Jolie Rouge
07-29-2006, 10:54 AM
Abusing kids for "art"
By Michelle Malkin · July 28, 2006 11:56 AM
This is unbelievably sick. A left-wing photographer, Jill Greenberg, deliberately makes toddlers cry and turns the pictures into a Los Angeles art exhibit called "End Times"
http://www.paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/greenberg/exhibitions/endtimes/index.htm to indulge her Bush Derangement Syndrome.
She slaps titles like "Grand Old Party," http://artkrush.com/mailer/issue32/popups/r2.html
"Four More Years," http://www.paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/greenberg/exhibitions/endtimes/works.htm?index=10
and "Apocalypse Now" http://www.paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/greenberg/exhibitions/endtimes/works.htm?index=12
onto photos of the poor children she manipulated and goaded.
The Guardian covers the exhibit here with links to the children's photos and reports how Greenberg deliberately provoked the children to tears:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/gallery/0,,1830504,00.html
When photographer Jill Greenberg decided to take a lollipop away from a small child, she had a broader purpose in mind.
"The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset," the Los Angeles-based photographer said. "It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation."
As the 27 two- and three-year-olds featured in her exhibition, End Times, cried and screamed, demanding the return of the lollipop given to them just moments before, Greenberg snapped away.[/quote]
Someone at YouTube has posted the gallery as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWArOIdWJGA&eurl=
PopPhoto magazine has an interview with Greenberg, who used her own daughter in the exhibit as well, and speaks of the merits of children vs. monkeys as photo subjects: http://www.popphoto.com/inamericanphotomagazine/2552/cry-babies.html
When Jill Greenberg conceived the idea of photographing crying children back in 2004, she didn't anticipate the attention the project would bring to her fledgling art career, or the furor it would raise. Greenberg, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children, is already known as one of the country's most success commercial photographers, with work for ad clients like Microsoft, Kraft, and Procter & Gamble and magazines like New York and Time. She has emerged as a potent force in fine art with a series of acutely lit portraits of monkeys and apes, which in turn led to her work with children.
Your images have certainly caused an uproar. What do you say to people who call you a child abuser?
I think they're insane...Maybe getting kids to cry isn't the nicest thing to do, but I'm not causing anyone permanent psychological damage.
How many kids did you shoot altogether?
Around 35. Some were the children of friends, plus my own daughter; others came from the Ford or Jet Set model agencies. Kid models aren't very expensive—not as expensive as monkeys, for example.
How did you get the kids to cry?
Mostly we did it by giving them something, a lollypop, and then taking it away. Some would just cry for no reason—my daughter did that; she didn't like standing on the apple box I used for a platform because it was a little wobbly. Some just wouldn't cry at all. For all the kids I worked really fast. We would book 12 or so for one day, and see who we could make cry. At the end of the day I was not in a good mood. I don't like making little kids cry.
The lighting is very dramatic. How did you accomplish that?
It's the same lighting I used for my portraits of monkeys, and I've been using it for some recent magazine cover portraits...
Greenberg talks about the larger purpose of her "work:"
I saw this little girl who'd come to a party with her mom, and she was beautiful, so I thought it might be interesting to photograph her. When they came to my studio, the mother brought along her toddler son, and I decided to shoot him too. We took off his shirt because it was dirty. He started crying on his own, and I shot that, and when I got the contact sheets back I thought, "This could go with a caption, 'Four More Years,'" like he was appalled at George Bush's reelection...
...That was one of the things that interested me about the project—the strength and beauty of the images as images. I also thought they made a kind of political statement about the current state of anxiety a lot of people are in about the future of the country. Sometimes I just feel like crying about the way things are going.
Other photographers are appalled at Greenberg's methods. See Thomas Hawk http://thomashawk.com/2006/04/jill-greenberg-is-sick-woman-who.html
So what is Jill Greenberg doing? She is taking babies, toddlers under three years old, stripping them of their clothes and then provoking them to various states of emotional distress, anger, rage etc. -- so that she can then take photos of them this way to "illustrate her personal beliefs." If you'd like to see how worked up she can get these kids you can click through here. Be warned that it is graphic. Although the children are not sexualized, I consider what she is doing child pornography of the worst kind.
and Jeremiah McNichols. http://thinkingpictures.blogspot.com/2006/07/case-against-jill-greenbergs-end-times.html
Greenberg's simple "lollipop" story has begun to unravel; in an interview with American Photo magazine for example, she describes how frustrating it was to have parents "step out of the studio for a couple minutes" in vain attempts to make children cry who would not otherwise oblige. (Click here for a podcast.) In short, the rage, fear, and sadness of the photographed children is palpable and raw, and the resulting images are powerful, heartbreaking, and, to many viewers, morally indefensible.
Read and listen carefully. http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotopodcasts/2176/podcast-interview-with-jill-greenberg.html
Turns out her methods involved more than a quick provocation. The kids were stripped and she described how frustrating it was to have parents "step out of the studio for a couple minutes" in concerted attempts to make children cry who were not cooperating.
BoingBoing http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/28/photographer_calls_c.html reported on Greenberg's attempts to harass and intimidate Hawk. More details from Hawk here. http://thomashawk.com/2006/06/post-about-where-jill-greenberg-thinks.html
Jill Greenberg. Artist. Advocate of free speech and expression. Except when someone disagrees with her and is critical of her work and methods.
You will recall that recently I have been upset by the methods of photographer Jill Greenberg in dealing with and photographing children. Jill is the one who strips kids down and then works them up into a state of emotional distress and then shoots them distraught and in anguish, tears running down their little face, and calls it some kind of protest art against the Bush administration.
McNichols, who shares Greenberg's political views, condemns her corruption of art:
Perhaps the greatest irony of the work is Greenberg's overlaying of a political message, one preaching compassion and intelligence at that, to a process that involved the willful manipulation of toddlers to break down their toddler-sized psyches and leave them in a pool of their own tears...
...I believe that the moral dimension of "End Times" cannot be ignored, and that an artist need not profit from societal objections to their work if those objections are sound and widely shared. I further believe that Jill Greenberg's work should not be viewed through the art-historical lens of edgy, contemporary art, but is instead a cultural hiccup that should be shelved with divisive cultural artifacts like black minstrelry, art involving the physical abuse of animals, and other works that reflect a sensibility so alien that it is better approached not as art, but as the fractured product of a diseased mind or a necrotic culture.
Here's Greenberg appearing on cable TV last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I26UhE1njFc&search=jill%20greenberg
By Michelle Malkin · July 28, 2006 11:56 AM
This is unbelievably sick. A left-wing photographer, Jill Greenberg, deliberately makes toddlers cry and turns the pictures into a Los Angeles art exhibit called "End Times"
http://www.paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/greenberg/exhibitions/endtimes/index.htm to indulge her Bush Derangement Syndrome.
She slaps titles like "Grand Old Party," http://artkrush.com/mailer/issue32/popups/r2.html
"Four More Years," http://www.paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/greenberg/exhibitions/endtimes/works.htm?index=10
and "Apocalypse Now" http://www.paulkopeikingallery.com/artists/greenberg/exhibitions/endtimes/works.htm?index=12
onto photos of the poor children she manipulated and goaded.
The Guardian covers the exhibit here with links to the children's photos and reports how Greenberg deliberately provoked the children to tears:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/gallery/0,,1830504,00.html
When photographer Jill Greenberg decided to take a lollipop away from a small child, she had a broader purpose in mind.
"The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset," the Los Angeles-based photographer said. "It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation."
As the 27 two- and three-year-olds featured in her exhibition, End Times, cried and screamed, demanding the return of the lollipop given to them just moments before, Greenberg snapped away.[/quote]
Someone at YouTube has posted the gallery as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWArOIdWJGA&eurl=
PopPhoto magazine has an interview with Greenberg, who used her own daughter in the exhibit as well, and speaks of the merits of children vs. monkeys as photo subjects: http://www.popphoto.com/inamericanphotomagazine/2552/cry-babies.html
When Jill Greenberg conceived the idea of photographing crying children back in 2004, she didn't anticipate the attention the project would bring to her fledgling art career, or the furor it would raise. Greenberg, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children, is already known as one of the country's most success commercial photographers, with work for ad clients like Microsoft, Kraft, and Procter & Gamble and magazines like New York and Time. She has emerged as a potent force in fine art with a series of acutely lit portraits of monkeys and apes, which in turn led to her work with children.
Your images have certainly caused an uproar. What do you say to people who call you a child abuser?
I think they're insane...Maybe getting kids to cry isn't the nicest thing to do, but I'm not causing anyone permanent psychological damage.
How many kids did you shoot altogether?
Around 35. Some were the children of friends, plus my own daughter; others came from the Ford or Jet Set model agencies. Kid models aren't very expensive—not as expensive as monkeys, for example.
How did you get the kids to cry?
Mostly we did it by giving them something, a lollypop, and then taking it away. Some would just cry for no reason—my daughter did that; she didn't like standing on the apple box I used for a platform because it was a little wobbly. Some just wouldn't cry at all. For all the kids I worked really fast. We would book 12 or so for one day, and see who we could make cry. At the end of the day I was not in a good mood. I don't like making little kids cry.
The lighting is very dramatic. How did you accomplish that?
It's the same lighting I used for my portraits of monkeys, and I've been using it for some recent magazine cover portraits...
Greenberg talks about the larger purpose of her "work:"
I saw this little girl who'd come to a party with her mom, and she was beautiful, so I thought it might be interesting to photograph her. When they came to my studio, the mother brought along her toddler son, and I decided to shoot him too. We took off his shirt because it was dirty. He started crying on his own, and I shot that, and when I got the contact sheets back I thought, "This could go with a caption, 'Four More Years,'" like he was appalled at George Bush's reelection...
...That was one of the things that interested me about the project—the strength and beauty of the images as images. I also thought they made a kind of political statement about the current state of anxiety a lot of people are in about the future of the country. Sometimes I just feel like crying about the way things are going.
Other photographers are appalled at Greenberg's methods. See Thomas Hawk http://thomashawk.com/2006/04/jill-greenberg-is-sick-woman-who.html
So what is Jill Greenberg doing? She is taking babies, toddlers under three years old, stripping them of their clothes and then provoking them to various states of emotional distress, anger, rage etc. -- so that she can then take photos of them this way to "illustrate her personal beliefs." If you'd like to see how worked up she can get these kids you can click through here. Be warned that it is graphic. Although the children are not sexualized, I consider what she is doing child pornography of the worst kind.
and Jeremiah McNichols. http://thinkingpictures.blogspot.com/2006/07/case-against-jill-greenbergs-end-times.html
Greenberg's simple "lollipop" story has begun to unravel; in an interview with American Photo magazine for example, she describes how frustrating it was to have parents "step out of the studio for a couple minutes" in vain attempts to make children cry who would not otherwise oblige. (Click here for a podcast.) In short, the rage, fear, and sadness of the photographed children is palpable and raw, and the resulting images are powerful, heartbreaking, and, to many viewers, morally indefensible.
Read and listen carefully. http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotopodcasts/2176/podcast-interview-with-jill-greenberg.html
Turns out her methods involved more than a quick provocation. The kids were stripped and she described how frustrating it was to have parents "step out of the studio for a couple minutes" in concerted attempts to make children cry who were not cooperating.
BoingBoing http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/28/photographer_calls_c.html reported on Greenberg's attempts to harass and intimidate Hawk. More details from Hawk here. http://thomashawk.com/2006/06/post-about-where-jill-greenberg-thinks.html
Jill Greenberg. Artist. Advocate of free speech and expression. Except when someone disagrees with her and is critical of her work and methods.
You will recall that recently I have been upset by the methods of photographer Jill Greenberg in dealing with and photographing children. Jill is the one who strips kids down and then works them up into a state of emotional distress and then shoots them distraught and in anguish, tears running down their little face, and calls it some kind of protest art against the Bush administration.
McNichols, who shares Greenberg's political views, condemns her corruption of art:
Perhaps the greatest irony of the work is Greenberg's overlaying of a political message, one preaching compassion and intelligence at that, to a process that involved the willful manipulation of toddlers to break down their toddler-sized psyches and leave them in a pool of their own tears...
...I believe that the moral dimension of "End Times" cannot be ignored, and that an artist need not profit from societal objections to their work if those objections are sound and widely shared. I further believe that Jill Greenberg's work should not be viewed through the art-historical lens of edgy, contemporary art, but is instead a cultural hiccup that should be shelved with divisive cultural artifacts like black minstrelry, art involving the physical abuse of animals, and other works that reflect a sensibility so alien that it is better approached not as art, but as the fractured product of a diseased mind or a necrotic culture.
Here's Greenberg appearing on cable TV last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I26UhE1njFc&search=jill%20greenberg