As fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski awaits extradition to an increasingly unsympathetic U.S., yet another front has opened in the raging Culture War that has subsumed continents and turned megaproducing brother against megaproducing brother. This one blitzed London with a bombshell image of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields hanging from gallery walls -- covered in baby oil, standing nude in a bathtub, with a face full of makeup.
The portrait in question is a work by Richard Prince, a multimedia appropriation artist who is the subject of a retrospective at the Tate Gallery called Pop Life: Art In A Material World. Titled Spiritual America, it's actually a photograph of a photograph taken by another photographer -- Garry Gross, who was commissioned in 1975 by Shields' mother, blinded by ugly stagemom ambition. Shields attempted to purchase back the negatives in 1981, unsuccessfully, and the ensuing news coverage was what drew Prince to the photo and inspired him to create the work.
The Tate consulted lawyers before including what they call a work of "challenging imagery," and set it aside in a separate room behind closed doors, with a posted warning to unsuspecting visitors. Angry protests from child welfare groups followed, which led to a police investigation. Today, the museum announced the doors to that room would stay locked. A police statement read, "The officers have specialist experience in this field and are keen to work with gallery management to ensure that they do not inadvertently break the law or cause any offence to their visitors."
Art or child pornography? You decide: The portrait is here.
ยท Tate museum pulls young Brooke Shields nude image [Reuters]