Ok, so it seems like the heat is turning up on this Jill Greenberg controversy stuff. You remember Jill. The woman who takes photos of the emotionally wrenched kids in the name of art against the Bush administration (I think)…
From Hawk’s previous post on the subject:
So what is Jill Greenberg doing? She is taking babies, toddlers under three years old, stripping them of their clothes and then provoking them to various states of emotional distress, anger, rage etc. — so that she can then take photos of them this way to "illustrate her personal beliefs." If you’d like to see how worked up she can get these kids you can click through here. Be warned that it is graphic. Although the children are not sexualized, I consider what she is doing child pornography of the worst kind.
Continue reading at Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection
After looking at the photos, I agree.
How can I have a problem with this and not with Witkin (NSFW)? Easy: informed consent. It differentiates sex from rape, boxing from assault, and DNR orders from murder… an important concept, to be sure. Witkin’s models know what they’re getting into and freely choose it. With kids of this age, there’s no way to make a legal or moral argument that they’ve been informed or have consented—that’s what makes it abuse.
I’m a big believer in fighting ideas rather than people, but in this case, I can’t pretend that I don’t think that Jill Greenberg—personally, not just her methods—is a reprehensible piece of shit. And where the fuck were these kids’ parents?? I sincerely hope that every one of the subjects finds a way to sue the ever-loving fuck out of everyone involved in this shameful affair.