Sally Mann Photographs Removed from Texas Museum Exhibition after Outcry

Dustin McAmera · Jan 17, 2025

Apologies -this is only half relevant. A story from 2023 appeared in the links below a news item I was reading, and that linked on to a second.

So, in March '23, the principal of a school in Florida was made to resign after a class was shown photos of artworks including Michelangelo's David (one of the stone willies the Vatican didn't get). In previous years, parents had been sent a warning that this would be shown, and the school board called it an 'egregious mistake' this hadn't been done this time. The BBC piece notes that a copy of the statue held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has hooks to mount a fig-leaf, because Queen Victoria herself was shocked by it. In David's case it doesn't need a very big leaf.

Principal resigns after Florida students shown Michelangelo statue

One Florida parent complained Michelangelo's iconic statue amounted to pornography.

www.bbc.co.uk

The other story, a month later, concerned a pizza restaurant in Glasgow, who had advertising posters printed showing David eating a slice of pizza; only to have the ad agency refuse to show them in the Glasgow metro until they reprinted them, reworked so his boy's bits weren't shown. Being a private company, the agency doesn't need to justify their policy in terms of law - their contract says your material must be legal and decent, and that they will be the judge of that. I guess that they and a couple of rivals probably control all the good advertising spaces in the city, so they have great power to censor, which can hardly be challenged.

Glasgow subway poster blocked over Michelangelo statue nudity

The advert for an Italian restaurant showed Michelangelo's naked statue of David eating pizza.

www.bbc.co.uk

I would say Michelangelo's David is just naked. Donatello's David is sexy (although he's got more clothes on - a hat and some boots!) - he's also holding a great big pizza-cutter.

chuckroast · Jan 17, 2025

retina_restoration said:
You're not wrong, but neither is he in suggesting that people in another state may not "understand the issues" specific to this case, in this state, as prompted by a specific group with a specific viewpoint. He's not talking about what is baked into legal definitions - he's talking about how people from different states may have a different perception of what is happening, and why. Its at the core of this very discussion.

It's also at the very core of the American experiment. From it's very founding documents the US was legally constituted to place most of the power in the hands of state and local governments, and the people itself. It was fully expected that there would be a competition of ideas and values from state-to-state and from locale-to-locale. The idea was that people would self select and organize around things that suited them. So it's not shocking, but rather expected, that Texas may have one standard, and California or New York another. It's by design.

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 17, 2025

MattKing said:
No.
Its just that there are different laws, which have different purposes and intentions, that provide different processes to administer, and specify different remedies, to deal with different circumstances.

I think their priorities are backwards.

MattKing · Jan 17, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
I think their priorities are backwards.

Who says that those laws reflect their order of priorities?
Those jurisdictions are very aggressive in dealing with actual abuse of children, including the production and distribution of actual child phonography. They just don't waste time on stuff like Sally Mann's photography.

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 17, 2025

MattKing said:
Who says that those laws reflect their order of priorities?
Those jurisdictions are very aggressive in dealing with actual abuse of children, including the production and distribution of actual child phonography. They just don't waste time on stuff like Sally Mann's photography.

Maybe they're too busy wasting time fining or arresting photographer's who are taking pictures of people on public streets and therefore violating our rights of free expression. Americans find it abhorrent that it's illegal to do this in so many foreign countries. After all, isn't this whole thread about the limits of free expression? .

MattKing · Jan 18, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
Maybe they're too busy wasting time fining or arresting photographer's who are taking pictures of people on public streets and therefore violating our rights of free expression. Americans find it abhorrent that it's illegal to do this in so many foreign countries. After all, isn't this whole thread about the limits of free expression? .

The laws in Quebec are the ones I have a bit more familiarity with.
They give individuals extra rights to control their privacy, and give them recompense against individuals and corporations who try to take advantage of others without their consent.
They don't make things illegal, but instead they help people protect the value that people hold in their privacy and their own personal identity. And they provide remedies and use processes that are far more flexible and adaptable than the often archaic and restrictive structures of the criminal law.
Those laws are entirely separate from the laws here in Canada which:
1) constitutionally protect our own rights to free expression; and
2) those entirely separate laws that use the criminal law powers to punish and deter those who engage directly or indirectly in the production or distribution or (knowing) possession of child pornography.
Alan, your laws in the USA reflect the fact that they originated from laws that were much less evolved than the laws Canada adopted by reference almost a century after your country came into existence. And from those much earlier roots, they evolved in more than 51 different ways, but without doubt in ways that differ greatly than how the laws in the rest of the world evolved.
If you are planning to comment on how the laws in the rest of the world compare to yours, you should really do a lot more reading up on things!

Don_ih · Jan 18, 2025

retina_restoration said:
There is potential harm in taking a child to view a Disney movie. There is potential harm in feeding your children hot dogs containing nitrites. There is potential harm in choosing to expose children to society at large!

There is nearly infinite potential for children to come to harm out in the world (and in the hands of their own family), but if we start crafting a society in which no child can ever be damaged in any way, shape or form by their parent's choices, we'd all suffocate from our own rules.

You seem to not understand. There's a difference between bringing a child to a movie and dangling a child over a bridge. Perhaps you don't think there is. What she did by publishing the photos was widely introduce her children to an undetermined public in a very intimate way. It's a tiny bit different from allowing your child to participate in their school's Christmas concert.

retina_restoration said:
I guess I have to say it yet again: there have been legal inquiries to investigate Mann's photographs over the past 33+ years, and not yet has any court or legal entity found her guilty of producing pornography.

If you look back through this thread, you'll see I never claimed it was child pornography or obscene. Nor did I say it in the comment you posted.

retina_restoration said:
Well, her children were not raised to be inhibited prudes, so in that regard I doubt there ever was any potential for harm.

The potential harm comes from other people. The attitude of the children is not relevant.

You have an odd idea that the photos should be viewed as acceptable because the kids were and are ok with them. The people saying the photos are obscene don't care about that. They only care about what you can see in the photos- and they don't want anyone to see it. You can accuse them of being whatever you want - prudes, conservatives, religious - but none of that is useful. The only thing that would be useful is to convince those people that the photos themselves are not obscene. How do you go about convincing people that those photos are ok when those people have been convinced by their own personal experience in the world that those photos show something unacceptable?

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 18, 2025

MattKing said:
The laws in Quebec are the ones I have a bit more familiarity with.
They give individuals extra rights to control their privacy, and give them recompense against individuals and corporations who try to take advantage of others without their consent.
They don't make things illegal, but instead they help people protect the value that people hold in their privacy and their own personal identity. And they provide remedies and use processes that are far more flexible and adaptable than the often archaic and restrictive structures of the criminal law.
Those laws are entirely separate from the laws here in Canada which:
1) constitutionally protect our own rights to free expression; and
2) those entirely separate laws that use the criminal law powers to punish and deter those who engage directly or indirectly in the production or distribution or (knowing) possession of child pornography.
Alan, your laws in the USA reflect the fact that they originated from laws that were much less evolved than the laws Canada adopted by reference almost a century after your country came into existence. And from those much earlier roots, they evolved in more than 51 different ways, but without doubt in ways that differ greatly than how the laws in the rest of the world evolved.
If you are planning to comment on how the laws in the rest of the world compare to yours, you should really do a lot more reading up on things!

Shooting on a public street is the bread and butter of street photographers' free speech and free expression. We photographers should support that right more diligently and be at the forefront of objecting to laws that block our liberties. Isn't that more important than giving "free expression" to people who want to photograph nude children? When we argue for the latter to be protected, the public won't take us seriously when we then argue for the former.

NiallerM · Jan 18, 2025

Pieter12 said:
In many cases of “public outcry” the complainers have not even been to see the art in question. They are just offended by someone else’s description.

Please accept that I'm taking the Devil's Advocate position here for one moment.

It can be argued that those calling for the photos to be removed are offended not by the images themselves but by the fact of their existence. They're not simply trying to prevent others from seeing them; they are of the mind that society has no place at all for these images. Now, that could lead to a dark place of destroying such work, but the underlying argument s less one of depriving others to chance to see these works, but preventing, at root, the means of their being.

To further the argument, I think that e can agree, to take it to its extremity, that we would find, as a society, "snuff" photographs such an abhorrence as to be unacceptable. We would rail, not merely at their display, but at the fact that they existed at all.

Maybe the objections to this display should be considered as a question of where the line should be drawn, rather than as merely a kneejerk reaction to soething which is a trigger for many people.

Wellll, I recognise fully that many of the censorious types wouldn't rationalise things in that way, and that their "line" would be positioned a long way from where others would locate it, but that's the discussion which needs to take place.

NiallerM · Jan 18, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
Shooting on a public street is the bread and butter of street photographers' free speech and free expression. We photographers should support that right more diligently and be at the forefront of objecting to laws that block our liberties. Isn't that more important than giving "free expression" to people who want to photograph nude children? When we argue for the latter to be protected, the public won't take us seriously when we then argue for the former.

There is a competing right, which is the right to some degree of privacy.

NiallerM · Jan 18, 2025

Don_ih said:
You seem to not understand. There's a difference between bringing a child to a movie and dangling a child over a bridge. Perhaps you don't think there is. What she did by publishing the photos was widely introduce her children to an undetermined public in a very intimate way. It's a tiny bit different from allowing your child to participate in their school's Christmas concert.

If you look back through this thread, you'll see I never claimed it was child pornography or obscene. Nor did I say it in the comment you posted.

The potential harm comes from other people. The attitude of the children is not relevant.

You have an odd idea that the photos should be viewed as acceptable because the kids were and are ok with them. The people saying the photos are obscene don't care about that. They only care about what you can see in the photos- and they don't want anyone to see it. You can accuse them of being whatever you want - prudes, conservatives, religious - but none of that is useful. The only thing that would be useful is to convince those people that the photos themselves are not obscene. How do you go about convincing people that those photos are ok when those people have been convinced by their own personal experience in the world that those photos show something unacceptable?

I agree. The views of the children are irrelevant. What they find acceptable doesn't automatically become acceptable across the board - and shouldn't do. I've seen this argument used in cases of sexual crime (not in court, but in the general discussion surrounding it).

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 18, 2025

NiallerM said:
There is a competing right, which is the right to some degree of privacy.

The US Constitution does not protect privacy. It protects free speech and expression. If you want privacy, stay in your home. Once you;re in the public marketplace, you have to rub elbows with other people. It is not a right once you're in public.

I'm curious. What do street photographers here think of these street limitations in other countries and how do you compare them to rules against nude children? I think I'll start another thread.

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 18, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
The US Constitution does not protect privacy. It protects free speech and expression. If you want privacy, stay in your home. Once you;re in the public marketplace, you have to rub elbows with other people. It is not a right once you're in public.

I'm curious. What do street photographers here think of these street limitations in other countries and how do you compare them to rules against nude children? I think I'll start another thread.

OK I started the new thread:

Street Photography -Privacy vs. Free Speech Rights

Many countries restrict taking photographs of strangers even on public streets. Privacy is the argument for such laws. In the US, street photography is considered constitutionally protected speech and allowed except if the photos are used commercially. How do photographers here feel about the...

www.photrio.com

NiallerM · Jan 18, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
The US Constitution does not protect privacy. It protects free speech and expression. If you want privacy, stay in your home. Once you;re in the public marketplace, you have to rub elbows with other people. It is not a right once you're in public.

I'm curious. What do street photographers here think of these street limitations in other countries and how do you compare them to rules against nude children? I think I'll start another thread.

Hint: I'm not in the US. Another hint: my image belongs to me as personal data. It's a right I guard.

koraks · Jan 18, 2025

Moderator note: I've done some cleanup. Which is to say, we were requested to remove some quotes from a post that the original author has removed himself, but that also involved having to remove everything that followed it, because it was directly or indirectly a response to the comment the author deleted.

Annoying? Yes, I can imagine. To prevent this, please post only what you're comfortable with.

AnselMortensen · Jan 18, 2025

Maybe the museum should have an Anne Geddes exhibit next.

MattKing · Jan 18, 2025

Alan Edward Klein said:
Shooting on a public street is the bread and butter of street photographers' free speech and free expression. We photographers should support that right more diligently and be at the forefront of objecting to laws that block our liberties. Isn't that more important than giving "free expression" to people who want to photograph nude children? When we argue for the latter to be protected, the public won't take us seriously when we then argue for the former.

Yep, and we do, and subject to some limitations, street photography is alive and well in Canada, including Quebec.
In Quebec, however, if you intend to make commercial use of the results, you need to jump through some additional hoops. And you need to be prepared to deal with the subjects of your photography having additional abilities to step forward and take legal steps to constrain your use of the photos.
Street photography appears to also be more constrained in the EU - in the interests of protecting the interests of the subjects, not in constraining the rights of the photographer.
Don't move to Quebec or the EU if you disagree with how the balance between conflicting rights is struck.
Here in BC, I have a friend who is an excellent street photographer who runs regular workshops. They are quite popular, and he doesn't encounter legal or other problems. He does recommend some cautions though, particularly concerning inclusion of identifiable children. Most of the concern being around the issue of publicly identifying people who might have had to relocate due to having historically been the subject of abuse.
All of which is essentially off topic for this thread. I only reference all that because Sally Mann's work is about the involvement of her children in her photographic work - not some pictures of strangers in a public or private place.
The powers that be in Texas are apparently unhappy with what and how those children happily and willingly contributed to that work.
That happiness and willingness appears to both have been in place at the time the photographs were made and continues to be in place to this day, including their adult judgment informed willingness to have them displayed publicly.
And to make clear, that willingness is very important, because the inclusion of nudity does not, by itself, make them in any way pornographic or otherwise criminal.
To be criminal, there would have to other elements of abuse and/or coercion or duress. The kids past and continuing happiness and willingness are important indications of there being no such abuse and/or coercion or duress at the time the photos were made.

BrianShaw · Jan 18, 2025

I’m done. There’s really nothing more worth saying until the situation evolves into either a prosecution or dismissal. Im betting on a quiet dismissal…

Agulliver · Jan 18, 2025

Umm....street photography ls legal in the EU.

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 18, 2025

MattKing said:
Yep, and we do, and subject to some limitations, street photography is alive and well in Canada, including Quebec.
In Quebec, however, if you intend to make commercial use of the results, you need to jump through some additional hoops. And you need to be prepared to deal with the subjects of your photography having additional abilities to step forward and take legal steps to constrain your use of the photos.
Street photography appears to also be more constrained in the EU - in the interests of protecting the interests of the subjects, not in constraining the rights of the photographer.
Don't move to Quebec or the EU if you disagree with how the balance between conflicting rights is struck.
Here in BC, I have a friend who is an excellent street photographer who runs regular workshops. They are quite popular, and he doesn't encounter legal or other problems. He does recommend some cautions though, particularly concerning inclusion of identifiable children. Most of the concern being around the issue of publicly identifying people who might have had to relocate due to having historically been the subject of abuse.
All of which is essentially off topic for this thread. I only reference all that because Sally Mann's work is about the involvement of her children in her photographic work - not some pictures of strangers in a public or private place.
The powers that be in Texas are apparently unhappy with what and how those children happily and willingly contributed to that work.
That happiness and willingness appears to both have been in place at the time the photographs were made and continues to be in place to this day, including their adult judgment informed willingness to have them displayed publicly.
And to make clear, that willingness is very important, because the inclusion of nudity does not, by itself, make them in any way pornographic or otherwise criminal.
To be criminal, there would have to other elements of abuse and/or coercion or duress. The kids past and continuing happiness and willingness are important indications of there being no such abuse and/or coercion or duress at the time the photos were made.

The elements you included in your post bolded by me above do not protect the person violating the statute. I have indicated that in many posts and have copied various portions of the code below again that show that these things have no affect on the violation. See below. They may have an effect on the judges sentence. However, they aren't even considered if the pictures are porn. The pictures don't even have to be of real children so how could there be duress, coercion or abuse? AI-produced computer images that look like children can be a violation of the statute. Therefore, approval by anyone, no elements of abuse, coercion or duress have no bearing on whether they are child pornography or not. The question in this case to me is are the pictures "lewd exhibition of genitals or the breast"? I think it comes down to the interpretation of the word "lewd".

Texas Penal Code - PENAL § 43.25. Sexual Performance by a Child

Current as of January 01, 2024 | Updated by FindLaw Staff
(a) In this section:
(1) “Sexual performance” means any performance or part thereof that includes sexual conduct by a child younger than 18 years of age.
(2) “Sexual conduct” means sexual contact, actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse, or lewd exhibition of the genitals, the anus, or any portion of the female breast below the top of the areola.
(3) "Performance" means any play, motion picture, photograph, dance, or other visual representation that can be exhibited before an audience of one or more persons.

https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-43-25/

The term “sexual performance by a child” in Texas refers to any live or recorded performance or exhibition in which a child under the age of 18 engages in sexual conduct. According to Texas Penal Code Section 43.25, sexual conduct includes activities such as sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, masturbation, and lewd exhibition of genitals or the female breast. This would include asking a child for an explcity “selfie” to a video and can be charged alongside offenses like online solicitation of a minor. It’s important to point out that for Sexual Performance of a Child, a “child” is anyone under the age of 18, unlike many other criminal offenses where a child is defined as a person under the age of 17. Also note that this offense does not require any physical contact with the child. This law criminalizes the employment, authorization, or inducement of a child to engage in a sexual performance, aiming to protect minors from sexual exploitation.

Sexual Performance by a Child in Texas | Penal Code 43.25

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 18, 2025

I just found this clarification that appears to say that AI produced pictures must have been an alteration of an original person to look like a child or create an imaginary sexual act, that wholly created images of unreal children are not a violation. So part of my previous post is not correct. It;s an interesting constitutional issue.

AI Generated Child Pornography Law in Texas - Broden & Mickelsen, LLP

Facing AI-generated child pornography charges? Stay informed about Texas law and get legal counsel from Broden & Mickelsen, LLP to protect your rights & freedom.

www.brodenmickelsen.com

MattKing · Jan 18, 2025

Nudity isn't lewd. And behavior can be lewd without involving nudity.
Even in Texas.

BrianShaw · Jan 18, 2025

MattKing said:
Nudity isn't lewd. And behavior can be lewd without involving nudity.
Even in Texas.

Weren't we all born nude, even in Texas? How can the natural state be deemed lewd without some additional criteria?

(I was going to post and delete with a witty reason but don't want anyone to be upset.)

MattKing · Jan 18, 2025

BrianShaw said:
(I was going to post and delete with a witty reason but...)

Which in itself would be naked cheekiness.

cmacd123 · Jan 18, 2025

I can't help but Point out, that one of the "funny" things about Quebec is that the CIVIL law, (not criminal Law) is based on the Napoleon's Droit Civil, while civil law in the other provinces, the Teritories, and the USA is all descended from British Common Law civil law. (the version from 1776 in the US and the Version from 1967 in Canada, (except Quebec) Much of the CIVIL law in Europe is also based on Napoleanic Law.
one of my professors proably OVER simplified by Saying what is not in the DROIT CIVIL is forbidden, while under common law the Legislation and court Cases define what is forbidden.

which of course brings up the point that it is the courts that eventually interpret statue law, and may of the books Layers use, have more space taken with Footnotes than with the Text from the legislature. That is why Non-lawyers like Myself have to be self censoring when trying to explain some of these concepts. Here in Ontario giving what appers to be legal advice can get one in trouble from the Law Society of Upper Canada. their are several laws in Canada that are still on the books, but which the courts have said can't be enforced.

Sally Mann Photographs Removed from Texas Museum Exhibition after Outcry

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Street Photography -Privacy vs. Free Speech Rights​

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Texas Penal Code - PENAL § 43.25. Sexual Performance by a Child​

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Street Photography -Privacy vs. Free Speech Rights

Texas Penal Code - PENAL § 43.25. Sexual Performance by a Child