Art Lovers discussion

Op-Ed Contributor
Art for Whose Sake?

By DANI SHAPIRO
Published: July 15, 2010


Bethlehem, Conn.

MORE than 30 years ago, when the artist Larry Rivers filmed his two adolescent daughters on the subject of their developing breasts for a project he titled “Growing,” it seems that his intention was to make art. He zoomed in on their breasts and genitalia, asked them to describe their feelings about their changing bodies. He admitted, in the voiceover, that he made the film despite the “raised eyebrows” of his friends and the reluctance of his daughters.

After all, this is what artists do — isn’t it? Art is subversive. It pushes boundaries. The moment we label a subject off limits, we create censorship. Where would we be, after all, if “Lolita” had been forever banned? Or “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” ? “Ulysses” ? What’s the difference between, say, Michelangelo’s “David” and the celluloid representations of Rivers’s daughters?

In a few weeks, the archives of Larry Rivers will be delivered to their new permanent home at New York University, which purchased them from the Larry Rivers Foundation. These archives contain the film and video of Rivers’s daughters — one of whom, Emma Tamburlini, now 43, has for years been pleading with the foundation to destroy the tapes. N.Y.U. has stated its willingness to discuss the matter and has agreed, at the foundation’s request, to keep the material from the public while the daughters are alive.

Is no one at N.Y.U. thinking about the ramifications of this? Consider the emotional fallout for Rivers’s daughters, knowing that their father’s film will outlive them. They were used — unwillingly, at least in the case of Ms. Tamburlini — in the service of their father’s art. They were minors. They were objects of their father’s narcissism and, as such, their feelings were considered invalid and moot. Apparently they still are.

I have spent years thinking and writing about a moral question central to every artist who is also a parent. I am the mother of an 11-year-old son, and am also a writer whose subject matter is often intensely personal. I have written about my family extensively. When my son was born, I became aware that he had a fundamental right to a private life. Still, I have written about him, though every sentence is accompanied by questions: will he be hurt by this, now — or ever? Am I crossing the line? He was very sick as an infant, and I felt compelled to write about that time in our lives. Was that a violation of his privacy?

Right now, my son enjoys that I write about him. But, ultimately, he will be the one to say whether I’ve gone too far. In the meantime, I hope my constant questioning of myself and my artistic motives keeps me in check. I live with the secret fear that someday he will turn to me and say, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

Driven by a desire to explore this, I wrote a novel in which I pushed the question to its limits: inspired by the controversial work of the photographer Sally Mann, I created a character, a photographer mother, who shot a series of images of her young daughter in provocative poses, nude. Many years later — upon the mother’s death — she gives her daughter the rights to the photographs. It is her one redeeming act.

N.Y.U. has the opportunity to do something right. This isn’t a philosophical problem, or the beginning of a slippery slope leading to banned books and puritanical outcries. “Lolita,” “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” “Ulysses,” Michaelangelo’s “David” — these works of art have no victims. They add to our understanding of what it is to be human, rather than implicitly condone the stripping away of humanity in the name of art.

By returning the footage to Rivers’s daughters, N.Y.U. would correct an injustice perpetrated for years by the Larry Rivers Foundation, and take a moral stance rather than engage in a highly academic debate. The film “Growing” is a document of exploitation and abuse, and has been claimed by one of its victims. The question of whether it is art becomes suddenly, glaringly irrelevant.

Postscript: July 16, 2010

After publication of this Op-Ed article, New York University told The Times that it had decided not to accept the Larry Rivers film "Growing" as part of the archives it purchased from the Larry Rivers Foundation. Though the university had reached its agreement with the foundation on Tuesday, the arrangement had not been publicly announced.

I hope the daughters were able to destroy the film. I am an admirer of River's work and really find this information about him extremely unpleasant.

I wish I knew less about Demuth's sexual preferences, too, and don't buy the notion that Janis Joplin was anything other than a pop icon. Is't that enough?

I agree with Monica, the children were just an art study for their father, it is like an author writing about her childhood when parents are still alive. Hope they give the daughters back the tapes and they can destroy it.

Art study, my @#$. How could the daughters consent. This is child abuse pure and simple

What are we coming to? Who cares about sex, + sexual preference? Aren't we suppose to have taught the current generation to be more understanding, tolerant and compassionate? WTF??

who said anything about sex and sexual preferences, they were children who want the pictures back. That was all I was saying. Thank you for listening.

I'm with you totally. I'm referring to current and ongoing news events==the obsession with homosexuality suicide and lack of integrity we have as human beings.

I know and it is just getting worse. With vast technology everything can be recorded and in that instance, someone killing themselves, which is a waste of talent.

I guess I shouldn't have walked into that booby trap that I got entangled in.

Rivers is an extreme example of parenting gone bad. His is a travesty. He should have had his brushes seized and returned only on his agreement to destroy the tape and desist his inconsiderate actions.

Sally Mann is a different case. She was sensitive to her children`s desires. The girls have continued as adult nude models and don`t feel their mother exploited them. Oh yes, in taped interviews they give lip service to the critics, but you can tell that they are not at all chagrined.

The girls were celebrities at school when their mother became famous for her studies. All their classmates put them on pedestials and ooohed and aaahed over their being "models". The son, however, just before puberty received jibes from his fellow classmates and decided to stop modeling. Sally complied readily with his wishes. The one photo of him, nude and half submerged in the pond with expanding ringlets of water, was the last image she took of him.

Thank you for your really interesting information, Geoffrey. I didn't know the details of Sally Mann but am relieved to know that she was "sensitive to her children's desires" and actually complied with her son's desires not to be a model. It is unfortunate that she still had that one photo of him. How does he feel about it? Is he allowed to destroy that? or where is the photo now?

I don`t know what has been resolved about that one photo. As it`s in several of her monographs, it would be impossible to withdraw it from that venue. I have two of her books.
I would be interested in learning what he thinks of it. I did have the opportunity to see pixes of the younger daughter taken by a New York photographer, whose work was exceedingly poetic, individualistic and sensitive, in Premier magazine, I believe, three years ago. The work was as brilliant as Sally`s. I wish I could remember the name of the photographer. He does not have a national reputation, but should.

Robin wrote: "I agree with Monica, the children were just an art study for their father, it is like an author writing about her childhood when parents are still alive. Hope they give the daughters back the tapes..."

Heres adding to the hope.
I too think it was very narcisstic of him to do that.But the people who are continuing to add on to the injury must be doing it for financial or some such purpose.Doesn't an individuals right count for much? Esp if her rights were violated in the first place.
Truly,this is child abuse.

I completely agree with you there! I’m glad you opened this discussion again. This is a controversy that I see we discussed some years ago.

Does anyone know the current affairs or status of this particular dilemma today?

I think I’ll dig a little deeper myself and see what I come up with. Thank you again, siriusedward.

Well, I can't find much more information about this dispute or the repercussions, etc. of this IMO demented father's obsession with his daughters. But I did find this article posted last year in 2017 in the Larry Rivers Archive. I can't find the name of the writer of this post, unfortunately. But this is what she said and it brings another perspective, akin to some of our own, from her own experiences.

"The NY Times published an article about the Larry Rivers archive, which was purchased by NYU for an undisclosed price. The archive includes films and videos of Rivers’ two adolescent daughters, naked or topless, being interviewed by him about their developing breasts. Although my father was not a famous artist, he documented himself watching me in inappropriate ways, just like Larry. Was this a trend in 1970’s Manhattan?

As a victim of my own father’s predatory desires, I hope this doesn’t get swept under the proverbial rug. I started reading all the comments posted regarding Larry’s archive and his abuse. As a father, he abused his daughters by using his authority over them to get them to participate in his project. His thoughts were of himself, not his daughters. Loving parents don’t take risks with their children’s welfare just to complete their own pet projects. Larry’s wife quoted him: “What Larry said was that it would belong to them, as a record that when they got older they could look back at.” My father taped himself saying “This is not for us to know, but for you to know 10 or 20 years from now,” and I used this in my film as evidence. Chilling. One person pointed out another atrocity that became public: the images from Abu Ghraib. I kept reading and couldn’t believe the similarities to my own experience. I have re-posted one of the obituaries I wrote for my father below.

Larry’s daughter Emma said “I don’t want it out there in the world. It just makes it worse.” She has every right to this archive and to do whatever she wants with it. It is a document of her lost childhood. Her archive of betrayal. Every time I revisit my father’s archive the pain is excruciating. The difference is that I made my own choice to show my pain publicly. It was not dictated by an “art authority.”

https://themarinaexperiment.com/the-m...