Question 3: Do you think work like that of photographers Sally Mann, Jock Sturges and/or David Hamilton is positive, innocuous or pernicious in its effect on the viewer? Do you think the photos were intended to be sexual or is this perception something our oversexed culture brings to them? (Please feel free to incorporate your reaction to Noelle Oxenhandler's essay, "Nole Me Tangere," in your answer.) |
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To answer fully requires one to assume the role of both art critic and social historian/critic. How can one judge the effect of the viewer 
outside of one's own experience? Isn't that one of the problems with work
often described as "pornographic"? How can one address intent without
interviewing the artist? Isn't that presumptuous? (Also, to discuss the
potential "child pornography" of certain photographs within the context
of this conversation is a problem; the real issue isn't about a
particular artist's photographs but multiple and various images of
children.)
Although all three produce elegant pictures of nudes, for me, Sally Mann is a much more serious artist than Jock Sturges or David Hamilton. Mann's exploration of childhood, of sexuality, of intimacy and of family is qualitatively different from that of Hamilton and Sturges. Theirs is more closely related to soft core pornography; Sturges reads perhaps as somewhat stronger photographically, but ultimately both are not terribly interesting on an emotional/psychological level. While Mann's photographs are highly structured and stylized, they are also intensely intimate; she catches (her) children at critical and very exposed moments in their lives/development, highlighting passionate fragments of vulnerability rarely witnessed by adults outside of the family structure. With Mann's work, it is this sense of seeing something so emotionally and psychologically intimate, rather than any actual physical exposure, which makes the pictures discomforting. |
Question 1 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Naomi Wolf Question 2 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Naomi Wolf Question 3 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose Sally Mann Question 4 A. M. Homes James Kincaid Judith Levine Michael Medved Stephen Schiff Celine Texier-Rose |
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