EXCERPT FROM: Pictures of Innocence:
The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood
by Anne Higonnet,
Thames and Hudson, 1998
Accusations
of child pornography only partially or tangentially involving photography,
and that do not involve the display of genitals, can still be reasonably
negotiated. In May of 1994, residents of Brookline, Massachusetts were
startled to find two additional traffic signals at one of their busy street
corners. Instead of the usual walk / don't walk signs, the signals flashed
two quasi-photographic images of a naked mother and child. In both images
the mother was restraining the child holding its arm or wrapping her arms
around it. I say "it" because both figures were posed so that
no genitals were visible. At first some viewers could not tell whether
even the adult was male or female. The signals were a public project by
local artist Denise Marika, funded with $1,500
in state arts lottery money allotted by the Brookline Council on the Arts
and Humanities. Brookline viewers described the work variously as "out
of place," "isn't the least bit suggestive or erotic,"
"offensive," "close, but I don't think it crosses the line,"
"not something I get a good feeling about," "disgusting."
One member of the arts grant committee joked: "The results are mixed.
Half the people are holding onto their kids. But so far, nobody's taken
off their clothes." Newspapers and television heralded the controversy.
The town's transportation director had never gotten so many calls. Some
residents demanded the work's removal. A town meeting was called to discuss
the installation. Marika explained her intentions and goals. She managed
to soften even her fiercest opponent, the president of a local Parent
Teacher Organization. The
twelve-inch square images, transferred onto acetate, had originally been
photographs Marika took of herself and her son. She wanted her figures
undressed to convey the universal meaning of her message about maternal
protection from danger, a message she felt belonged in the public domain.
Marika, when preparing an installation like Crossing, takes roll
after roll of film in order to obtain an impersonal image of rote repetition,
the opposite of personal documentation. The fact that the image was once
a photograph of herself and her child is "irrelevant," in her
opinion, to the final work.
Accusations
of child pornography only partially or tangentially involving photography,
and that do not involve the display of genitals, can still be reasonably
negotiated. In May of 1994, residents of Brookline, Massachusetts were
startled to find two additional traffic signals at one of their busy street
corners. Instead of the usual walk / don't walk signs, the signals flashed
two quasi-photographic images of a naked mother and child. In both images
the mother was restraining the child holding its arm or wrapping her arms
around it. I say "it" because both figures were posed so that
no genitals were visible. At first some viewers could not tell whether
even the adult was male or female. The signals were a public project by
local artist Denise Marika, funded with $1,500
in state arts lottery money allotted by the Brookline Council on the Arts
and Humanities. Brookline viewers described the work variously as "out
of place," "isn't the least bit suggestive or erotic,"
"offensive," "close, but I don't think it crosses the line,"
"not something I get a good feeling about," "disgusting."
One member of the arts grant committee joked: "The results are mixed.
Half the people are holding onto their kids. But so far, nobody's taken
off their clothes." Newspapers and television heralded the controversy.
The town's transportation director had never gotten so many calls. Some
residents demanded the work's removal. A town meeting was called to discuss
the installation. Marika explained her intentions and goals. She managed
to soften even her fiercest opponent, the president of a local Parent
Teacher Organization.