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Originally Posted by Bunbury
Shock has been apart of nearly all of Nan Goldin's "non-commercial" work. Personally I cant quite decide wether her intention is to be shocking, or if her work is shocking simply by default due to its primarily marginal/minority figure subject matter.
I have The Devils Playground, and when I first saw the photograph in question, I personally did find it to be shocking. It is apart of her "from here to maternity" series and basically depicts 2 girls playing/belly dancing, with one young girl lying on the floor naked with her legs spread.
Yes, its only 2 girls playing and resembles embarassing nude snapshots taken by parents of their own kids in photo albums everywhere but it does have a sickening feeling about it.
That said, I think any artist that combines children and sexuality is just looking for quick attention via controversey no matter what they say their intention was (Sally Mann etc).
I would take a photo of the picture but my book is at home, and I wont be until October.
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Welcome back, Cindy. Yes, the photographs in question are a severe case of attention-seeking masked through lighting that gives them an aura of artistic pretension, when in fact the crudity of what's been portrayed could have been shown with the more effective techniques used in photo journalism, where the action is captured for what it is and not for what you want it to be.