Jill Greenberg is a Sick Woman Who Should Be Arrested and Charged With Child Abuse
Update: Got a thank you note in the form of part of a comment from Paul Kopeikin the gallery owner where Jill’s work is being shown right now.
Update #2. I think Jeremiah McNichols has written the most well articulated piece on the Greenberg controversy that I’ve seen published yet.
There is a thread over at the Flickr group Utata today about artist Jill Greenberg’s latest show at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery called End Times. And it’s sickening.
The ethics of photography are by no means simple — shooting strangers, permissions, capturing pain and suffering, many different subjects require that photographers think through their ethics before coming up with the best way to make and display their work. There are a lot of gray areas and a lot of different opinions on many different areas of what should be captured and what should not be captured. I generally fall into the camp of just about anything ought to be ethical for capture assuming it’s natural and the photographer is working as a witness, bystander, artist, photojournalist, citizen journalist, etc.
But what Jill Greenberg is doing makes me want to throw up. And it shouldn’t be allowed. I’m torn about even posting this post because she is obviously using her art as an excuse to do something horrible and is looking for publicity and response and that’s exactly what I’m giving her here. But I’m hoping that through others being made aware of what she is doing that somehow pressure might be borne to stop it from happening.
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.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not opposed to a photographer capturing all emotions of humans. I think that capturing the tears of a child that naturally take place all the time (believe me, as a father of four I know) is one thing. But for her to say that she “manipulates her subjects to evoke an emotion,” and then citing things like giving them a lollipop and then taking it away from them just to see them cry and get angry and then shoot them, this is just wrong.
Irrespective of her statement as an artist this is evil. And it is evil to collect these images of children who through the bad judgment of their parents ultimately have no say.
When the Michael Jackson trial was going on people kept saying, what kind of parents would let their child spend the night alone in a room with Michael Jackson. It seemed absurd. And it seems absurd that any parent who loved their child would purposely take their children to Greenberg’s studio to then be tormented to the point of emotional outrage.
We should all be outraged by this horrible woman who has sought to somehow justify her actions under some kind of artistic immunity. This is not art, this is child abuse. It is the purposeful action of creating anger in a beautiful child for the sadistic purpose of making a name for herself as a pop artist.
I’m not sure what can be done about Greenberg. I’m not sure if the law would in fact define child abuse as purposefully inflicting emotional pain on a child but something should be done and this is not something that we as an enlightened society should tolerate.
I’m willing to generally give artists a great deal of latitude. But this is sick. As a parent I’m outraged and as a human being this is wrong. This little boy breaks my heart. I’m not sure how to stop this but it needs to be stopped.
Update: Jill Greenberg’s husband, Robert Greenberg responds: i’m married to the artist in question. with that said, some facts: jill did not “abuse” the children, nor abuse them. they were given lollipops, and then those were removed from the kids. jill didn’t speak to them–the parents were there monitoring the whole time. this is the EXACT technique used in ads and movies and TV. i’m a producer in two of those mediums and have been through this before, so i know whereof i speak.
some of these kids are our daughter’s friends, some of them are in fact…duh duh duh…our own daughter. they still come over for playdates. they don’t seem any worse for wear.
the pictures have spoken to you, evoked pain and anguish–that, i must say, was jill’s intention. i’m not in agreement with your argument as much as its foundation is on the facts–you obviously didn’t know them.
that said, an opinion is an opinion. i just think, in this age of snap judgements and instant analysis, that we should all do our part to do as much research as possible before making very harsh accusations. jill ‘s methods are described by her on her gallerists website–you even link to it!
anyway, my two cents, but i’m (very) biased.
“While armchair philosophers are getting themselves in a lather about lofty ideals (the ethics of photography? give me a break…), those of us with at least one foot firmly grounded in reality are laughing all the way to the bank.”
You would seem by your words to be one of the people who is benefitting financially from the sale of these works, or works similar in scope. It would also seem clear that by your own words that “lofty ideals” such as ethics are completely irrelevant when compared to the aforementioned financial gains. I understand completely now why you chose to reveal this anonymously instead of bragging about it in the form of a thank you note (like last time). It still kind of gives you away, though.
Ask any real artist if they are doing it for the money – laughing all the way to the bank, as you put it.
Or, if the monetary aspect is the end that justifies the means, why not then grow some balls and do something truly edgy.
Taking candy from a baby? They say it’s easy, but then cliche is about the most profound thing about “your” kind of “art”.
Nice use of the word “praxis”, though. I’ve bet you’ve been dying to use it since reading it in Readers Digest.
But, you can’t make a pedant from a pissant.
I have a series of digital art pieces called Childhood Interrupted. My images are far more disturbing and create a message that cannot be ignored. HOWEVER, all of the horrified expressions and such in my works have been digitally painted or manipulated in. No children were harmed in making my images.
My point? If this woman is so talented why does she have to actually upset the children to get the expression she desires? It’s cruel.
This is the first blog from Thomas Hawk I have read and it will be my last.
I have seen the exhibit at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery and having read Mr. Hawk’s blog I must ask why does anyone care what Mr. Hawk thinks. The question I want to know is what are his credentials that gives him the right to critic Jill Greenberg’s as a sick woman? By what standards or guidelines does he use to determine if a person is “sick”? Who is he using as a comparison? Accusing Jill Greenberg of being a sick woman is like me saying Mr. Hawk is a sick man.
I’m upset because Thomas Hawk missed the point of Jill Greenberg’s exhibit. It’s even more unfortunate that he has a platform to reach many people. The point of Jill’s picture’s is to spark some type of emotional response. Our society has become so numb we don’t even realize it. How many times have you heard a car alarm go off but didn’t bother to look or when some one is leaving a store and the alarm goes off no one question’s it.
The only good thing about Thomas Hawk’s blog is the amount of publicity its giving Jill and the art world in general.
Here is my point and you might as well keep reading if you’ve read this far. I’m just amazed that there has been so much discussion and debate over pictures which are manipulated. Mr. Hawk should look up the definition of the word manipulated.
Jill admits to giving the children a lollipop and then taking it away but no one except Jill and that child’s mother really knows what happened. What if she took the lollipop away from the child and the child didn’t do anything. I’ll tell you what she did, she took the picture anyway but you can’t tell because her pictures are manipulated but we should still call her a child abuser right?
Has anyone seen the Maury Povich show where they show these very obese children and when Maury asks the parents why their children are so obese the mother’s defend their actions by claiming they cant stand to see there babies cry. Hmmm, now that seems more like child abuse to me.
My opinion of you Mr. Hawk would not be this hostile had you gone after Maury in the same ferver and manner in which you have attacked Jill. I mean how dare Maury Povich suggest the mother’s not feed there children soo much food. I mean that’s down right mean not letting your child eat a whole chicken, but your ok with this because not feeding them will make them cry and people that make children cry are “sick”.
I want to live in your reality Mr. Hawk because in my reality we know that in life you can’t always get what you want and we also know that sometimes life is just not fair. Maybe Jill was trying to teach these children a lesson.
I do want to thank you for making me feel like I’m back home in the bible belt of Texas….. Ahh the memories. I promise not to leave anymore comments if you promise not to right any more blogs.
“”While armchair philosophers are getting themselves in a lather about lofty ideals (the ethics of photography? give me a break…), those of us with at least one foot firmly grounded in reality are laughing all the way to the bank.”
You would seem by your words to be one of the people who is benefitting financially from the sale of these works, or works similar in scope. It would also seem clear that by your own words that “lofty ideals” such as ethics are completely irrelevant when compared to the aforementioned financial gains. I understand completely now why you chose to reveal this anonymously instead of bragging about it in the form of a thank you note (like last time). It still kind of gives you away, though.
Ask any real artist if they are doing it for the money – laughing all the way to the bank, as you put it.
Or, if the monetary aspect is the end that justifies the means, why not then grow some balls and do something truly edgy.
Taking candy from a baby? They say it’s easy, but then cliche is about the most profound thing about “your” kind of “art”.
Nice use of the word “praxis”, though. I’ve bet you’ve been dying to use it since reading it in Readers Digest.
But, you can’t make a pedant from a pissant.”
You criticized this person for writing a blog anonymously and then you do the same….
Oh my god! This is so hilarious and classic. It really shows the kind of people that agree with Thomas Hawk.
By the way I’m leaving this anonymously because Thomas Hawk doesn’t use his real name why should I… and I don’t have the time to read whatever pathetic emotion I’ve sparked.
You know, I do agree that the tactics this photographer uses are not too nice. Perhaps a warning to potential parents who might think about bringing their children to this photographer. And a serious discussion on the ethics of the issue.
But CHILD ABUSE? That is a SERIOUS charge in this country, buddy. That is so offensive it makes me very very angry. What is wrong with you? In my opinion YOU are a sick person. People like you would sue McDonalds if your coffee was too hot. In this country, simply saying “No” to a child can induce a tantrum. So by this logic, are you “abusing” a child when you tell him or her no?
Most of the replies I’ve read seem to completely miss the point, and it’s a point that the author made very clear. Yes, children cry. Yes, children cry for no reason. Anyone with children knows this, and the author has acknowledged it. You can stop repeating it. That is what we call a “straw man” argument. Nearly every poster beats on this dead horse as if it alone destroyed any argument the author may have presented and ended the discussion, apparently completely oblivious that you are arguing for a position that NO ONE HAS DISPUTED. Not a single post here has suggested children don’t cry for no reason… not one. So you can stop pointing out that fact as if it’s new information. We know. We get it. All of us parents knew that before you wrote it. Thanks.
What everyone seems to be missing, or well ignoring probably since it’s been stated rather clearly, is that there is a DIFFERENCE between a child crying for no reason, and a child being INDUCED into a state of emotional distress. There is a DIFFERENCE between a child crying because they aren’t happy it’s bedtime, or because you take away something they shouldn’t be playing with, and a child being INDUCED by being tormented purposefully by an adult who clearly had power over them. You see, there is a DIFFERENCE and everyone seems to be ignoring that fact.
Everyone is making this about the children. The original post, and I believe the main issue here is in fact about the “artist”, not the children. Let’s break this down… and I’ve read several posts supposedly coming from people present at these photo sessions claiming “you weren’t there, so stop assuming” …so OK, I won’t assume. I’m going to comment now based solely on the information provided by the “artist” herself. She has said in no uncertain terms that she conceived the idea for this project when she saw a child crying and SHE made a connection between that child’s distress and HER personal political beliefs. SHE has said this. She also specifically described her method for getting the children to cry, which of course is GIVING them a lollipop and TAKING it away. So fine, that’s what we have to go on, based on what SHE has stated in interviews and on her own website. Disregarding all this talk of abuse, and comparisons with the current US political situation, etc. I’m going to simplify things. People are complicating this way too much with personal bias, misinformation and assumptions. I am not going to do that. That will not get you anywhere in a logical discussion.
SO, based on the FACTS, as stated by the “artist” herself, here is the actual reality:
Greenberg saw a child crying and recognized that the child was in distress. She made a conscious connection between that child’s distress and her own distress over the current political state in the US. Based on that connection, she consciously conceived of the idea to photograph children in distress and to label the photos in such a way as to allow other adults to make the same connection she made, identifying the child’s distress with their own personal distress regarding various political subjects. This was her idea. This is a fact that cannot be disputed.
To achieve her purpose, she consciously utilized her own personal knowledge of the fact that children will cry when you take away something they want, based on her experiences as a mother. She knew ahead of time that giving a child a lollipop and then taking it away would induce emotional distress. She made a conscious choice to use that knowledge as a tool to achieve the end result she desired. She deliberately gave children lollipops and then took them away for the SOLE purpose of photographing the child’s distress. This is a fact that cannot be disputed.
Now taking into consideration her ultimate purpose, as stated by HER, it is perfectly reasonable to state as a matter of fact that the “artist” deliberately performed actions she knew for a fact would induce emotional distress in children, SO she could capture that distress for the benefit of adults who she hoped would appreciate the depictions as metaphors for their own personal political distress. It is most certainly a fair assumption that the pieces were intended solely for an adult audience, after all what child could possibly make the connection the “artist” was fully hoping to effect in her audience? None.
So at its very core, this is about one adult premeditating a conscious method for inducing emotional distress in children who have no power in choosing not to participate, to metaphorically comment on the political frustration of many Americans, for the sole benefit of adults who share that frustration.
That’s the reality, based on what the “artist” herself has stated, which I trust as fact (after all, if the “artist” herself is lying, then how can anyone else even hope to understand the situation?). So base your opinions on that. No more straw man arguments, no more assumptions. When a situation is as simple as this one, there is really no need to complicate it needleesly.
And no I didn’t forget about the parents, but that is a whole other issue. This is about Greenberg, not the parents. They are responsible as well, but that’s for another article.
It’s interesting to me how many people have brought up the question of whether or not people would have been as blase about this particular series if it had featured animals being abused instead of children. Apparently they haven’t checked out the rest of her work. She does in fact feature animals of questionable and potentially abusive scenarios in her series of monkey/great ape portraits.
You’ll notice the majority of the individuals featured are very young. That is because they are more manageable at a young age. Primates are often used for very lucrative entertainment purposes when they are young and then discarded after their natural aggresive tendencies make them unmanageable (usually at the beginnning of adolescence). In one interview Ms Greenberg refers to the expense of the monkey models. Most primates in entertainment are discarded in crappy roadside zoos or unscrupulous breeders. This, of course, is aside from the violence employed by trainers to get these animals to acquiese to a variety of entertainment purposes. In fact, in at least two of Greenberg’s portraits, the monkey/chimp is displaying a clear expression of agression/fear.
I’m thinking that Ms Greenberg doesn’t think very much about the ethical ramifications of any of her subjects as long as her ‘art’ is expressed.
“Oh my god! This is so hilarious and classic. It really shows the kind of people that agree with Thomas Hawk.”
No, it just shows what kind of opportunistic trolls come out to play when there are morons to have fun with. Do you think I really gave a crap what y’all are talking about?
I am reposting this original comment by John Hancock because I have edited out the url that he previously posted to a questionable site. As I can’t edit his comment directly using Blogger’s software, I’ve deleted his comment and listed an edited version of his original comment below.
“It is disturbing that all those posters defending the photographer and dismissing what is obviously being done to these children actually feel ok with what the photographer did and don’t see anything wrong with it. I can only imagine they are the same people who voted for Bush for re-election, even though they knew he lied about Iraq. I’m even sure that they could characterize their vote for Bush as art, with the same twisted logic they defend this obvious abuse of a child at the hands of an adult.
And for what? What is Jill’s main driving force here? A comment on Bush and his policies? Hardly…that is just a convenient after thought. No, her motivation is perfectly clear…$4,500 a print. And of course the attention from the controversy that will surround these pictures, which will just make her photo’s worth even more, and perhaps make her the cause célèbre of the art world…much like what happened to Sturges when he dropped off his film at a hole-in-the-wall photo lab and arose the attention of the police and FBI, which made him financially successful and famous.
For those of you who cannot tell the difference between a small child crying “at the drop of a hat” or at a restaurant and the sheer fear and complete anguish that these children obviously have, I feel sorry for you. You are obviously so desensitized and morally bankrupt that it is scary we live together in the same society. However, it doesn’t surprise me, considering the American society we live in today.
The photographer, in her own words, is tormenting these children to “give her” the look and emotion SHE wanted. She stated that she often sends the parent out of the room (and made the statement of how she was a bit upset when this happened and 1 child DIDN’T cry). The parents, when they were in the room (and they often weren’t) are just as complaisant in this abuse of children who have NO control over the situation. Compounding the children’s obvious fear and anguish is the strobes going off while in that state. Professional models or not, this obviously compounds their distress level. The bottom line is that in the supposed trusting hands of parents and adults, these children were MADE to break down into complete emotional distress and anguish just for the sake of a photographers whim at taking a photograph…one that she will sell for at least $,4500 each. This is hardly art. This is abuse, and would be called such in any other situation where a child was involved. Teachers have been fired for less by parents whose child came home crying from school.
To hear just how unconcerned the photographer is, listen to this interview http://podcasting.americanphotomag….HOTOPodcast.mp3. The sad thing is that she also used her own child as one model, and subjected her/him to the same abuse as the others. This is NOT a healthy parent/child relationship.
A few misguided individuals posts from above:
“Knowing that her art would be seen publicly by a lot of people, do you really think this person would do anything blatantly criminal? You can invoke this type of reaction by handing a child a wonderful toy, letting her play with it for a few minutes, then yanking it away suddenly and arguing about returning it. I know, I’ve got 2 young kids myself. Is that “abuse”? No. Is it manipulative and unkind? Yes. Is the end result art? Definitely.”
It is clear that she thinks she has done nothing wrong. Ignorance of the law, and what is morally right, for the sake of a picture is no excuse. By your own words, you say it is manipulative and unkind. And you are ok with that? An adult being unkind and manipulative to a trusting child? That behavior, expressed by a trusted adult to a 3 year old child is incompatible which many laws in this country and is a sad comment, in my opinion, on the state of the American society. With this type of behavior towards children being held up as art, and sold for $4,500 a print, it no wonder we have this anything goes attitude that has given this country episodes like the Columbine shootings. The National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information is a good source for information on what constitutes child abuse. And from the publication here http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/general/legal/statutes/defineall.pdf states: “Willful harming or injuring of a child or the endangering of the person or health of a child means a situation in which any person willfully causes or permits any child to suffer, or inflicts thereon, unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or custody of any child, willfully causes or permits the person or health of the child to be placed in a situation in which his or her person or health is endanger.” WILLFULLY CAUSES ANY CHILD TO SUFFER, OR INFLICTS THEREON…MENTAL SUFFERING. Hmmm I wonder what that sounds like?
I also question your ability to raise a child. Unfortunately you have 2 children. I can only hope that make it through life with you unscathed.
“While the question of the means justifying the end certainly looms large in this instance, we would all do well to at least look at her artist statement and examine the political and artistic value of what she’s produced.”
Any artistic statement cannot justify her purposeful actions to be brought down on children who have no choice in the matter or control over the situation. Forcibly making a child have an episode of tremendous anguish, as is indicated on their faces (these children are well beyond simply crying) is an act of abuse. She is abusing her power over them, as both an adult and what the child sees as a trusted friend to their parents. I doubt if she sat the children down and said “Ok here is what I am going to do. First, we will take off your clothes, then I will have you sit right over there. Next, my assistant here and I are going to do many things to get you to cry as hard as you have ever cried before. We will do that by having your parent leave the room, giving you some candy or a toy, and then grabbing it from you. We will do this over and over until you are crying good enough for me, and then these bright lights will flash over and over again, until I have a good enough picture. We will do this and there is nothing you can do to stop me. Thank you for your time and understanding, and participating in this historic event that is really a comment on my feelings towards the Bush administration. I am sorry we have to terrorize you like this, but you see, this is for the greater good. These pictures will make that bad man go away and stop hurting other children.” There is nothing that she has produced that justifies her actions towards these children. The hypocrisy is that she is terrorizing these children to cry so she can stop Bush from terrorizing children in Iraq. I guess Iraqi children deserve better treatment than our own children do. It is so good to have such young soldiers in the fight against Bush!
“We are artists, and just because we don’t think the same way you may think when it comes to artistic subjects such as photographs of children, it doesn’t mean you can dictate the rules we live by.”
And just because you think it is ok to terrorize children doesn’t make it right, in the eyes of the law or common society. Nor does it give you the right to dictate what is acceptable in this country for the sole purpose of enriching one photographer’s life at the expense of innocent children. Her “art” and political message are no better than the crap I took this morning. The end does not justify the means.
The sickest award, although the one above is close, goes to Nicole Rawley who said…
“Shawn Oster: I believe the woman you
are referencing as having had an uproar caused by her B&W; work is Sally Mann, one of my favorite photographers and heroes. She responds well to many issues brought up in this discussion here. Her oldest child, Jessie Mann, photographed many times in the buff, responds to these ideas, as a much older child (an adult) here.”
That isn’t so bad except for the fact that the link she supplies for the Aperture conversation with Jessie Mann, Sally’s daughter, is hosted on a website that states: “This web site is about and for women who are attracted to pre-teen and adolescent girls. Our primary goal is to give women and girls a tool for expressing their feelings and their love about this controversial topic, and to get people to open their minds to ideas about romantic and erotic attraction between women and girls.” *web address deleted* So basically a lesbian pedophilia web site. Why Nicole would link to a pedophilia website to justify Jill’s abusive actions towards children is beyond me. The fact that Nicole even KNOWS about this pedophilia website (are you a member too Nicole?) is sickening. Anything further that comes out of her mouth is useless.
And finally we have another person most likely to gain by this photographers pictures… Paul Kopeikin. Paul, of course, is the owner of the gallery where Jill’s photo’s will be shown, and the person with the 2nd most financial incentive to support this type of abuse being inflicted on children. Paul says:
“Innocent children are being slaughtered daily by the Bush Administration in Iraq and Afghanistan (and who knows where else) so anyone worrying about the non existent abuse of the children in Jill Greenberg’s photographs should immediately contact the White House to add their voice to ending the murder of children by this Republican Administration.” (I corrected his mis-spellings).
So Pauls stance is pretty clear. He feels that there is no abuse in Jill’s terror tactics in forcing children to cry with such anguish, but if there was, there is much worse being done by the Bush administration, and you should bitch about that instead of about someone who he stands to make a great deal of money on…about $2,250 from each print. My question to Paul is since you are so concerned about the slaughter of children by the Bush administration, have you done anything else, on your own and something that will NOT provide you with financial gain, to stop such slaughter? Have you made your voice heard to your elected representatives? Written letters to the editor stating your disgust for what the Bush administration is doing to all those innocent children? Organized a protest or demonstration? Marched on the Federal Building or City Hall where you live? Have you given ANY money to ANY organization helping either end the war or supply relief efforts to either of those 2 nations? Yeah, I thought not. Your motives are clear and your interest is self-serving. Screaming “the sky is falling” (in other words Bush is bad) is nothing more than a ploy to deflect attention from the real issue here…Jill’s campaign of terror to force young children, who have no control over their situation, into a traumatic situation full of anguish and intensity, all for the sake of a photograph. And money…don’t forget the money. I’m sorry Paul, but that is about as lame as the “We are artists…” guy above.
About the poster: I am a 47 year old white male, father and primary caregiver of a 9 year old daughter. Politically I am on the far left and have put my body on the line, and been arrested, on issues ranging from nuclear plants (Diablo Canyon) and weapons design (Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National weapons labs), to violence against women issues to the support of abortion rights. I am an artist, and have been in the photography business for over 25 years professionally, and 35 years all together. Primarily I do fine art black and white printing and my prints have been in museums and galleries all over the world. I choose not to use my name here because of the obvious reasons. I don’t need to get spammed to death, nor do I wish to become some whipping boy for people who can’t really fathom the issue being discussed here. However, that does not diminish the opinions I gave, or the reality checks I pointed out. To say so otherwise is just plain dumb. If we lived in a society that could handle such discussions without knee jerk and abusive reactions, I would gladly publish my real name. But when we live in a society that seems to be ok with a trusted adult purposefully terrorizing a child and inflicting emotional trauma on that child for the sake of a photograph, and trying to hang some political justification on it to make it “ok”, there is just no way that any sane person would publish their name and subject themselves to the hate emails that would certainly come.
Hopefully my posts will open some minds. I fear that the sick minds out there that support this far outnumber sane and morally responsible people who see these actions for what they are…abuse.
And that is sad.”
I am reposting this original comment and editing out the links one of which sent users to an objectionable website.
Shawn Oster: I believe the woman you are referencing as having had an uproar caused by her B&W; work is Sally Mann, one of my favorite photographers and heroes.
She responds well to many issues brought up in this discussion here.
Her oldest child, Jessie Mann, photographed many times in the buff, responds to these ideas, as a much older child (an adult) here.
A good point, I think, is made in this article:
One of the ways to make ourselves at home, so to speak, in the alien territory of new art is to deny it its originality, to transform its disquieting strangeness into familiar forms to which we may effortlessly, almost blindly, respond. To look at Sally Mann’s photographs of her children as unfeeling or immoral is simply to not be looking at them, to be pushing away something complex and difficult (the vulnerability of children, the unhappiness of childhood, the tragic character of the parent-child relationship are among Mann’s may painful themes.) and demanding a cliche in its place.
Hey Jill, pick on people your own size, thou freaking coward!
Where, oh where is the performance ‘artist’ who will find this punk ass and torment HER for a while (on video tape)? Now that would be finger lickin’ good!
Like the erased DeKooning drawing…
Oh brother…
We seem to have collectively forgotten what this damn country is supposed to be all about. Petit martinettes like Mr. Hawk are everywhere, and they have fetishized childhood and children, often using them as bludgeons against other people for perceived sins.
Are these pictures disturbing? Yep. Have I been around enough kids to know that they will scream and cry at the drop of a hat, as often as not dropping it themselves? Oh yeah. And for all of that, I fully support the artist’s right to her expression.
As her husband posted above, many of the subjects are the children of friends and said friends were always present during the photo sessions. Mr. Hawk’s idea that Mrs. Greenberg should be sent to prison over this is pure Stalinism. I find that infinitely more despicable than the photographs or the techniques used to illicit the responses shown in them.
I have a question for Mr. Hawks. If Mrs. Greenberg is prosecuted, where does it end?? Legal precedent is a slippery slope in this country. Don’t forget that drug testing went from something that only airline pilots and train conductors had to undergo to be so common that now one cannot get a job at Wal Mart without pissing in a cup. As a photographer yourself, Mr. Hawks, you should know better than to attack another artist’s expression. What if someone decided that YOUR photographs were offensive enough to have you hauled off to the klink? Not such a nice idea, is it??
And as to the posters here who relished Mrs. Greenberg’s possible punishments, I will just say that you are all pieces of human filth.
I’m more offended by Hawk’s statement that this is “child pornography of the worst kind” than I am by these pictures.
i think that thomas hawk should stick to reviewing the technology behind digital cameras and not photography itself. stick to what you know.
child pornography? good lord.
Perhaps someone should find out what Mrs. Greenberg finds frightening and then set up “scare sessions” to photograph her expressions. I think it would be art…
I too think that it is not right to submit children to emotional trauma for the sake of making a name for yourself and/or making money. There should be laws protecting children from this type of treatment as well as all of the other child protection laws.
The children cannot decide for themselves whether they want to take part in this project or not. They have no idea the stresses that they are going to be put through during the shoot. If you want to make adults cry and throw tantrums, that’s fine, they have made a concious decision to take part, but babies and toddlers are not capable of making that choice. To exploit them because (a) you can bully them into these emotions easier than you can adults and (b) they are cheaper than monkey’s (to paraphase Mrs. Greenberg) is a IMHO a travesty and shows signs of poor judgment. These are my opinions, you are free to have your own….
I was shocked at the pictures. I really was. But then reading that all she did was take a lollipop away, and the parents were present, I am not so sure.
My mother in law did that ALL the time to my kids. It was a power trip – she’d offer them chips, etc, ask for one, when they would hold the bag out the witch would grab it and say she was keeping it. Made her feel so special to give it back I guess, who knows…
But these may very well be the same facial expressions we’d be seeing if a parent told a child Absolutely Not! to another ice cream cone, or took away an inappropriate toy, etc.. so.. I dont like the idea of capturing the images, but am not so sure its abuse…. Not normal, not healthy, yes…
I honestly don’t think that the kids will suffer from this. Although the whole idea of taking pictures of crying children in protest of the Bush government seems overly liberal and just plain Moore-ish, I don’t see why this should be categorized as child abuse. Inevitably, you too have made your children cry by taking away toys or forbidding something. So, like Bikr said, leave the political correctness at home and express anger over the real problem here: the stupidity and absurdity of the exposition.
If someone did this every day every fifteen minutes, then it would rise to the level of abuse. Doing it once, for a brief period of time is simple (to coin a phrase) not niceness. Anyone (hysterical parents included) who equates this with abuse clearly has never seen real cases of abuse and does an injustice to children who are actual victims. Shame on you. I don’t care if it pains your heart to see a child cry. That is a normal, healthy response for a parent. What is neither normal nor healthy is the failure to have perspective and realize that your emotions are knee-jerk, that it’s not appropriate to equate eliciting a five minute melt-down with child abuse, and that Hitler and/or pedophiles are not apt comparisons.
Get over it already. Yes the photographer wasn’t loving to these children. But child abuse? Come on.
I still don’t understand why people continue to post over and over again “kids will cry over anything! kids will cry at the drop of a hat!” …WE KNOW. NO ONE has even remotely disputed that fact. Repeating it 1000 times won’t make it more true, or less true. It’s a fact, we know. A lot of us are parents. You’re preaching to the choir folks.
People are still ignoring the fact that this isn’t about the children. It’s about the ARTIST. Yes children will cry at the drop of a hat. But there is a DIFFERENCE between a child crying because they picked up something they should not have, and you taking it away… and you giving the child something and deliberately taking it away because you KNOW that it will upset the child.
Maybe it isn’t abuse, I don’t know. I’m not a doctor, or a psychologist so I couldn’t tell you how that would ultimately affect a child. All these posters who keep writing “that won’t do anything to a child, they cry all the time” should just stop pretending they have any clue about what will or will not affect a child in the long term. Like I said, there is a DIFFERENCE between what the artist is doing and what most of us as parents experience every day. Unless you have a degree in child psychology, you can’t say with any degree of certainty how an episode like this would affect a child. Stop pretending you can. You CAN NOT.
But as I wrote just a moment ago, this isn’t about the children. This is about the ARTIST. Another post not too long ago summed it up pretty nicely. She KNEW specifically that giving the lollipop to the child and taking it away would illicit a negative emotional reaction. She knew because she’s a mother. She stated her idea for the project came from seeing a child cry and the child’s frustration making her think of her own frustration over the current political state in America. This is simplified of course, but the following is essentially the thought process of the artist… “OK, if I can make that connection, I think a lot of other adults would make the same connection… so I will photograph children crying, give each photo a politically relevant name, and adults will see the child’s frustration, read the title of the piece, and make the same connection I made… and maybe buy a print! Now all I need to do is figure out how to make a child cry on demand so I can take a picture in a studio setting… OK, my daughter cries when I take things away that she wants. I can use that to my advantage. I can give the child something they want, take it away immediately, and repeat the process as long as it takes until I get the photo I want.”
This isn’t about the photos, this isn’t about the artist’s message, this isn’t even about the parents as much as it is about the ARTIST’S METHOD. THAT is what I think most of us have a problem with here. Are the photos impressive? Even I’d admit they are. Does that mean the artist’s method to achieving that end result is OK? No, it doesn’t. It’s an entirely different situation.
If someone had a gallery showing photos of dead animals, it might impress a lot of people depending on the talent of the photographer. Even if you loved the photos, if you found out the artist was the one who killed the animals for the sole purpose of taking the photos, would you agree with their method? Would you love the artist? Would it change your opinion of the photos themselves? Of course that’s a crude analogy, but my point is perfectly valid. The quality of the photos and/or the subject matter of the photos is completely irrelevant. What is being debated is the METHOD. HOW the end result was achieved. The artist’s METHOD is what is under scrutiny here.
A lot of the parents have said “my child cries when I take things away from them” …and as I said, we already know kids do that. But let me ask you parents out there defending the artist… How many times have you given your child something you KNOW they want, and then DELIBERATELY taken it away just to see them cry? Oh, never? You’ve never done that? Why haven’t you done that? Would you ever do that? No? Why not? Would you let someone else do it to your child? No? Why not? Oh right, the same reason that it’s not OK that the artist does it to these children. If you wouldn’t do it to your own child, or to anyone else’s child, then how can you claim that “it probably doesn’t harm them” and insist that it’s no big deal that the artist does it to these children? Sorry, but I’m not seeing the logic in that position folks.
If she is so upset with our government, why don’t we have a picture of her crying?
I think a better name for this work would be “teasing toddlers for profit”.
Someone should take her camera away and watch her cry…
And to that end if someone treated my kid like that I would have something to say about it. Anyone who treated my kid like that would be sorry…
I looked at the pictures that Greenberg took. They don’t look like art to me. They look like the type of pictures you get at a family potrait center. That’s not art. That’s pathetic. What kind of person would want to buy a giant picture of a naked child crying? What are they doing with it?
I would think this could be harmful to the childrens psychi. Having there “parent-figure” purposely subject them to humiliation and suffering especially at that developmental stage could be dramatic.
Did these children after experience nightscares? Those are nightmares which are usually hightened by events like this. I can’t imagine that this “artist” talked with any reputable psychologist before subjecting these children to this.
Children start having nightmares around this age, I bet they gave it a good jump start. Cruel and shameful.
Children should learn about the cruelty of the world from “outside” forces not there own safe haven.
Sickening. Horrible. and Cruel!
i think this is ridiculous. it’s not child abuse if a kid has a lollipop given and taken away. i dont know how many times my sister and i fought over icecream or toys when we were little and had them taken away. don’t worry we’re not slitting our wrists yet! these kids are not even going to remember this. child abuse can mean physical and emotional abuse, and this is neither. kids at the age of 2 are practically ADD and will forget an instant later. i used to babysit a 2 and 4 year old for months, but i went away for the summer and when i came back they had no idea who i was. these kids emotions change so quickly, one minute they will be crying, and the next they will be laughing. it would be abusive if jill started pinching and hitting them for effects, but any parent knows that kids in this age will forget and cry over the littlest things, that’s why they were there and did not protest.
how else are you going to get crying kids?
I could not read you’re posts due to the fact that your ignorance has bored me. I myself was the child of an emotionally and physically abusive family. Trust me, if all they ever did to me was take away my candy I probablly wouldn’t even have remembered it. My suggestion to you is if you’re so concerned about the welfare of children, start an anti-abuse campaign against the men and women who beat or sexually abuse their children. All this woman did was take candy away from a child and then probablly return it to them after the pictures were taken. It may not be the nicest thing to do to a child and you may even say it’s a horrible way to create art, but it certainly isn’t the worst thing that could happen to kids their age.
Heres just one final thought; How would you feel about these photos if she didn’t cause the tantrums? Would you still be quick to judge and condemn this woman? Or would you praise/dislike her for her vision.
After reading the “well thought out posts”, I feel compelled to comment.
I think Greenberg’s photos are beautiful. I certainly don’t see the extreme abuse that some do. I’ve seen similar toddler-faces in check-out lanes of grocery stores as they express their need for a sugary-treat or toy.
Ask any mother who has lovingly experienced a visit to one of the many nationally recognized photo studios across the country and I’m certain she will say she has seen similar toddler-faces there. I know I have – on my own son. He’s now 30 – and suffers no emotonal scars from it.
Much to do about nothing? I think so. Great art Greenberg! Are the photos real and raw? You bet. Damaging? Not so much.
Okay, I am now and have been a nanny for several years and during this last year also spent time in Romania working with little orphan children…and I have to say that though I HAVE seen little ones get mad and pitch fits over many different things I have no doubt in my mind that if I had ever purposely CAUSED a child to cry just to get a reaction my employers would have most definately fired me…and if they felt it was warranted they would have even brought in the authorities. In a country where a swat on the butt is considered child abuse and there is a huge uproar about mental anguish…what about the mental anguish caused by the purposeful giving and then taking of candy away from those babies?
And to the gallery owner who defended this as art and who said that the Bush administration is slaughtering innocent children in Iraq…where is the proof of that? Sure, we are at war and sometimes there are casualties…but show me some proof that our American soldiers are seeking out and killing babies in Iraq and then I will show some outrage at that. But this woman is teasing babies to get pictures of them crying…I definately see that as very disturbing and I know many parents who would never allow her anywhere near their children!!
Um…Yeah, I’m just some 13 year old, but I think you shouldn’t be so worked up about it. The kids won’t grow up emotionally corrupt and they wont be suicidal…just ’cause someone took their lollipop away. I barely remember anything from when I was five! But I still think this “art” is just nonsense. What is she trying to prove with photos of a child crying or angry? I read in an article by Jim Lewis (http://www.slate.com/id/2145277)
that, when seeing one little boy cry, it reminded her of the “helplessness and anger” she felt about our “political and social situation.” Of course I’m only a child, but I just don’t see that in her work. I just hope she gave the kids their lollipops after the shoot. Her system may have been rude, but it will not affect the kids in a big way, and that’s what’s important. However, I do agree with you that it would have been better had the crying been natural and she hadn’t provoked it.
I hate to repost so soon, but people just aren’t even attempting to post logical responses. They are just repeating the same bored arguments over and over.
“It won’t harm them or scar them!” Yeah? Are you a psychologist? No? THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW? Stop pretending you have any clue when you are in no position to make any judgments about how this experience will or will not affect the children. You don’t know. Get that into your brain. YOU DO NOT KNOW.
“I don’t remember anything from that age.” Is that so? When did we all agree that your failure to recollect anything from your childhood was somehow representative of all of humanity? Anyone who suffered abuse of any kind will surely tell you that they DO remember. They may suffer from nightmares, they may be traumatized, they may never be able to forget. Just because you don’t remember your childhood has absolutely and literally, ABSOLUTELY NO relevance to these children. Stop projecting your own experience, or lack there of, onto these children as if that excuses the behavior of the artist.
And my favorite… “My children cried when I took things away, and they are grown now and totally fine.” Yeah? Well this is the part where I repost:
How many times have you given your child something you KNOW they want, and then DELIBERATELY taken it away just to see them cry? Oh, never? You’ve never done that? Why haven’t you done that? Would you ever do that? No? Why not? Would you let someone else do it to your child? No? Why not? Oh right, the same reason that it’s not OK that the artist does it to these children. If you wouldn’t do it to your own child, or to anyone else’s child, then how can you claim that “it probably doesn’t harm them” and insist that it’s no big deal that the artist does it to these children?
I’ll go further… If you saw someone doing this to their child in the street or in a store, how would you react? What would you think to yourself? “It’s alright, the kid won’t remember so they’re not a bad parent” …right? If someone did it to your child, you’d shrug it off? You’d say “no biggie, they won’t remember anyway” …right? Yeah, right. I bet. Well, if it’s not OK to do it to your child, then why are you so damn sure that it’s perfectly fine to do it to these children? Yeah… logic folks. Try it sometime.
For all those in need of a “new” argument…
These pictures should be banned. They made trains explode in Mumbai. They caused a Taepaedong 2 missle to fail 43 seconds into the flight. They made a French soccer player headbutt his opponent.
I hope to God nothing happens to the space shuttle before we can get End Times shut down.
you might consider posting an actual response to some of the points made, rather than nonsense that isn’t relevant to anything. that’s sort of how this whole “discussion” thing works.
Okay, so I have learned from this page that taking away a child’s lollipop is equivalent to any or all of these things:
Breaking someone’s leg
Clubbing kittens with a baseball bat
Kicking a guy in the balls
Throwing an old lady down the stairs
Dropping napalm on innocent children
Taking nude photos of children
Terrorism
I suggest that anyone who makes a child anywhere cry for any reason be arrested and held without bail.
even if that made sense, which it doesn’t, your attitude makes it impossible to care what you think. you ignored every valid point made here, and there have been plenty. if you want to participate in a legitimate discussion, you have to actually take it seriously. otherwise you’re just wasting everyone’s time, including you own.
and oh yeah, the children were nude according to the artist herself.
Well, congratulations. You apparently have at least the minimal intelligence needed to deduce from my comments that I in fact do not take this discussion seriously.
wait, did you just acknowledge that you are a waste of time? that’s actually pretty funny..
I’m not sure I buy that they only had a lollipop taken away..I have seen a child cry from having something like that taken away before but these children seem to be experiencing much greater emotion than that..just my opinion.
But even so.. should you be able to torment a child even minorly in order to profit from it? I can’t see that being justified.. maybe I should destroy some of Jill’s artwork in front of her and take a picture when she screams out in anger.. then I can sell that
Daniel Krieger
Excellent response. I agree, the lollipop method is just what the artist herself has said she did to obtain the end result she desired. If she’s willing to do that to a child, how do we know she’s not just making it up? After all, think about it… if she was doing something worse she certainly wouldn’t admit it, would she? Deliberately inducing emotional anguish for the sole purpose of profiting from the end result certainly doesn’t seem like something we should shrug off as “art” and not give a second though about… I mean just read that sentence and tell me that you think that’s OK to do. Deliberately induce emotional anguish, for the sole purpose of profiting from the end result. That’s art these days? Maybe, if the subject is a consenting adult… but a child?
I agree that maybe someone should inflict some emotional anguish on Greenberg, and take some photos. See if she thinks it’s OK then. We can donate the profit to the kids in the photos… buy them some lollipops that won’t be ripped from their hands just to see them cry.
Reading the comments here, I can’t believe any of you has ever actually photographed a small child.
Every day I photograph toddler, and I can assure you that they can show emotions on their faces that range from agony to ecstasy and back again in the space of less than fiv minutes.
Toddlers don’t do emotions subtly – they have huge smiles and equally enormous tears every few seconds and then they run off and play and think nothing of it. this is how they are.
In my studio every day I am expected to manipulate the emotions of my toddler models – my role is to provoke happiness and to manipulate happy expressions but very often my camera, the room, the flashes – provoke tears and ‘distress’. Is it wrong that I often shoot the tears anyway?
Grow up people…
Ok, so has Thomas Hawk heard of “libel”? What did he expect to happen, when he calls for a fellow photographer to be “Arrested and Charged With Child Abuse” for simply doing what is a common practice in commercial photography? As has been pointed out previously, the tactics Jill Greenberg employs are ones used in making movies, advertisements, etc., etc. I fail to see why something she has done in the name of art is worse than the same thing done to sell a product. If Thomas Hawk had made those same comments in a newspaper he would probably have been sued by now. What would any of you have done if you had been accused of being a child abuser and a criminal in a public forum? Her husband may have gone somewhat overboard in contacting his employer, but what would you have done to protect someone you love?
as a portrait photographer, and father, I find this series reprehensible. The defense of this series is flimsy and disingenuous. Jill Greenberg is looking out for herself and nobody else. The cross to bear for any artist is to truly explore subjects in a provocative and insightful mmanner, but hopefully to maintain your ethical and moral compass. To subject children to torment in order to capture a compelling portrait for an esoteric and simpleminded political statement is indefensible. I am certainly in agreement that out eroding environmental policies and tyrannical leadership is ominous and scary, but I am not nearly arrogant enough to believe taunting an innocent child will change that.
as a portrait photographer, and father, I find this series reprehensible. The defense of this series is flimsy and disingenuous. Jill Greenberg is looking out for herself and nobody else. The cross to bear for any artist is to truly explore subjects in a provocative and insightful mmanner, but hopefully to maintain your ethical and moral compass. To subject children to torment in order to capture a compelling portrait for an esoteric and simpleminded political statement is indefensible. I am certainly in agreement that out eroding environmental policies and tyrannical leadership is ominous and scary, but I am not nearly arrogant enough to believe taunting an innocent child will change that.
Did anonymous actually read that LA times article? not exactly a ringing endorsement. Seems like Greenberg is a commercial photographer desperate for art world cred and this work is seen as tepid.
Quite a thread you’ve got going here!!! This whole debacle wasn’t even on my radar until I saw that article today. I’m making a post on mine that I’m going to title “Sociopathic Publicity Whore”, which in my humble opinion pretty much sums it up.
Great work. I think it is an exquisite art photography. For many of those who didn’t like it, well, sorry guys….Next time, don’t go!
stop, dude, ease up and get laid; it’ll do you good
Dear Thomas, first of all I’d like to apologise for my english. I just red an article about the photographer and she explained how did they caused the babies cry. Some of them cried for no reason (it seems to me it happens quite often with kids), some others because they gave them a lollypop and then they wanted it back. After all, it doesn’t seem to me that thay tortured or abused these kids. The photos are just great and I think your post is just esagerated. The fact that she sould be arrested is pure science-fiction. There are too many people that should be arrested for real crimes and while we talk, they are members of the governments of the greatest part of our countries. Think of something more serious next time.
Carlo.
Come on!
You make all this fuss about children crying over a lollipop and call this woman an abuser but then it’s perfectly all right for you to see children dying under the bombs USA threw in Iraq because there is a perfectly understandable reason :OIL…. and after all these others are Iraqis or Palestinians, and not
overfed, overprotected, overspoiled American children.
Please, do me a favor, if you want to do something for children abuse, go to the White House and tell your president to stop bullying the rest of the world and killing harmless civilians!
Regards
Alessandra, Rome
Strange people live in USA, people that don’t care if your administration makes wars with thousand of innocent victims
http://www.rosariesforourlady.com/Images/Iraq/BabyVictim.jpg
but shiver if somebody make cry child…
you american don care much about bombing around the world and get scared fore some photos…what’s going on your brains?
I would like to know which post advoicated killing children for oil. The hyperbole meter just went off the scale. I don’t imagine anyone would really want to see this woman behind bars, but what she did was unethical and wrongheaded. I think the worst crime committed here is that it is boring and her politics drowning in naivete.
She should stick to monkeys and Target ads, she’s no Avedon.
I agree, Jill Greenberg is a disturbed individual, but so are the parents of the kids she portrayed.
They should be charged with emotionally abusing their kids as well.
Even though I disagree with Hawk’s sophomoric lack of perception – I do find it hilarious that there is a banner (for profit) on his page of screaming kid pimping Corel Draw.
Why on earth is it considered cowardly that Peterson uses aa pseudonym for this blog. Some of the most accomplished writers in the world have done it
I wonder if this is Greenberg, her husband, or the slimy gallery owner posting this pointless drivel.
Nothing like trying to shout down and censor dissent.
I’m seriously stunned by the enormous amount of post against Jill Greenberg’s photographs.
I really don’t see the point in arguing with such vulgar and aggressive tones. Everyday we are subjected to tragic images of children starving or, as the latest news report, killed by airstrikes. These are strong and legitimate reasons to battle for. I deem that the discussions going on this blog as well as on others, meaningless. I find this debate absolutely shameful and terribly useless. I would expect from a dynamic and young world as the blogosphere happens to be, more responsibility and consciousness when posting such messages.
I am deeply concerned of the overwhelming mayhem grown around Mrs. Greenberg shots.
I frankly find this behaviour out of line and mischievous due to the fact that such hard indignation should be reserved exclusively to more serious issues.
Let’s face the truth! Every year around the world six million children die for lack of medicines, for wars or for famine, while on this blog people waste time chatting on foolish topics first of all whether Mrs. Greenberg’s photos are to be considered immoral or not, just for the fact that they have been pursued by detracting candies to baby-models.
Dorina Bianchi
Member of the Italian Parliament
Did you see the news the last three years???!!! come on!!! go and do something with your life and take a little look outside the belly of the United States! the photos are great!!
Observando las fotografias no existe la menor duda de la induccion de estos niños a estados emocionales determinados para captar una imagen fotografica que mal puede decirse o calificarse como arte. El arte por sobre todas las cosas tiene etica, el arte es belleza, aun en su mejor crudeza. El arte no es una produccion efectuada en un laboratorio (en este caso un estudio fotografico donde se induce a los niños para lograr una foto (y aqui lo que se deberia investigar es que clase de induccion se efectuo ya que se denota en las miradas miedo y panico.) El arte es la captacion del individuo de su entorno, una idea puesta al servicio de otros individuos que motiva la admiracion en su belleza intrinseca y extrinseca, que conduce a la admiracion y a la reflexion. El arte es la sonrisa de Dios en este mundo. ¿y cual es el arte en la fotografia?. Es captar el momento, ese instante de vida detenido, sea el volar de una mariposa o el horror de niños vietmitas con sus torzos quemados y esa niña llorando por el horror que vivia, por la destruccion, por la locura. El fotografo no indujo, el fotografo capto ese instante y esa foto recorrio el mundo como un grito desgarrador diciendo basta, basta a la guerra, basta a la muerte. En eso reside la magia del artista, tanto del pincel, de la escultura o de la fotografia y no en lo que esta mujer expone, es repugnante. Richard.Juri@gmail.com
You should think that she may have used photoshop for her pictures…
Although, when you see a MOVIE and a child is crying you do not acuse the director of being an abusive person(he do really make them suffer to catch a good shot) because he simply put a national flag. Come on, there are several things you could worry about, think of the war please!
I hate Kids!!
The human being seems to be the only species that doesn’t take the necessary care of it young member. The other ones seem to know that the most important is the preservation of the specie and never damage their own child.
The human being is the only one that abuse of the child for pleasure, money.
Personally, I could never see a child suffering in front of me without trying to help him. Instead of that, this woman took pictures of them before to take the photography; she took away the clothes of those kids. I don’t want to imagine what she did to make them crying on that way. After that, she humiliated them in public and exposed their little bodies in a place saying that that is art.
Yes, I think that woman is cruel (at least) and those persons that helped her to take those pictures are cruel too.
War is terrible and something to worry about, but a child suffering is terrible too and probably you are more able to help kids abused on your neighborhood than you are to avoid the war in Middle East.
The woman that took this picture, should go to the jail, suffer there in the hands of any evil like her, and someone else should take a pictures of her after the abuse. Probably she doesn’t want to appear in public, naked and crying.
Isabel Valdivia
Argentina
The human being seems to be the only species that doesn’t take the necessary care of it young member. The other ones seem to know that the most important is the preservation of the specie and never damage their own child.
The human being is the only one that abuse of the child for pleasure, money.
Personally, I could never see a child suffering in front of me without trying to help him. Instead of that, this woman took pictures of them before to take the photography; she took away the clothes of those kids. I don’t want to imagine what she did to make them crying on that way. After that, she humiliated them in public and exposed their little bodies in a place saying that that is art.
Yes, I think that woman is cruel (at least) and those persons that helped her to take those pictures are cruel too.
War is terrible and something to worry about, but a child suffering is terrible too and probably you are more able to help kids abused on your neighborhood than you are to avoid the war in Middle East.
The woman that took this picture, should go to the jail, suffer there in the hands of any evil like her, and someone else should take a pictures of her after the abuse. Probably she doesn’t want to appear in public, naked and crying.
Isabel Valdivia
Argentina
Who cares, is it your child that Jill is doing this to- NO! Have you ever taken a lollypop away from a child, and they cried? ABUSE YOU SICK PERSON! What are you thinking? Same difference. Ohhhh nooooo, I am going to try to make a political cry just so people can listen to me. For all of you individuals who this Jill is wrong- get a life. So please tell me you never take a picture of your child cry for any reason? LIARS! Tell me, you have never had a home video of your child crying? LIARS! Well then, we need to contact the people at Americas Funniest Videos for abuse and porn. All of those parents taking videos of their children crying in the baths half naked!!!. And for those who are saying this “Although the children are not sexualized, I consider what she is doing child pornography of the worst kind.” So then, what about the Coppertone Water Babies add? The baby girl is walking around with her top off and a dog pulling down her pants? I do not hear you crying about that!
Victoria
Las Vegas
I am still shocked to see so many Jill Greenberg defenders, and their incredibly poor logic that children cry anyways, so it’s an overreaction.
the difference between catching a picture of a kid, your kid, any kid crying or throwing a fit is that it is one thing to capture a moment such as that, it’s an entirely different thing to instigate it and capture it for your own profit.
I think common sense trumps the jailtime argument, as well as the kids cry anyway, so get over it baloney.
worse still, the work is sophmoric in execution and logic. “kids will suffer in the future by the actions of our gov’t, so let’s torment them today, since MY political point is SOOO groundbreaking”
All right then, never ever again, in your poor hopeless life watch a movie that has a child cry. Directors make children cry on purpose too… FOR MONEY “senibleshoo.” Look at Michelle from “Full House” how did they get her to cry as a child? And wait what… they made a child cry for entertainment purposes? How could those insensible people!
I hardly think these kids suffered. Being a pedophile’s victim is suffering. Having bombs fly over your head while you’re outside playing or in bed sleeping is suffering. Having soldiers break in on you and your family and watching them humuliate your parents is suffering. Children crying over a lollipop… this isn’t suffering. I asure you the children have no hard feelings sense they were given back the lollipops after the photo.
Is it cruel to refuse some milk in the middle of the night because you try to learn your baby to sleep all night long ?
And what if, at the same time, you take a picture of your child crying because he can’t have his milk ?
Lastly : what is the “souvenir” this child will have of it ? Do you remember that your parents were depriving you from milk at night ?
Really; is that so important ? And is it really cruel ?
I’m not so sure.
Etienne
“Jill Greenberg is a Sick Woman Who Should Be Arrested and Charged With Child Abuse”
whoever wrote this is seriously disturbed… or trying to get people to go to that site
the children are actually learning a valuable lesson here: no such thing as a free lollypop
Honestly, are you people daft or what?
I can see that some of you don’t appreciate those photos, okay, but to call it CHILD ABUSE?Pornography? What the hell are you talking about? The child is not going to remember this as an emotional trauma; crying is what children do, it’s part of growing up.
There are so many children who are atually abused, and that’s a lot worse than those photos!!I would rather prefear taken a lollipop away from me than REAL abuse!
Get over it, you all are being overprotective. It’s ok to have your own opinion, but there’s no need to throw accusations of abuse to her head, keep your opinion for yourself.
PS: bikr, good said.
stupid people
I highly doubt that these children experience any real form of trauma or abuse. Taking candy from a baby is not a crime and does nothing to hurt the child now or in the future. These kids aren’t even going to remember this happening, aside from maybe a vague memory of lollipops and a camara. And if you took the time to research it, you’d see that the artist supplied the children with more than enough lollipops after the shot was taken, thus making them happy again. If you think this is abuse, you have some real problems and I suggest getting help.
FLoyd landis took drugs so he lost his yellow jersey.
hahahahahahahahahaha
that will make the kids happy again
oh and if you come to my place i’ll give you something to suck on and then take it away. see who’s crying then
I think people should adress the different facets separately.
First of all, was the making of the photographs harmful for the children or not?
Secondly, is the way these photographs were made immoral or not?
And thirdly, is this art?
1. Were the children harmed?
This is were most comments belong that compare the “technique” (i.e. provoking tears) to the most heinous crimes: abuse, rape, torture, murder, terrorism…
Plz, keep things in perspective.
The children were not tormented, horrified or terrorized. If you say otherwise, you say good parenting is terrorizing your children.
From what I have gathered the children were not harmed at all and I believe most people will agree. Temper tantrums are normal behaviour for 2-3 year olds. If you believe children should not throw tantrums, you should not try parenting. (Please mind I’m not adress the reason here. Throwing a tantrum for not wanting to go to sleep or throwing one for being provoked with the lollipop does not make a difference from the childs point of view). The people that comment on the severity of the captured emotions are probably being misled by the skill of the photographer. A snapshot of an emotional display will only be just that, a SNAPshot. The emotion we interpret in the reallife situation will only be an average… if we even can distinguish the different snapshots at all. That’s why the photographs are so compelling, because it’s our imagination that has to fill the voids right before and after this moment in time.
Being naked is not an issue either for the toddler, whether it be at a studio with a photographer or at a gardenparty with the neighbours.
As for the baby’s consent to cooperate with the photographer, it can’t give it. It can’t consent with the clothes it wears or with food it eats. That’s the parents responsibility. They probably got some form of compensation for it which they can use on care for the child. Or they thought it would be in the baby’s best interest to be part of an art project (who are we to disagree). Anyway, if I were a baby and I would get a lollipop for it, I’d do it too.
2. Is the photographer immoral?
This question is what most comments that question the photographers motives and her course of action, adress:
She is abusing the kids. She is sick…
My opinion is as short as it is simple: She is not harming the children (see first point), therefore she is not abusing them.
This might be a little straightforward, but in my opinion it applies here.
“IF she’s not harming them, she’s not abusing them.”
You have to agree with this statement, otherwise you consider all people who involve children to further their personal goals (mostly financial gain) to be child abusers.
Photographers of children, producers of toys, daycare-centers… all would be child abusers, especially the daycare… they even get to change diapers, the sick pedos… < = note the sarcasm).
So, IF she doesn’t harm them…
That’s point 1 again.
So there IS no difference between a “natural” tantrum provoked by good parenting and an “induced” tantrum provoked by ‘evil’ artists. Not for the child, and that’s the only one that matters. All else are misplaced projections of personal issues.
3. Is this art?
Alas there is no definition of “art” . Art is very subjective. My opinion is, if there is someone who genuinely believes what you do is art, then it is art. It might not be for any other person, though.
To me, Ms. Greenbergs photographs are indeed art. And it’s good art at that, but that’s just me.
PS: if you see pornography or pedophily in these photographs, you should seek help
PPS: after all the exaggerated analogies (taking a lollipop from a child is like torturing a prisoner in Abu Ghraib ????) I’ll give some decent ones:
*Giving a toy to a kitten then taking it away. A good plan is attaching the toy to a rubber string , so you can ‘torture’ your kitten even while your not there.
*Two men are sitting at a bar. They don’t know each other. Suddenly the first man starts rubbing the others leg for a short while then takes a pictures of his face and leaves. The second man might feel embarassed, but harmed? Hardly. Moreover, a month later he probably won’t even recognize the first man when he crosses him at the local Walmart.
This are beautiful and pure pictures. You people don’t seem to understand that pai
pain and distress and all that other shit, is natural and part of life. Btw i am a father of 2 and I would allow a photographer to take those pics, but then again im from belgium and we even allow pictures of naked little children with their parents, wich is absolutly impossible in the US
I agree with you Thomas Hawk! i’d beat her ass if she made my kid cry like that. What kind of person wants to see pictures of half naked kids with their poor little feelings hurt. Kids cry in anger yes, but because they don’t have the mental capacity yet to understand their emotions. These children are really just very simply UPSET. Get a life Jill Greenberg and stay away from my town – PLEASE!
yeah, and don’t you Belgium’s smoke weed all the time too????
Always a big laugh if news from America reaches Belgium. How stupid can you be? Voting for a guy that calls himself the war-president who ends the life of many innocent children but when someone takes away a lollipop of a child …. OH MY GOD NOOOOO!!
Please keep on posting such rubbish so we can keep on laughing…thank you guys!!
WTF?
Aren’t children’s portraits supposed to be happy. Damn, Sears had it wrong the whole friggin time. Somebody get on the phone with those people and let them know ASAP that don’t give the baby the toy to make them smile – just snap away while they are screaming. FUN STUFF HUH? Good God we have a lot of freaks out there! Some of you people need to be on some serious meds – and please try to stay away from children….
You know, they do say that whacky tobacco does tend to make people laugh alot…
Hey, WTF ?!? When did Michael Moore move to Belguim??? Who knew..
Maybe Jill and Andrea Yates should become pen pals…
oh yeah, and GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!
The same folks denouncing Greenberg’s work are the very same people who become completely titillated while watching the thousands of porn video or trashy tely they may view in a year’s time.
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Are we all for the war in the mid-east as well?
Get over yourselves, philistines.
Ms. Greenberg has done a wonderful job in getting the knee-jerk reaction so often sought in the art world. Bravo, Ms. Greenberg.
PS Yes, porn can be fun, it’s ok to watch. Let go of the guilt.
OH, GO BLOW A MULE OR THE END OF A .38 YOU FREAK…
it’s so stupid. Find a job
ah, american conservative logics, suporting israel to kill hundreds of innocent people while convicting “taking away a lolly from a baby”.
I hope, some day, you will all see the insanity in this.
btw: if i was photographed like that as a baby, i would find it very neat, at this moment, that a picture of mine would be a work of art.
ps: Why are so many people here from belgium?? I’m aulso from belgium.
I love airtightchick’s defense of the methods. “movie directors do it, so stop complaining”. As someone who actually works in the industry, I wouldn’t let most directors watch my dog, much less my kid. I also had no idea there were so many experts on child psychology.
I certainly don’t know the capacity for emotional distress for the average child, just mine. And I would never subject her to such indignity.
Has anyone take the time to look at Grennberg’s site, it’s very fitting that her page is called manipulator.com, I guess attentionwhore.com, and sociopathic-egomaniac.com were taken!
Blah, blah, blah. So much about nothing. So now “Thomas Hawk” is somebody for a day. Tomorrow it will be some other hack.
Natural tears and anger?? I don’t have a problem with that. Intentional tears for the name of art, NO!! What parent would be cruel enough to allow someone to intentionally inflict emotional distress on a child?? Some people should not be allowed to breed.
The fact that they see nothing wrong in what they have done just goes to show how they have no right be parents. I would NEVER make my daughter cry on purpose. I just heard this “women” whine away on BBC Newspod for july 27th and she sounded like a complete sicko.
I suppose it’s all a question of professional ethics, really. Strange, isn’t it, how there are strict professional guidelines whenever serious researchers wish to test reactions on humans, and normally also on animals, but that there is so similar compunction for many so-called artists. Medical scientists need to jump through a thousand ethical hoops and test protocol guidelines before they may test anything on humans in order to record whatever reactions they are looking for. The same also holds for the psychological sciences. If these professionals can – and must – do it, then why not also so-called artists and other pseudo scientists who continually feel driven to imparting their unique insights on the rest of us?
Although the babies will probably suffer no lasting negative effects from their questionable experiences with Ms. Greenberg, the question is who reviewed the objectives, methodology of the shoot, ethical guidelines, etc, etc, before the shoot? Ms. Greenberg and/or the anxious mothers of the kids who will feature in some “grand exhibition” that will make them famous by the age of three? Probably no one, of course.
Like the babies, lab animals also don’t have any say in the matter of how they are used in the lab. However, it would seem that even lab animals are afforded more professional consideration than babies do at the hands of some artists.
I somehow doubt that taking a lollipop of children is worth putting someone to jail for. That’s like saying that shops giving away free samples are supporting child abuse, by your logic.
These session’s can’t have lasted long as it is very tedious to set up a photography studio. Her lighting used is fantastic and consistent, which would be too difficult to do many times over.
Parental permission would be needed along with a legal chaperone over 18 years of age. The photos have been published many times over without complaint.
The children aren’t sexually portrayed at all, the photos are all portraits.
If taking candy from a baby is all it took for her to get these shots, good on her.
scopa de più fijo…
This woman should be in jail for mentally absuing those children in order to further her leftist agenda. She smugly takes swipes at the current President’s administration – as a Marine who’s deployed twice in the last two years, once to Iraq and once to the Philippines I can tell you I never took candy away from any kids, so to Jill Greenberg – F U
So, Bush is actually murdering actual children in Iraq, and this is what we’re worried about? Priorities, people…
No wonder Art is dead.
Let me say that babies cry all the time. In movies, if a script calls for a baby to cry they use similar techniques to the one Jill Greenberg used. The lollipop was taken away for TWENTY seconds, and then quickly replaced. Child abuse? How sick can Mr. Hawk be to condemn Jill to be arrested? If you want to help actual abused children, then search the web for how you can help, not worry about baby models crying,its the least mine.
This is freaking mind numbing. A bunch of whiny snivelly parents alledging abuse because a child cried when candy was taken away? Total Pathos! Sure it was done in the name of art but I suspect the other method of getting a child by shooting the child in the foot or arm in a war zone or a child watching as their parent is murdered and a press photographer snaps a shot is OK? Get friggin over it people! I would bet a dollar every parent who here has asserted abuse does the same kind of thing on a daily basis as part of life and not once is that considered abuse! Ever caught your child chewing on a marker pen or crayon or god forbid a piece of candy they were not supposed to have? What was the result of your abusive tendencies then when you took away the item to protect the child, oh great and worldly child abuse conspirators?
If you can honestly say you would NEVER take away something a child has that they should not have, then I mourn for your children and I fear for our society. Who was it in the thread who said they would beat Jill if she did that to their child? Jesus H how freakin stupid is that little rant? Can’t have an upset child but beating someone because thay took candy from a baby? Should I presume the beating would take place in front of the child too? That is about as moronic a statement and situation as has been read on the web this week I think. Smells like a steaming pile of half-baked hypocritical idiocy to me.
Wanna take care of some abuse? Go find a child whose parents burn the baby with a cigarette because the colic hurts and the baby screams incessantly to let you know in the only way possible. Rant about that!
Go find a child whose parents spend their evening in a bar while the child screams outside in the backset of the car because he or she is laying hungry almost naked and cold in a day old diaper with chronic diaper rash in a locked up car in the parking lot of the bar, while Mom and or dad get loaded and ready to beat the baby senselss in a drunken rage on the way home. Get angry as you watch the other morons walk by the car outside on their way home, looking disgusted that someone would do that to a defenseless child, the same ones that looked equally disgusted as they walked in to the bar yet still did nothing to help…. And you who scream abuse are worried about the tears as a result of a piece of candy being taken away.. Pffft! Exageration? Not likely! Both are news stories that happened in the same candy-child abusing country you live in the last year. Like I said, ‘Idiocy’.
If only taking away the candy was the worst thing we or _you_ as parents will do to a child in their lifetimes… Will you be the same abusive parents who take away the Meth, X, Heroin or Bud when they are 12 to see that tantrum ensues then?
Phil
I wonder how eager some of you would be to champion Ms. Greenberg’s artistic rights if she had instead provoked and abused monkeys to get them to howl and scream for the sake of her “art.” Based on this discussion, it seems there are numerous people who have compassion to spare for animals, but have no sense of empathy for members of their own species.
“If you can honestly say you would NEVER take away something a child has that they should not have, then I mourn for your children and I fear for our society. Who was it in the thread who said they would beat Jill if she did that to their child? Jesus H how freakin stupid is that little rant? Can’t have an upset child but beating someone because thay took candy from a baby? Should I presume the beating would take place in front of the child too? That is about as moronic a statement and situation as has been read on the web this week I think. Smells like a steaming pile of half-baked hypocritical idiocy to me”
Phil you jackass. Take the phrase ‘candy from a baby’ out of the equation because it just seems too difficult for you to get your head around.
Boil it down to this. Woman deliberately makes kids cry to take a picture.
That’s the issue. Lollipops and ‘candy from a baby’ and ‘kids cry all the time!’ are non-sequitors.
Is it ethically correct to deliberately (not because they are eating something they shouldn’t be, not because it’s bedtime, not because they’ve been bad….etc.) make a child cry so you can get a good photo?
I wonder how eager some of you would be to champion Ms. Greenberg’s artistic rights if she had instead provoked and abused monkeys to get them to howl and scream for the sake of her “art.”
Wow Anon – that is a really good point. How funny (sick) is it that our society has evolved to such a progressive state where atagonism of monkeys for art would be condemned where as antagonism of children for art is to be applauded!
But wait – maybe she could abuse baby monkeys because then they would never remember the abuse! No harm no foul!
For any of you interested in Jill Greenberg’s work, I’m selling one of her monkey portraits on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Worried-from-Jill-Greenbergs-Monkey-Series_W0QQitemZ160013039742QQihZ006QQcategoryZ66465QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
You know, back in Victorian England they used to send up orphan boys up chimneys to sweep them — and if they didn’t fit, they shoved them up there until their legs were broken. I guess you could say that was necessary to sweep the chimneys, but I doubt the chimney boys would agree. What this artist is doing, who knows what kind of effect it will have on the kids later? I remember instances of being bullied when I was that age. I just never told anyone about it, but I thought about it for years.
Debate Worse than Offense?
First off, I personally feel offended by what that woman is doing. Ditto for the children’s parents. Yes, kids have to take much worse than that from siblings or bullies in school all the time. But that doesn’t justify inflicting more of the same on them. The obvious profit motive makes the whole thing that much more distasteful.
That said, I find that the vast majority of comments in the discussion offend me far more, for their lack of intellectual honesty.
There are Jill’s detractors who label her acts as “serious child abuse” and draw parallels with Abu Ghraib. (Note: merely labelling something as “X” doesn’t mean it is X. If you cannot substantiate your claim, you’re just spouting off slogans.) IMHO, such argumentation (and I use the word loosely) just serves to enrage — and incidentally weaken the very argument.
Then there are Jill’s defenders who equally point to “real child abuse” and Abu Ghraib, arguing that with so much worse stuff happening in the world, clearly what Jill is doing is fine. Besides, it’s art and a (worthy) political statement against the current administration. Well, for almost any offense I might commit, I can always point to worse things in the world. That argument, however, does not exactly hold water as a defense; not in the legal system, nor in my moral system. Worse, it is just as intellectually lazy as the detractor’s “indictment by labelling” approach.
Whatever happened to having a rational discussion? What about that vaunted capability of Home Sapiens of thinking?
Instead, in true mass-media manner, we get overwrought expressions of emotions and gushes of popular buzzwords. (And I am afraid I have to include Thomas’s original comment in this criticism, despite the fact that I consider myself an admirer of his.)
– alex
Have you been doing any thinking today?
No-one can defend what this “artist” and the kid’s parents have done — cause unnecessary suffering. Now child abuse is being tolerated not only behind locked doors, but out in the open and labeled as “art.” None of these kids had a choice in this whole thing. We are supposed to protect kids from as much harm and evil as possible, and this woman has done the opposite. She regards these kids as mere objects to use in her “political” statement. She is sick, in my opinion.
Look…
I really don’t understand you people who are against this beautiful art?
Everyday you are confronted with hundreds of images in the print and film in the advertisement area. You see little kids smiling etc. Here Jill is clear the way she works, and she is clean.
Where as in the advertising industry, and I know what I talk about, some kids stand there for hours, forced to smile, bribed by their parents to do so, in exchange for some toy or future gift, and this in the name of what, well, in the name of stinkink fat rich liar multinationals, and frustated wanna be models, but because of their unfulfilled dream to become a model, force there kids into it.
I say, carry on Jill Greenberg, Continue your amazing work, at least this is art and not a vending trick for a multinational. And the way you work with kids is absolutely fine, not as the photographic “fake” smiling ad-campaigns
E W Brussels
Wow! People need to grow up. SO what if she took lollipops of them so that they could cry. Did you prefer her to beat them in a bloody pulp instead? It is not abuse. Look the word up. Mind your own damn business.
A great look at American brats. I’m referring to you and the parents who are crying behind the scenes.
A great look at American brats. I’m referring to you and the parents who are crying behind the scenes.
Well, considering the fact that we do not beat the hell out of another three year old who takes away our child’s lollipop, I think some of you should lighten up. Terms like “abuse” and “pornography” should be reserved for the ACTUAL horrors that truly physically, emotionally and psychologically destroy our children. Haven’t any of you parents taken away a pilfered cookie to the tune of your own child’s tears? I’ll bet no one called child services!
Phil Lewis ~ You’re my hero! Wish I’d read your post before I posted…now I feel redundant…although it all seems to be worth repeating.
The most inane part of this art is that it is untruthful. These kids are crying because someone gave them something and then took it away, they are not crying about politics. How dumb is this art? Let me go and give a dog a bone with meat, then take it away, take a picture of his snarl and caption it “Big Oil.” These pictures should be captioned “Teased because ideology is photog’s religion.” That being said, it doesn’t sit well with me, in my gut, to provoke children like this for your desired response. I wouldn’t say it’s abuse, just mean. Kids tease kids because they don’t know any better. Parents take things away because they are bad for kids, like sweets or something dangerous. You can’t compare. As an adult the photog should know better. But hey, when political ideology is your religion… anything goes.
Please pick a name, any name will do
“Anonymous said…
For any of you interested in Jill Greenberg’s work, I’m selling one of her monkey portraits on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Worried-from-Jill-Greenbergs-Monkey-Series_W0QQitemZ160013039742QQihZ006QQcategoryZ66465QQtcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem“
Look at that monkey’s eyes. After finding out more about Jill Greenberg, it really does make you wonder what he is looking at. Is that the first grimace of fear in his eyes? Just a thought.
Dear Jill Greenberg,
I think you are a sick person who should be locked up in a mental institution with the keys attached to a stone and thrown off the golden gate.
You are giving the opportunity to other artist to take an entire family and shoot their parents and take pictures of the children.
Maybe that might evoke a more emotional response from the children. i.e. the shock and the sadness of watching their Mums and Dads dying right in front of their eyes.
My name is Vasilis Sfakianakis, and I live in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
My e-mail address is freshprinceofamsterdam@hotmail.com
Abuse? No. Ethically questionable? Probably. But definitely it in poor taste. With everything going on in the world, the artist found it necesary to make kids cry? Couldn’t find enough sadness in the world?
This is FAR, FAR from Child Abuse. Obviously you have no idea what child abuse is. She didn’t hit the kids or smack them, she took their lolipop away. Do you have kids? It doesn’t seem like it. Children will cry for any number of reasons. My daughter cried today when I made her stop trying to stick her fingers in an electrical socket…does that make me a child abuser?
Kids need to learn lessons earlier on, nothing is permanent, not even their lolipop. They can’t always have what they want when the want it. If nothing else, Jill Greenberg helped them learn a very good lesson early on. She did not endanger these kids in any way. Their parents were with them, she gave the lolipop right back and most of all, and I will repeat this, she did not endanger or hurt them.
You should really think about your comments before posting them, did you ever hear of the term slander?
And for the record, I think her idea is brillant and I feel like that every day I watch the news and see the incredible mess George Bush has gotten not only this country, but this world into. He is the one who should be arrested and charged, not Jill Greenberg!
i agree with the previous poster. we are so quick to cry “abuse” these days, that’s why many children act like little monsters- because their parents are afraid to discipline them for fear of being called a “child abuser.” my daughter is 3 and cries for all sorts of weird reasons. at dinner, i told her to stop putting peas in her nose and she cried. better call social services on me! i made my child cry! get over it.
I am sure that the people that feel she is a child abuser also feel that it is against human rights to have a sex offender’s list or that children should never be spanked at any expense and then their children will grow up disrespecting their parents. Right? Come on people. The parents were ok with it. It’s not your child. It’s not porn. Get over yourselves!!!!
Oh my. Look at this. Children. Crying. Over candy. This is not abuse! Abuse is dilibraty harming a child. These verbs mean to treat wrongfully or harmfully. Abuse applies to injurious or improper treatment: “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us” (Aldo Leopold). -found from dictionary.com
therefore a child crying over candy. is not abuse. listen to what you have to say! this is disturbing that ANYONE would care enough to cause Jill Greenburg all this trouble. Please. dont you have anything better to do! pathetic humans.
god. this just makes me sad. i hate that many people would ignore everything else. and complain about this. WOULD YOU STOP WORRYING ABOUT THIS! LOOK AT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THIS EARTH! GLOBAL WARMING! animals are dying because of our carelessness! the earth is being DESTROYED right in front of our eyes! AND THE WAR! my god. please consider what your thinking.
personally i find this quite halirious. amusing some may call it. you idiotic fools. humans.
haha.
this world today…
Oh, for God’s sake…you make a big to-do about losing a lollipop for a minute….where is the outrage about the insane abuse and neglect so many American kids have to endure every day? I teach kids whose dad is in prison and mom is a prostitute; these kids run the city streets day and night with no one to love them. Get a grip over a lollipop and worry about things that really matter!
His investigation into the effects of violence involved the use of a film of a plastic doll which was punched, kicked and generally maltreated. In the presence of the actual plastic doll, the young children who had the film displayed much greater aggression towards it than those who had not seen the film; Bandura. This is an experiment where anger was envoked?
The study tracked the impact of television on violence among more than 700 young people over 17 years.
For Years Psychologists have done experiments to set of anger, joy, love, attchment and many more feelings in the youth of our cultures; furthermore, the majority has done it with the concent of the parents like Jill Greenberg did. She took a lollipop away, a superfical piece of candy; however, the above experiments intently made the children angry and saw if it carried over to others. I guess the real question here is are we worried about the out come or the act. Moreover, how many science journals do you read? Is Jill Greenberg, in question because here art was so public?
In my home town the school millage gets voted down every year (as in many other counties), perhaps so they can buy an expensive photo of a baby to hang in their living room. So i guess we care more about a baby crying over a lollipop that they lost for a moment than making sure they have a proper education. I could go on about so many other things that are more worth our worry than that of an artist captuing a moment of life (even the bad is good , because with out it there wold be now good there just would be); after all, I am sure she could have made them cry in many other ways.
In closing the parents were there the gaudian for the well being of the child! In other words you pull the usual scapegoat on the one who is not at falt. If you feel wrong was done than it is each and every parent that brought their child there that should be charged with child abuse. The child could follow the chain of events that made them cry its to bad you can’t!
I do not understand how some people can think Jill Greenberg should be arrested for child abuse for taking a lollipop away. This arrest would never go anywhere! It does not surprise me, however, in this day and age how some people think.
I personally do not think it is that big of a deal…
all you folks that consider this child pornography; are you perhaps guilty of something? hmmm………
“The worst kind of child pornography”, hey? You’re right. The worst kind of child pornography isn’t at all the kind that involves an adult raping a child in dozens of horrible ways while a cameraman records the whole thing so that other adult perverts can masturbate to it. Nope, the worst kind of child pornography is the kind that involves… taking a kid’s lollipop away. Yeah, having their candy taken away is totally worse than being raped. Glad you picked up on that one.
Did all of you that are so upset about these photos completely miss that the same type of methods are used to make children cry for TV commercials, shows and movies??? Are you going to protest that too? Or does the tube brainwash you too much to be able to recognize and accept that? And what about all the “funny home video” TV programs that show children crying, falling down, throwing temper tantrums, etc. for our entertainment – should they be pulled off the air? Should the parents that send in these video tapes be ostracized as well?
Come on people, there are much worse things in this world that you could be putting your time and energy into trying to stop.
Innocent children are being killed in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo and other parts of Africa by their own leaders and people. Don’t alway blame the Bush Administration…remember the outrage the world had before when Clinton was in office and all the children being killed in Somalia, China, etc. So please explain how Bush did that and now its different because you disagree. Question to all of you defending this “artist”….if a toy was taken away from your child by a teacher in nursery school — how many of you would be screaming that the teacher is a bully and abusive.
Seriously how many children cry the FIRST time the lollypop is taken away? Did it take several takes? My children did not cry when a lollypop was taken away.
Agree with previous poster regarding the contrast — if this was a kitten or puppy, EVERYONE would be outraged. Just because you like her message, do not justify the means to get her point across. Did she use her own children (bet she wouldn’t dream of doing that to her own)? Also, all of you that state that you child was one of these children, that there is no long term effects…how do you know, let’s check a few years down the road.
Man are my kids going to eat your kids alive in the real world. Abuse? What a pampered existence your kids must lead.
Those are beautiful photographs. If I was a grownup, I would love to have such a picture of me from when I was little. This reaction is absurd. Babies cry. To consider that these photographs made you think so hard about anything only speaks to their merit as art.
the irony… Your own website shows ads with babies crying.
You heartless sick human!
I agree with ‘bikr’… get something better to do.
I think that images are quite convincing… and I never thought about Jill being an abuser… It’s admirable what she did, whether you like it or not.
Would I put my child through it? I don’t think so… but she didn’t force anyone, did she?
I am close to become a father and ironically, one of the things that I fear is that my kids will, at some point, ask me why did I bring them to this world… filled with rage, filled with social stupidity, filled with war, with square-minded and obtuse people… Jill’s essay showed me that… and got me to think, but I would never say she’s ‘demented’ or irrational. Edgy? yes, but please, give me a break… now you want to sue her?
Maybe she’ll only have to pay for counseling in a few years for the so-called HUGE trauma an distress that these kids went through because of their lollipop.
C’mon people… get real! This kind of square-minded thinking is the one that gets entire countries into wars.
Suck it up… and if you don’t like the exhibit, then don’t go… but leave it alone!!!
And Thomas, I am sure you already got your 15 minutes (or lines) of fame.
Yuk!
WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?!
Seriously, though, your hyperbolic statements detract from the point you’re making. I personally don’t care for her method, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s child pornography, or sadistic.
Sweet Jesus, is everyone still banging on about this?
I believe this is what is known as ‘the oxygen of publicity’ – anyone who disapproves of Ms. Greenberg’s art would be best advised to keep their prattlings to themselves.
Do you think that children in Lebanon are crying because somebody has taken their lollipop away ?
Sincerely, I don’t know who is sick here !
You bloggers are fucking dipshits. Slow news day?
Frau Greenberg ist krank und sollte sich von einem Pyschiater untersuchen lassen. Wer behauptet die “schreienden Kinder seien Kunst kann nicht richtig ticken. Kinder sind unsere Zukunft und man darf sie nicht mißbrauchen,- auch
nicht für Pseudo-Kunst
I really understand that people are annoyed, when they see how children were made cry. And I also know that it is horrible to know that there are thousands of other children in the world crying every day, because of much more worse reasons. But you have to see that she is a photographer and that she is doning NOTHING wrong. She didn’t do anything their parents didn’t want to or didn’t allowed her to do. And tell me: Could she have been using adults as well? Could she have given them 100$ and then take them back? NO, she couldn’t. Never ever in your whole life, you, as an adult person, will show these honest emotions and this honest pain. You would feel ashamed and embarrest to let other people see what you are feeling! But children don’t care. The don’t even think about being photographed. Their only thought belongs to the lost lollipop! And on top of that, they all got their lolli back after a couple of minutes.
I don’t think that we should see these picutures as critic as lots of people are doning now. It is art, as well as photographing homeless people is art. But do they say anything about that? Why can we show people without a home (which is more worse then a child without a lolli), but children crying?
Have you ever seen the pictures in an artistic way? Have you seen how she put the light on the children, or in which way she photographed them? Have you just spent a second and watched in which pose she took pictures of these pure and totaly honest emotions? If not, then you really should think about saying something criticall about an artist, if you really aren’t interestet in the arts!
And at least the comment of Sheesh:
The parents did know what was going on. Even they took the lolli out of the hands of their kids.
Aren’t we all giving an opinion based on just a blurb? Couldn’t there be further reasons we may not know about?
Case in point: Suppose the method is looking for parents whose children are unusually tantrum-happy (which minimizes completely the possible after-effects anyone might think could happen), then find a behaviour the child happens to do frequently which is frowned upon by the parents (say, taking things without asking for them) and the process is repeated. You put a kid in a room and put a table with lollipops barely reachable. You also tell the child to NOT grab the lollipops and you grab one yourself and leave.
The child will probably grab one, after which you have a perfectly valid excuse for going in and taking the lollipop back. You take the picture but the action serves to try and teach the kid not to do something (by provoking the incorrect behaviour and correcting it at the moment), you just happen to take a picture of something you deal with every day any way.
Children will grow to be a very annoying bunch of people if every thing that makes them cry is treated as abuse, really. They’re overprotected as it is and grow without the proper mental kit to understand concepts as simple as authority, ownership and tolerance.
Heres a thought guys, Rant about some real abuse a change and stop sh!te like this from happening…
http://www.comcast.net/news/national/index.jsp?cat=DOMESTIC&fn;=/2006/08/03/447988.html&cvqh;=itn_starvinggirl
Summary:
Florida – Woman and Partner arrested for starving and abusing a child in their care. The child was 9 years old and weighed 42 pounds, was found locked up and bound hands behind her back all day in a dirty DIAPER… Read the story.
Weep be shocked by this, then do something other than whine pointlessly instead of sitting distantly snivelling that some candy taken was away from a well cared for kid who is now permanently traumatized for life (yeah right!! NOT!). Might I suggest you get off your collective self absorbed arses and make a difference doing something to actually stop this REAL ABUSE from happening instead of carrying on about a triviality which experts probably all agree has already been forgetten about by the child..
Phil
You people are making such a big deal out of these photos. The woman is trying to do her work and takin pictures of something so natural and common as the cry of a child is her medium. She is mearly taking advantage of the ability of a child to express his/her emotions, something that we as adult obviously cannot express with ease, otherwise her subjects would be something else … There is truth in a child that cannot evolve and i feel that she captured this truth very vividly and strongly enough to evoke these 346 comments.
Taking a lollipop away and giving it back is not going harm a child’s’ developmental stages, it is certainly something that we cannot do anything about since these photographs were already taken and I’m more than sure that this “outrageous” crimes committed on these innocent children are the last thing in their minds right now. Let the woman do her work and reap her benefits, we would all want the same if we were in her shoes. She is trying to show us the truth in her own way.
There are bigger issues in the world that deserve these spirited comments, lets focus on them.
I am one of these childrens’ parents and I am here to tell you that my daughter was in no way abused! I was present and only 3 feet away for the entire photo shoot which lasted only minutes! My daughter looks at the photo of herself now and says, “I cried cause they took my lollipop away, but I got it back”, and then she laughs! I showed her her picture again tonight and she said, “I like being in the pictures”, I asked her if she even likes to be in the pictures when she is crying, and she said, “yes mama, let’s go make a cake now!” She has much more important things to think about and she’s not even 3, why don’t you!?!
Maccarthysm is coming back !
Your words are typical of the “politically correct” thought of your american “new order”.
You are hardly worried by the thousands of deaths that your government’s policy causes everywhere in the world.
People like you are always much more indignant by a kind of photography that certainly, I would not do myself, but which does not have anything really shocking.
But you are not much indignant either by the tears of all these children starving, wounded, orphans, nor by those who you directly kill or let die in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and now in Lebanon.
All these children do not hurt your quiet conscience, because they are only far away statistics. They also help you making “good money”. (Who, in order to protect his financial and strategical interests, gave money and weapons to Saddam to fight against Iran, and to the talibans to fight against the USSR ?)
Now, how many people – and among them your young guys – will pay with their life for these mistakes ?
“Irrespective of her statement as an artist this is evil” Who gave you the right to decree where are good and evil ?
Do you remember what happened in the past with all those who also decided who and what was good and bad ? Books are burned first, later their authors.
What do you explain to your four children, when they see at the news all these children crying or dying all over the planet, because your government decided that their country was on the “evil side” of the world ?
“Sick woman” ? When will you re-open stalinian psychiatric hospitals ?
“Should be arrested and charged” Is it your conception of freedom ?
Americans are always prone to say that their country has always been fighting for freedom.
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Congo, Vietnam, Iran, Irak, Afghanistan, Palestine, and several tens of countries know what “american freedom” exactly means…
My only wish is that there will be always people to protest against the intellectual and cultural dictatorship which increasingly settles like a cancer in your America.
I think that another “axis of evil” passes through your sick brains.
Sadly, the USA are hated a bit more each day somewhere in the world, and that pains me deeply, because I liked this country as it was formerly, despite all Hoover, MacCarthy, Nixon, Wolfowitz or Rumsfeld, and all these brilliant brains who decide where is evil…
And it always begins with words like yours.
Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.
I have mixed feelings on this situation. I believe that it was not right for Greenberg to disrupt these children and use them, possibly just as a way to get attention. However, i dont think Greenberg’s intentions where bad. Childrens tears are a wonderful thing to capture in a photograph but similarily as somebody else said, you can only truly see the beauty of that when it is not forced. Also, why isnt it that she had to take of the childrens clothes? I dont neccesarily think that was needed. The photographs are beautiful, however, i think she needed to use diffrent methods to capture a more pure beauty.
I have mixed feelings on this situation. I believe that it was not right for Greenberg to disrupt these children and use them, possibly just as a way to get attention. However, i dont think Greenberg’s intentions where bad. Childrens tears are a wonderful thing to capture in a photograph but similarily as somebody else said, you can only truly see the beauty of that when it is not forced. Also, why isnt it that she had to take of the childrens clothes? I dont neccesarily think that was needed. The photographs are beautiful, however, i think she needed to use diffrent methods to capture a more pure beauty.
Jill Greenberg making little kids cry adds nothing positive to the world. Just more needless suffering. She is part of the problem, and needs to be confronted about that.
I don’t see where this blog offers anything positive to the world. What’s your point?
Hey, that’s plain genuine silly! I appreciate that!
I’d never heard of Jill Greenburg until thanks to your site I went and visited http://www.manipulator.com. I then became a fan of hers once I realized I was already familiar with her work but had never bothered to find out the photographer’s name.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the “End Times” series until I showed it to my almost-4-year-old daughter. I asked her — “why do you think these kids are crying?” She said “They took their sucker away.” She then got sick of looking at the crabby kids and wanted to check out the apes and monkeys series.
Have a nice day.
There are five bazillion photos on Flickr of which yours are a set of one. The proliferation of digital media has made me think about what makes good photography today. When Ansel Adams was taking photos, Flickr and digital photography didn’t exist. And now, really, what makes a great photo when everyone’s taking the same photos over and over and over again. Like you?
I think what makes a great photo, as what makes great art, whether you like it or not, is if the artist broke the current standard of what’s traditionally seen in the medium. For example, did the artist break the mold and do something new?
Did this photographer break the mold? She sure as heck did. Did she do something new? She sure as heck did. Do her photos look anything like the standard fare you’d find anywhere? Especially on flickr? They sure as heck don’t. Are her photos challenging people? Are her photos making people talk and think? Are they bringing up uncomfortable emotion? They sure as heck are.
These are the criteria which goes into the hitory of making good art vs a bunch of photos you’d find on Flickr. Think of Basquiat in painting. His paintings broke the mold. They made people uncomfortable. They were too “tribal,” ie, too black. Or Piss Christ. Anyone ever put a crucifx in a jar of piss before? Nope. Made people uncomfortable? Yes.
The bottom line is that everyone and anyone can take photos now and take good ones too. The technology is there. What’s going to stand the test of time, as with all good art, are the the pieces we find that are so different and so challenging that they stand out head and shoulders above the rest. This is the situation with the crying baby photos. Like it or not.
To the “mom” of the child, grow up kid, anyone who read any article relating to this story has seen your exact words from Greenberg’s mouth. Either your a lousy mother or a lousy liar. Which is it.
ANd to bloggers that find this work original? Take some art history, or better still google contemporary photographers and learn just how trite and pedestrian this harpee’s work is.
Jill’s a desperate, woman, with loose ethics and no backbone trying to get attention. She got her weasel tail caught in the door to credibility, go shoot some target spreads and leave the art to the artists.
She stripped the children’s clothes off, ripped their candy away, then captured their outrage and vulnerability. . . this is beyond manipulation, it is sadistic exploitation for financial gain. I hope she dies a pauper with someone photographing her distress and shame.
Nothing is more pure than the anguish of myself. Pictures of children crying against me capture raw emotion: sputtering rage and profound loss. In many ways I’ve become desensitized to disturbing images. But the honesty of a child’s feelings is undeniable and it draws you in to the photographer.
Surely because kids experience the kind of powerful emotions that we, as admen, have suppressed in ourselves.
The children I photographed were harmed emotionally (in the usually way). And as a mother I am quite aware of how easily toddlers can be manipulated. Storm of grief sweep across their features, a joyful smile can dissolve into a grimace of dispair, when they are at my mercy. The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset. I ignored the helplessness and anger he felt because I was thinking of my self-indulgent selfishness……As a parent of all this I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for the mistakes I’m making. Their pain is a précis of what has become of me.
Jill G.
“Germanfather” said in English:
Mrs.Greenberg is a sick woman and should be examined by a psychiatrist. Anybody who says a screaming child has to do with art has a bee in his bonnet.
Children are our future. You are not allowed to abuse them – not neither for pretented art.
Yes, these images do take your breath away and as a mother I feel incredibly uncomfortable when I see a child in distress. But isn’t that the point? This is art and art should provoke an emotional response. From what I have read, the children certainly weren’t abused, although their environment was obviously manipulated to get a response. That’s not exactly a new concept in the studio, nor would it have created any short or long-term damage.
The emotions of a child aren’t one dimensional and the photographer has captured this. The fact that we feel uncomforable about seeing children upset is surely a good thing and shows that we haven’t become completely desensitised.
Children cry 10 times a day, make it 20 or even 30 for some. I don’t see ANYTHING wrong with these photographs. I think they are beautiful and they capture not only expressions of emotions but also naive reality of young life that all of us share.
It is a crying shame that all the toddlers which cried out against Jill Greenberg are still mocked.
Toddlers do not cry for no reason. Even babies do not cry for no reason. Ask an educationalist, or a nurse, or a psychologist.
“As a mother” Mrs. Greenberg is a nervous wrack because her kids keep crying a hundred times a day.
She’s been hardened to the cries of her kids, like many parents.
She ignored the cries to protect herself and changed the cries into something with a positive meaning.
As a parent I can understand her, but you must not follow her “shining” example, not as a photograph, not as a nurse, not as a teacher…..
As a mother of 2 grown up children the photos that Jill Greenberg took of the crying children really took me back, to when my 2 were small. They would pull faces like that over the smallest things, to listen to them you would think that it was the end of the world. A couple of seconds or minutes later they would be laughing and whatever had caused the initail distress would be forgotten about. The photos were digitally altered to exaggerate the tears ‘to make every wrinkle deeper and more dramatic, which makes them more upset looking’ The parents were the ones who took away the lollipops to cause the reactions, click click photo taken, lollipop given back. How stupid to say that she is a child abuser. I was sexually abused for years by my father, I wish that the only bad thing that happened in my life was having a lollipop taken away from me for a brief time. Can you remember every time you cried as a child? can you remember why? Of course not, the children will be reminded of the day they had their lollipop taken away but only because it was made into art. I have photo’s of my children where one is crying the other is not they can not remember why and neither can I. Megan, one of the children in the photo’s went to the opening she goes “You took my lollipop away!” then she is asked “Yes and then what happened?” she says “I got it back” and laughs !!!!!! I believe that Jill’s series was meant to be a commentary on the Bush administration, i’m sorry Jill but what I got was a flash back to my childrens past and found my self smiling. A strange reaction to crying babies you might think, but when my children were that small I could scoop them up in my arms and give them a big kiss and a cuddle and make everything better. Today my ‘little boy’ is 6 feet tall and weighs over 19 stones so I have no chance of so easily making everything alright !!!!
Jill Greenberg is sick, she is sick and tired of thinking about the reasons why her daughter and other children cry a hundred times a day. My daughter (3) fortunately cries very rarely.
There is every reason to believe that children weep, bawl, whimper and scream with reason and that they have every reason to do it: stimulus satiation, neglect, anxiety, grief…
“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”.
And she shot her!
You have to see with your heart, not with your camera, Jill.
Jill Greenberg is sick, she is sick and tired of thinking about the reasons why her daughter and other children cry a hundred times a day. My daughter (3) fortunately cries very rarely.
There is every reason to believe that children weep, bawl, whimper and scream with reason and that they have every reason to do it: stimulus satiation, neglect, anxiety, grief…
“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”.
And she shot her!
You have to see with your heart, not with your camera, Jill.
Abuse is in the mind of allienated people when it comes to these photographies. How can images of a child expressing emotions be so disturbing? Can’t you see all the misinterpretation is just in your mind? Can’t you see they are just kids crying for a lollypop? Why kids showing the chest can be so humiliating and abusive to you? And the photographer’s translation for those emotions were political. People that interpretated this pictures as sexual, abusive, or whatever should have their minds checked, because they are serious threats to their community. People like that mirrored their own sickness on those images, this is something simple to explain by the most narrow minded psicanalist.
What’s more disturbing to you? Images of children crying or being sexually abused as we see now on movies? They call that art, real life, and no one complains.
What the hell is going on with this world?
How about this. Is it ok for us to take photos of prisoners in Abu Ghraib with them in distress as long as we don’t harm them physically? What about dignity?
What the hell are you talking about? Since when taking a lollypop froma child can be compared to sexual and phisical distress like the prisioners from Abu Ghraib have been through???
Man, you are the sick one here.
Jill Greenberg is sick, she is sick and tired of thinking about the reasons why her daughter and other children cry a hundred times a day.
If your kid doesn’t cry, maybe she/he must also have a problem with expressing emotions.
A child needs to learn with loss, they need to learn when they are defeated, and they cannot have everything they want at all times. Have you ever wondered what your children is learning? You are givin all the attention, all the material goods, what is going to happen to this child when she/he grows old?
How many times we take something away from the kids and they scream their heads off, but we are unable of capturing that moment, just because we think it’s so trivial?
Why so much rage for this woman that made the trivial as a piece of art?
Envy.
for crying out loud. children cry almost every hour of the day there is absolutely no way that having a lolly taken away is going to inflict any lasting damage and i think its sad and pathetic anyone who thinks otherwise. the issue is probably with you not the artist. i think the pictures are really beautiful and it seems that the parents of the children who were there with them have no arguments so who is anyone else to say it is wrong.
You are a sick fascist who should be arrested and charged with fascism apology.
–
Massimiliano
Charlie Owens said
Here are the quotes by Mrs. Greenberg in the article of American photo I found to be disturbing, and why…
“Maybe getting kids to cry isn’t the nicest thing to do, but I’m not causing anyone permanent psychological damage.”
My wife is a child psychologist with a specialization in child development, and I have learned from her some of the most formative years of a childs life are between the ages of 1-6. Does Mrs. Greenberg have the expertise to know whether or not she is crossing a boundary with these children? Nothing in her official website bio indicates she does.
“Kid models aren’t very expensive — not as expensive as monkeys, for example.”
It seems to me it boils down to maximizing profit for Mrs. Greenberg, regardless of the consequences or moral obligations she has to her subjects. I don’t believe it’s right to provoke animals in this manner, much less children, for the sake of making a buck. This dehumanizing of the children — making them merely a commodity — is sickening.
“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.”
Mrs. Greenberg, your child was not crying for no reason. She was crying because you put her in a position where she felt unsafe. This hit a particular nerve for me. We have professional pictures (by Karen Goforth) of our two children at six months old sitting on a turtle stool built by my grandfather. The stool is not wobbly — it sits about three inches high, has a very wide base and therefore a low center of gravity.
Both children had learned to sit up unaided for 1-2 weeks before the pics were taken, so were naturally still a bit wobbly themselves at the time the pictures were taken. Because of this, I was mere inches away during the session, just out of camera range or within the periphery of the frame edges. The minute my children became the least bit distressed or started to sway a little bit I scooped them up and ended the session. Granted, my goals were very different from Mrs. Greenberg — we wanted happy, smiling pictures.
I can’t imagine intentionally making my child uncomfortable or unsafe to provoke them to tears. I’m baffled as to why Mrs. Greenberg as a mother would do so to her own children, much less those of friends or complete strangers.
“At the end of the day I was not in a good mood. I don’t like making little kids cry.”
Earlier in the article Mrs. Greenberg states she photographed ‘around 35′ children in groups of ’12 or so for one day’. If she dislikes provoking children in this manner, why did she do it for approximately 3 days (35 children divided by 12 per day)…? The actions in this case seem to speak much louder than the words.
“The emotion you see is just so compelling, yet they’re beautiful at the same time. That was one of the things that interested me about the project — the strength and beauty of the images as images.”
These images are not beautiful, nor do they depict any sort of beauty. To attribute any sort of beauty to these images is shameful in the least, and speaks volumes about the distorted perspective of the viewer.
“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.”
The pictures by Mrs. Greenberg might be indicative of psychological projection. I’m not a psychologist, but I remember enough from my undergraduate studies in psychology to recognize the behavior. There are many, many ways to constructively deal with a negative personal outlook of our culture, political or socioeconomic environment without involving children, or causing a negative impact to their lives. Talking with a friend or spouse is a good start, and much more healthier than imposing our unhappiness upon the precious little ones in our lives.
Intentionally provoking suffering in a child is disgusting, specially if the child is undressed in front of an unknown adult photographer.
I have 3 children aged 5 years, 3 years and 4 months and I have never met any adult so cruel to intentionally provoke suffering to a child.
This person should be put on trial for child abuse.
Children as not as stupid as the greedy child abuser photographer wants to let us believe.
A 3 years old child understands very well what it means to be undressed in front of an interested audult. A 3 years old child understands very well what it means being DELIBERATELY hurt. A 3 years old child understands very well what it means to be photographed.
Maybe the cruel woman would need being stripped herself by someone in front of a photogapher and being hurt in a way to provoke her tears.
So the photographer could take an artistic picture titled:
“Justice was done”
The children will not suffer one bit as a result of this event. Jill Greenberg will. Ha ha ha!
And shame on the British Sunday Times for publishing some of the pictures. Just like the British tacky ‘red tops’: publishing upsetting photos and then saying how awful that the photos were taken!
It does seem extraordinary that pictures of crying children could kick up such a storm. Especially when one considers that the parents were there with the children at the time and one was even the photographers own daughter!
I also notes that most of the most vicious, threatening, immature and ignorant commentary has been signed by ‘anonymous’; clearly people with courage of their convictions…. Add this to what the Sunday Times said about the response of people who claim to see a sexual context it the art, they are, for the most part, men – or simply ….’anonymous’.
How can people get in such a bate about some pictures? Next Mr ‘Anonymous’ will be demanding that parents who take a photograph of their infant in a bath should be arrested for recording child pornography. Thomas Hawk and friends – For goodness sake get a grip of yourselves.
My final point would be to say that I am not a ‘blogger’ and this is my first attempt; but for art to be good, it should be also be thought provoking, that being the case Mr, Mrs or Miss Anonymous should be congratulated for making Jill Greenburg’s ‘End Times’ such a roaring and international success, Bravo Jill Greenburg, don’t let the morons get you down!
Charlie Mac
Art, think of Monet, Da Vinci all the big guys, thats art. Walk round the Louve, the V and A, do you see images of naked distressed children? Nope! Art is to be hung on a wall, displayed, for all to see, to inspire you.
Are you inspired by this?
Would you hang this up in your home?
…..didn’t think so.
I was quite concerned as I heard about “End Times”: even the children of the left-wingers would cry down my policy! As a father I’m so fond of children – I swear by my
weapons of mass destructions. Much to my relief I was told that all the children cried for no reason! Let’s talk sense! Surely some of the kids just cried over a lolly,
some cried because their parents were sent off for a while (“MOM!!!”, “I WANNA GO HOME!!!”), some don’t cry at all because as models they got used to smiling and they did not understand what the hell the mad photographer wanted…as intelligent human beings they were confused, Jill was upset. Some were really in terror. Well done, Jill.
I agree to the political statement of Jill Greenberg: anyone who cry out against my policy is a cry baby! That will be a good cry for my campaign against terrorism.
I saved the pics on my hard disk and I’m very satisfied everytime I gape at the beautiful babes.
Go on, Jill
George Wanker B.
Are you screaming because children lost their lolipops and cry after? Well, imagine that in some parts of the world, children die everyday. They don’t cry because they never knew anything else than suffering and pain. They have no water for their tears and no food too.
Why?
Because of us. We take every richness on this planet, make other poor people work as slaves for what? For our wellness.
Instead of wasting time in argumenting about children that lost their lollipops, and to me, show the pain that more than the majority of children in the world feel, you should do something for the ones that really suffer.
(sorry for my english)
American makes me pity, a nipple or anything which widens their narrow vision and it is the scandal! How much children cry in Iraq? does cry because a candy was withdrawn to them? narrow of spirits, deprived of critical spirit because polluted by the religion, prudes and uncultivated…
What a funny discussion. In the average time it takes to leave a comment here, the horrible trauma rained down on the poor, defenseless child by an oh so cruel artist, will have been forgotten by the aforementioned subject. Its a moment like thousands of others in early childhood that will not negatively influence the later personality. A lot of responsible parents do exactly this quite often, taking sweets from a toddler when its not the time for them, like right before a meal or when they are not under constant direct supervision and could swallow it whole.
Comparing this to the suffering of adolescents or adults who might be traumatised for years by real abuse is bad taste. You walked right into a baby scheme trap and blow the possible repercussions to the child out of proportion to actually construct a case.
That being said, i find the pictures meaningless and downright annoying. They do not enlighten me any more than reading the user manual for a toaster. But it is not my place to decide if its art or not.
Dear american people who are against Greenberg’s pictures. I am amazed about your poor states of minds. You invented the “home video” where kids, adult and animals are filmed falling, having accidents, being ridiculized etc. to make you all laugh, cry or whatever basic emotion while sitting on your couch eating chips and other junkfood, and getting fat, which you bought of social care because your government is too stupid to take care of insurance (no job: no life, bad health: no insurance). Now you see a kiddo immortalized on a picture, crying because mean Jill took their lolly-pop away. Ohhhh my god! And that’s bad because she is an artist? Can you try to see a difference between real hurt (abuse, terrorism, wars etc, many pictures available) and the “candy-hurt”?? The only paralel (and that’s another discussion, another analysis interesting to discuss) that Jill Greenberg is making is how the faces of little human beings could be the hurt we feel as adults for “real” hurt but that we don’t show that openhearted. How would you call your own president Bush? No, not an artist, god (again) forbid! But he does take away a lot worse then lolly-pops from people, right? And journalists take pictures of that too. At least Jill gives back the candy. What do you get back from Bush? Make a wish-list. I am sure this government must have a bunch of fotoalbums of (for example) Irakien kiddos, before and after. I am just not sure how much kiddos are still able to cry. When are you gonna use your little minds for big things? Take away one of Bush’s lolly-pop. Let’s photographe the face he makes. Greetings from Europe from nother artist.
Well, I have an “artistic” suggestion to make to Jill: How about me beating the shit out of you and take pictures of your reactions ? At least this idea has a good reason. I feel pitty for Jill, to be an “artist” (if she or anyone else dare to call her that way) without ideas, and for only ressource morally abuse innocent children…
That is a good example of “If you don’t know what it is, then it must be art”
Anonymous, you are fantastic. Some of the comparisons made in this blog are so ridiculous that our simple english grammar cannot express just how ridiculous.
The photos are true art doing what art is meant to do best, which is to provoke a response and deep thought. In this case I am urged to think about the open and true human emotion without boundaries that kids have and few older people have. Opposing that, the aquired and learned behaviour which us “older kids” are increasingly captive to (our creativity, friendships and abilities are all controlled by the compounded result of all of our choices). So to much to write about, so much to do in the next hour…
If you’re worried about the abuse of children, please ban MTV and stop McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and other toxic YUM!™ brands financing and building outside schools.
Since when was taking candy from a baby child abuse? Have you even read the page you link to? The children weren’t harmed, the parents were present, and the lollipops were returned to them within 30secs. Do you give your kids everything they want just because they have a tantrum? If so, I pity the spoilt little brats.
Considering the stuff people call “art” nowadays, this is just as “artistic”.
This realy is hysterical pandering to the do gooder and red neck camps.
Children cry for no reason or more often as a means of getting what they want! To find aspects of abuse or sexual exploitation is ridiculous.
Art is very much a transaction between the artist and the beholder and like most things in life, will invoke different reactions.
Perhaps You are just afraid of feeling anything at all.
I suggest you GET OVER IT,. I’m sure the children have.
“The honesty of a child’s feelings is undeniable” (Jill Greenberg). The dishonesty of Jill Greenberg is undeniable, too. Surely Jill did not expect the hypercritical and hypersensitive feedback. “In many ways we’ve become desensitized to disturbing images.” A naked toddler, no problem, a crying toddler, no problem, a naked crying toddler plus waffle about “anguish” (Jill Greenberg) = scandal! Many parents are hypersensitive because there’re too many perverts in this world. They have no problems with natural emotions or nakedness. They have a problem with artists which shoot naked confused children crying “Mom” and “I wanna go home” because there are too many sick people doing this every day! The difference is: the perverts do not call it “art”.
Jill’s work is not porn, it upvalues child porn. I will never ask my daughter to lick at a banana for getting an original shot. That does not mean that I have a problem with bananas!
Some suggestions:
- dead body-body art
- stealing teddies from mentally
handicapped children
- stealing the dentures in an old
people’s home
The subjects cannot defend themselves, it’s crazy, they will freak out, so it must be art!!!
I noticed that Santa has even voiced his opinion on this topic! It seems Mrs Greenberg has upset some pretty powerful people!
http://whoisnaughtyornice.blogspot.com
If you want to know the truth you just have to listen (!)to Mrs. Greenberg:
http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotopodcasts/2176/podcast-interview-with-jill-greenberg.html
(March 2006!)
If you want to be ill-informed you have to read about the stuff published on the internet, in newspapers or magazines all around the world.
The facts are clear, they are on tape, the day will come some kid would be interested in it!
Have a nice time, Dr. spin Robert Green
If you want to know the truth you just have to listen (!)to Mrs. Greenberg:
http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotopodcasts/2176/podcast-interview-with-jill-greenberg.html
(March 2006!)
If you want to be ill-informed you have to read about the stuff published on the internet, in newspapers or magazines all around the world.
The facts are clear, they are on tape, the day will come some kid would be interested in it!
Have a nice time, Dr. spin Robert Green
http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotopodcasts/2176/podcast-interview-
with-jill-greenberg.html
That’s Beavis&Butthead; talking about photography!
John Hancock listened to it, who else? I can’t stop laughing.
One day the kids will kick you in your …or I will do
Jerry “Manipulator” Kraut
On a business trip in Bangkok, watching the BBC news I heard about Jill Greenberg’s photos of crying children and her method for getting them. I’m shocked at the exploitation allowed by the parents of the children. Jill Greenberg and her gallery should be ashamed. There are too many unhappy and abused children around the world who deserve attention not to create this artificial and deliberate series. What a waste.
RAWK ON JILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw this on the news and just PISSED myself laughing!!!
How could anyone be so horrifically cruel?
keep up the good work jill!!!
I am a university lecturer& resrachre, I teach amongst other things ethics. I can’t understand how she got away with this;as a reseracher I have to apply for ethical approval to conduct any research or investigation involing humans or animals.She should have looked at why we had the Nurenberg code; its to protect people. Children are vulnerable individuals and although if under age don’t have to provide consent, this is sought, in this case from parents. These parents do not deserve to have children. They are as guilty of child abuse as this so called profession Jill Grenberg. The parents should be cautioned and Jill should taken to court for unethical practices towards children
I don’t really support Ms. Greenberg’s actions either- there’s just something unsettling about it.
If we’re going to talk about emotional abuse of children, we have bigger fish to fry. It’s amazing to me that there can be such an outcry over taking candy away from children, but no one complains about abuse when Family Courts limit the time of one parent or the other by way of artificially determined timesharing arrangements after divorce. This happens to both men and women, but statistically more often to men. Why do we not create such an outcry when the courts allow one or the other parent to be marginalized in the child’s life?
Jill Greenberg is a serial child abuser.
Why is it that the so called “Artist” feels they have the right to abuse children and that they are above the law just because they are an “Artist”?
These people are so far up themselves they act god like, the people who agree with their reasoning are most likely serial child abuser themselves. (I know that’s a bit harsh but my god just look at those poor children’s faces, now tell me its art…)
She is nothing but a criminal, she feels that abusing her own child justifies the right to abuse other children, it’s about time this sick world woke up to the fact that these people cannot abuse children and get away with it in the name of “Art”.
We track down and prosecute paedophiles who take disturbing pictures of children (as we should), how is this different?
I’m sure some smart arse child abuser will read this and give some slimy reply trying to justify child abuse as “Art”.
I can’t believe that the simple task of giving and then taking away a lollipop would make the children in these photo’s cry in the way they are portrayed. Something else must have been either said or done to them. Even though I must admit that photographs showing emotions as raw as on the faces of those children stired somthing deep inside of me.
BUT. why oh why are their upper bodies naked ? That is just asking for perverts to take a look.
A child abuser?? Oh i think NOT!
She had a lollypop ffs!
The artist is right, laughter can be such a fake emotion, so forced. But these tears are real. These emotions are real.
I have 2 kids, 6 and 8, and my 6yr old can go from happy to upset in 0.5seconds! And over anything!!!
Maybe all of you that are calling child abuse are the reason why no one has control over the kids if today!
So Thomas…
Do you feel as outraged when you see images of children bombed with American amunitions in Lebanon or Iraq ? Do you want to have someone charged with a crime when you see images of emaciated, starving, diseased children in the third world ?
I’m glad these photo’s have hit such a raw nerve on you.
Here let me tweak it for you again…
I think this experiment should be broadened to every US child born into a rich or middle class family, and do this to them once a month, until they stop crying. Perhaps the US will finally raise a generation who have some inkling of how the rest of the world perceives them.
Some of them cried totally on their own…the shoots last ten minutes, maybe fifteen minutes, it’s all set up….I don’t want to upset the children too much because children don’t really like, that’s not their natural habitat to be in a photo studio without their shirt on and sometimes that makes them cry…and sometimes we give them candy…and take it away…which is an interesting job for my photo assistant…most of which don’t have any children, honestly, being a mother of two chidren, small children, I know children cry all the time and two minutes later they’re perfectly happy so it’s not like I’m doing them any permanent psychic damage…sometimes I’ll have their moms step out of the studio for a couple of minutes and then come right back… sometimes they won’t cry…and that’s sort of frustrating because we’ve found some gorgeous children who sort of look at me like,,,yeah, you can take away my lollipop that’s not going to make me cry, I’m too professional, most of them are in fact child models…
I’ve always loved images of crying children. They’re so powerful, they’re so emotional and in this age where we’re all image saturated there are still some images that sort of cut through the rest and still make you feel something and still get you and I sort of like that and I like I can sort of have a little bit of a political message at the same time. I try not to take anything too seriously, it’s sort of funny in a way, these children are crying and you know the picture is called Grand Old Party…
Jill has written the faces of the crying children express her own despair over fundamentalism and Bush. Yet, her approach to the children puts her in the camp of what she says she’s fighting. She puts children in a situation where she betrays their trust then denies their emotions as valid (they are temporary tantrums, kids have tantrums) and reforms them to be vehicles of her own feelings.
No, what Jill is doing doesn’t fall under the definition of child abuse. But it remains emotionally abusive and for me renders her work disingenuous.
Jill’s photos of the crying children tend to either arouse sympathetic emotions for a crying child, or a clinical distaste for her style of portraiture. It’s interesting that she set up the children and the audience (witnesses) go, “Ah, look at the poor child crying” which is what she wants, but she also set the child up. And then denied them the realty of their emotions. She betrayed trust but argues that she didn’t really, that the child is less guarded and thus it’s easy to make a three year old cry, for which reason she uses children under the age of three.
She perpetuates the same ill she says she intends to expose. Do I think Jill ought to be arrested for child abuse? No. Do I think she needs to examine again her perception of children? Yes.