graham ovenden sentencing and lord mcalpine

The pictures will still be displayed.They have not been declared illegal.

I think the Tate took them down before, and put them back up later.

Jingle charming family photos by Tierney Gearon, who has slipped up by displaying a couple of them as they are open to interpretation. The Abusive Images Unit have questioned her motive in dsplaying them and are satisfied there is no deviant motive. She is charting her family's story and Saatchi invited her to dsplay them. Personally, I would not share such photos outsde the family.

I agree that the daft rule about photographing chidren in the school nativity, or playing in the park, has been used to extremes.

I'd never heard of Tierney Gearon until jo posted about her. I've been to look and I'm not sure what her oeuvre adds to this debate. Other than confirming the impression that some artists just like to play at being transgressive. There was a nice picture of a cat, though.

The masks on the children make them somehow, questionable. But, as Geraldine insinuates, they were shown by the mother. So that apparently is ok.

Yes, I didn't like the masks, either.

He has been spared prison because he`s "no longer a threat". Whether that is the case or not, he should still be punished for what he did.

Has this thread really put a bad downer on anyone else's day?

Why did I walk into this one.

numberplease I agree!

I've been at a funeral all day and only just read through the thread.

If we are talking about what is acceptable and what is abusive in art, does anyone else hate that well known explicit painting of a woman's genitals, called something like 'Gateway to the World'. It's by a well-known artist whose name I cannot recall just now. Probably the same one that did a painting of a woman having an orgasm.

There was quite a to do about Tierney Gearon a few years ago. I didn't like the photos and couldn't understand what she thought she was doing.

when I know you have had a lot of experience with victims of child abuse professionally.

However, the rest of us are not likely to be completely ignorant on the topic. There are many books around which describe what it was like to be a victim of horrific abuse, some of us have friends who were abused and, statistically speaking, some of us quite likely to have been abused ourselves.

Just saying!

Comletely agree with you Petallus. I'm no expert on child abuse and would never pretend to be. I feel outraged, though, when abusive images are bandied about with no consideration for the real people who die inside every time they remember that their pictures are out there, and they can't stop it.

Is the picture you're referring to called something like L'Origine Du Monde? That's a provocative painting like you have descibed. It's in a French museum. I'm sure I've seen it.

Don't you think you've said it all now when. Time to stop perhAps?

Oy! I'm having a conversation!

Yes, that's it when by Courbet. I know it as The Origin of the World and if it is in France I've likely only seen a print although I have visited The Louvre a couple of times.

I cringe when I look at that painting.

But back to seductive images of children, an early copy of Lolita which I have in my possession (1960s) has a very provocative drawing of a child of about 12 on the front. She is smilin lasciviously and shower her knickers.

God! I hate bloody Gransnet.

but you'll still be here tomorrow, Jingle

Is it a love/hate relationship then?

I love Jingle and today she hates me. Wait till Merlin's on TV and I tip her off, though. I'm in her good books then!

I can understand your frustration though*j08*.

I was interested in the point you tried to make about how paintings/photos which were seen as okay one minute were not the next. Also agree it was ridiculous of GNHQ to delete thread today when a week okay they would not have done so.

Unfortunately, on some GN threads, wider debate is not possible; it is drowned beneath a tidal wave of the expression of sickening disgust and the hope that the perpetrator will be severely punished.

I agree, petallus. It's sometimes easier (and safer) to keep one's thoughts to oneself...

Plenty of debate and differing views on here Petallus. What were you hoping to see?

Blood?

No Galen I would like just the opposite.

I think it would be interesting to have a (bloodless) debate about, for instance, what is and what is not judged to be acceptable in art and whether or not knowledge of the feelings of the artist towards his models should affect the way we perceive his work.

If it should, then there would be probably be implications for a number of paintings from old masters whose models were under the age of sixteen.

What was the age of consent in those days?
Girls were property and expected to be married.
Most of those pictures are allegorical.
O tempora o mores.

Graham Ovendon is alive today, so too are his victims. He may well be an artist but he is a perverted sex offender and, by the laws and morals of the society he lives in, should so be judged. His art reflects his perversion.