Photo Michael Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Photographs by Sally Mann on view in a group exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas have been decried by locals and elected officials as containing what they have deemed as inappropriate depictions of children.
Sally Mann has spurred controversy for years over her photographs of her rural Lexington, Virginia, home, which include nude depictions of her underage children. In 1992, the New York Times Magazine cover article, “The Disturbing Photography of Sally Mann,” for instance, detailed a federal prosecutor having informed Mann that “no fewer than eight pictures she had chosen for the traveling exhibition [“Immediate Family”] could subject her to arrest.”
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The Fort Worth exhibition, titled “Diaries of Home,” and co-organized by chief curator Andrea Karnes and assistant curator Clare Milliken, features the work of 13 women and nonbinary artists who, according to the museum’s website, “explore the multilayered concepts of family, community, and home.” The website includes a warning that the show features “mature themes that may be sensitive for some viewers.” Mann’s family photographs were dubbed both “intimate and compelling” by the museum; however, not everyone agrees.
“There are images on display at this museum that are grossly inappropriate at best,” Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare told the Dallas Express. “They should be taken down immediately and investigated by law enforcement for any and all potential criminal violations. Children must be protected, and decency must prevail.”
Other government officials also took the opportunity to chime in. “This is emblematic of what happens when the culture of a city is focused on growth and business only,” said Tarrant County Republican Party Chairman Bo French to the Express. “If you’re not also focused on upholding moral standards, this kind of degeneracy creeps in. Our wonderful museums should be promoting excellence instead of radical perversion.”
House District 91 State Representative-elect David Lowe added: “It is crucial that our legal framework leaves no room for predators to misuse the realm of art to display child nudity. Should any loopholes exist, we are prepared to address and eliminate them in the upcoming legislative session in Texas.”
Mann’s photographs do not depict sexual activities, but given the nudity included, some critics have characterized the images as “child porn”, even drawing comparisons to “pedophilia” and “child rape.”
A formal complaint was reportedly filed with the Fort Worth Police Department, which sparked an active investigation.
For her part, Mann wrote an article for Times Magazine in 2015 wherein she defended her oeuvre: “All too often, nudity, even that of children, is mistaken for sexuality, and images are mistaken for actions.”
She continued, “The image of the child is especially subject to that kind of perceptual dislocation; children are not just the innocents that we expect them to be… But in a culture so deeply invested in a cult of childhood innocence, we are understandably reluctant to acknowledge these discordant aspects or, as I found out, even fictionalized depictions of them.”
Mann has been featured in a number of solo museum and gallery exhibitions both in the United States and abroad since 1973, including “Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings,” (2018–20) at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., which traveled across the U.S. and subsequently to Paris. Her work was included in the 1991 Whitney Biennial and, in 2001, Time magazine named Mann “America’s best photographer.” She has also been the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships.
“Diaries of Home,” on view through February 2, also includes the work of Patty Chang, Jess T. Dugan, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Nan Goldin, Debbie Grossman, Letitia Huckaby, Deana Lawson, Laura Letinsky, Arlene Mejorado, Catherine Opie, Laurie Simmons, and Carrie Mae Weems.
