nude children from museum, ACLU claims First Amendment violation
The Brief The Fort Worth Police Department removed photographs from the Modern Art Museum as part of an investigation. The artist took the photos in the early 90s and the collection has been debuted in more than a dozen shows across the country since. The exhibition was from November 17, 2024, through February 2, 2025. FORT WORTH, Texas - In November, the Fort Worth Police Department removed photographs at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth from an exhibition by the artist Sally Mann in what the ACLU of Texas calls a violation of the First Amendment. Three civil liberty organizations sent a letter on Wednesday, demanding the police department "end its unconstitutional censorship and seizure of several pieces of art that were on display." The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth began hosting an exhibition in November called"Diaries from Home," featuring works that "explore the multilayered concepts of family, community, and home." Included in the collection were photos from Sally Mann's 1990 collection "Immediate Family." Mann's collection featured an "intimate and candid look at her family's rural life," the ACLU said in a news release. Of the 65 photos in Mann's "Immediate Family," 13 showed her children in the nude. The selection of nude photos displayed in the Modern reportedly included depictions of Mann's daughter jumping onto a picnic table in a ballet pose, Mann's daughter lying in bed with a stain from a nighttime accident, and Mann's son with a melted popsicle running down his body. "Immediate Family" was controversial even at its debut decades ago, but has been showcased in more than a dozen art galleries across the world, including the National Gallery of Art. Fort Worth police seized the few pieces of artwork last month as part of an investigation. The rest of the collection was on display at the museum until the end of the exhibit, through February 2, 2025. What they're saying Some local officials publicly condemned the images. One of the officials, Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare, posted on X saying, "The images of children reported in the media at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth are deeply disturbing. Sexual exploitation of a minor, including under the guise of 'art,' should never be tolerated. I have full confidence in law enforcement to thoroughly investigate this matter and take appropriate action. I will always be committed to protecting the most vulnerable members of society, our children." After the comments were made, the Fort Worth Police Department seized several of Mann's portraits from the exhibit as part of a criminal investigation into potential child abuse. On Wednesday, after the ACLU sent a news release, FOX 4 News asked Fort Worth Police for a statement on the seizure of the photographs. The Public Relations Team responded with, "This is still an ongoing investigation. We don't have any new information to release." The other side According to the ACLU, all of Mann's children, as adults, continued to support the collection and their mother and have never once suggested they were abused. "It's shameful that government officials would use the criminal legal process to censor art and expression," said Adriana Piñon, legal director of the ACLU of Texas. "This is a clear violation of the First Amendment and of the guardrails against abuse of the criminal justice system. Artistic expression should not be subject to the whim and punishment of government officials' personal taste." "Anyone who's ever taken a photo of their child or grandchild taking a bath understands that not all photographs of child nudity are malicious, let alone child abuse," said Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at FIRE. "The seizure of Mann's works is an egregious abuse of power that dishonestly conflates artistic expression with sexual exploitation." "Publicity stunts like this one — in which artworks that have been shown and discussed for over 30 years are suddenly the focus of an unfounded 'investigation' — do nothing to protect victims of child abuse, and serve only to chill the creative expressions of artists and cultural institutions by subjecting them to the threat of political prosecution and the unconstitutional seizure of artwork," said Elizabeth Larison, director of NCAC's Arts and Culture Advocacy Program. The photographs remain in a police storage facility, according to reports from the ACLU. Sally Mann is a renowned photographer with accolades from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Guggenheim Foundation. As she describes this specific group of photographs, "I photographed their triumphs, confusion, harmony and isolation, as well as the hardships that tend to befall children — bruises, vomit, bloody noses, wet beds — all of it." The photos under investigation are entitled to full First Amendment protection, according to the ACLU. "The works are not the product of child abuse, and they are neither intended nor designed to excite lust in the viewer. They do what much art does — convey ideas and invite viewers to reflect on the human experience," the news release states. "Both the creation and dissemination of photographs are 'inherently expressive' acts protected by the First Amendment. The 'First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content,' except in a few 'well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech,' such as defamation, incitement, obscenity, and child pornography. No such exception applies to Mann's photographs." The ACLU says the works do not meet the legal definition of "obscenity." "This should be common sense to anyone familiar with the iconic "Napalm Girl" photograph, National Geographic documentaries, or even major Hollywood films like the 1978 version of "Superman," the ACLU states. In Miller v. California, the Supreme Court adopted a three-part test for determining whether expression is legally obscene. A work may be banned as "obscene" only if "taken, as a whole," the "average person, applying contemporary community standards" would consider it to "appeal to the prurient interest"; it depicts or describes "sexual conduct" in a "patently offensive" manner; and it lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Works must meet all three prongs of this test to fall outside the First Amendment's protection. The Source Information in this article is from a news release sent to FOX 4 News by the Texas ACLU, a post by Tarrant County judge Tim O'Hare and the Fort Worth Police Department.
