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Museum Yanks Nude Photo of Tween Brooke

Pic may violate child porn laws in Britain

By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff

Posted Oct 1, 2009 3:03 AM CDT
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(Newser) – The Tate Modern has yanked a nude photo of a young Brooke Shields from an exhibit following a visit by police investigating whether the picture violates child pornography laws in Britain. The controversial photo by New York artist Richard Prince shows a heavily made-up 10-year-old Shields standing naked in a bathtub. Angry critics charged the photo encouraged pedophilia. The photograph is similar to a scene from the movie Pretty Baby in which Shields plays the young daughter of a prostitute whose virginity is auctioned off at the age of 12.

"The exhibit is temporarily closed. We are in discussions with police," a museum spokesman tells the Telegraph. The Tate was displaying the photo, entitled Spiritual America, in a separate room behind a closed door with a warning that the work was "challenging." Prince's work is a photo of a photo commissioned by Shields' mom in 1975 to promote her daughter's career. The actress waged an unsuccessful court battle to gain control of the negatives after her mother signed away the rights.

Brooke Shields speaks at the memorial service for music legend Michael Jackson in Los Angeles earlier this year.
Brooke Shields speaks at the memorial service for music legend Michael Jackson in Los Angeles earlier this year.   (AP Photo/Gabriel Bouys, pool)
Brooke Shields is shown in 1978 shortly after she appeared in the film Pretty Baby at the age of 12.
Brooke Shields is shown in 1978 shortly after she appeared in the film "Pretty Baby" at the age of 12.   (Getty Images)
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If you are using a picture of a naked child to bring people to your exhibition, then you are exploiting that child. It's as if they are using a 10-year-old girl for bait. - Kidscape founder Michele Elliott

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 39 comments
Robert_Dada
Oct 2, 2009 12:16 PM CDT
Can a 10 year old make an informed, intelligent decision about his/her naked body and how he/she wants it to be portrayed to the masses?
tran_tor
Oct 2, 2009 3:39 AM CDT
aelius: While I agree your some of the points you make do have merit, and personally, I think some of the sexual predator laws are grossly unjust, I think we just have to disagree on our opinions of nude photos of children. It is nearly impossible for me not to draw the correlation between them and subsequent actions. Since they are not definitively (I use that word precisely) connected, you choose not to make that association. Fair enough.
Snarfeh
Oct 2, 2009 3:18 AM CDT
@aelius28 - Then heterosexuality is a sexual preference based on that reasoning. Therefore, no one is born with the sexual inclinations they have; they develop them somehow through nurture or lack thereof, environment, culture, etc. I disagree with that. If you put a beautiful naked lady in the lap of a gay man and he does not get an erection, that is not a preference on his part; that is simply the fact that he is not attracted to women at all. However, many pedophiles function sexually outside of their predilection. That is why you have men, and women, who are married, have children and have sex with their spouses but who are still pedophiles because they desire sex with children. Pictures like that of Brooke as a child are taken expressly to titillate.

 
nudity • pedophile • obscenity • child pornography • Tate Modern • pedophilia • Brooke Shields • Pretty Baby

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