Conclusion and Bibliography

CONCLUSION


My intention in this thesis was to discuss some of the issues surrounding making images of children, in particular from the point of view of both a mother and artist. I have looked at ways that the artist can show both the fragility and the power of the child; the difficulties arising from the image of the eroticised child; and discussed some of the problems of consent versus exploitation.

As I have shown, childhood is one of the most highly loaded of subjects for an artist to initiate. It can tap into some of our most basic desires and fears. Mona Hatoum's cot 'Incommunicado', which shows the vulnerability of the child, stimulates our basic instinct to protect the innocent. While the portrayal of the untamed violent or sexual characteristics of the child as in Georgina's Starr's 'The Bunny Lake are Coming' causes us to examine our innermost fears about the baseness of humanity and our own repressed primal natures.

One of the most contentious of issues for an artist to work on is the sensuality of the child and in particular the eroticised child. The way such images are interpreted depends on many factors, not least of which is the subjectivity of the viewer. As we have seen, artists such as Julia Margaret Cameron and Sally Mann portray the pure sensual beauty of their children's bodies from a 'maternally erotic' perspective. But in the current climate of media obsession with paedophilia, there is always a risk that the work will be construed as pornographic - as happened in the case of Tierney Gearon. Artists need to be aware of the fine line between sensuality and sexuality. Nonetheless, the innate sexual nature of some children cannot be denied as Nikki Hobberman has shown in her paintings of little girls.

Whether artists using children as models for their work are exploiting them or not is a highly debatable subject. Although parents undoubtedly have a responsibility to protect their children from physical and emotional harm, it is sometimes extremely difficult to assess the full implications of what they are doing by allowing a child to be involved in a work of art.

When the artist is also the parent of the child the issue become even more complicated. They may compromise their artistic and parental responsibilities by merging these two very separate roles. A parent cannot really justify the use of their own children in their work as being for the benefit of the child, therefore it must follow that they do it for the benefit of the art. Whether or not this could harm the child depends on the project and the individuals involved. Each situation needs to be assessed on its own terms.

In conclusion, when an artist's work involves using children there is a minefield of issues for them to negotiate. If they do not wish to be accused of exploitation then they must be cautious that both the child and its parents are fully aware of what is involved. They should think about what it is they are trying to say by using the image of the child and consider the alternatives if there is a possibility that the work may be considered pornographic. There are ways of making work about childhood without actually showing the child itself, as in the example of Heidi Zumbrum's mauled soft toys. And finally they need to look at what makes the image of the child so successful: capturing the ambivalent nature of the subject, and the fact that so much can be interpreted through this most loaded of images.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Armstrong, Carol, Scenes in a Library: Reading the Photograph in the Book, 1843-1875, October 1998
Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, Noonday Press, 1982
Berry, Ruth, Freud, A Beginner's guide, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000
Bettleheim, Bruno, The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairytales, Thames and Hudson, 1976
Brooks, Peter, Psychoanalysis and Storytelling, Blackwell, 1994
Brown, Marilyn, editor, Picturing Children: Constructions of Childhood, Ashgate Publishing, 2000
Clark, Larry, The Perfect Childhood, Scalo, 2000
Erikson, Eric, Childhood and Society, Pelican, Revised edition 1977
Estes, C P, Women who run with the Wolves, NY Publishing, 1993
Ettinger, Bracha Lichtenberg, The Matrixial gaze, University of Leeds, Department of Fine Art, Feminist Arts and Histories Network, 1995
Figes, Kate, editor, Childhood, An Anthology, JM Dent, 1997
Freud, Anna, Selected Writings, Penguin, 1998
Freud, Sigmund, On sexuality: three essays on the theory of sexuality, Penguin, 1977
Freud. Esther, Summer at Gaglow, Ecco, 1998
Furth, Gregg, The Secret World of Drawings - Healing Through Art, SIGO Press, 1998
Gallop, Jane, Feminism and Psychoanalysis - The Daughter's Seduction, The Macmillan Press, 1983
Greer, Germain, The Boy, Thames & Hudson, 2003
Heon, Laura Steward (editor), Mona Hatoum: Domestic Disturbance, MASS MoCA, 2001
Higonnet, Anne, Pictures of Innocence: the History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood, Thames and Hudson, 1998
Hiller, Susan, After the Freud Museum, Book Works, 2000
Hixon, Kathryn and Hobbs, Robert, Presumed Innocent: Essays, Andersen Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1998
Holland, Patricia, What is a Child? Popular Images of Childhood, Virago, 1992
I am a camera/The Saatchi Gallery, Saatchi Hardback Publication 2001
James, Henry, Turn of the Screw, Penguin, first published 1894
Keller, Marjorie, The Untutored Eye, Associated University Press, 1986
Kid Size - The Material World of Childhood, Thames & Hudson, 1997
Kincaid, James, Child Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture, Routledge, 1992
Lam, Janneke, Whose Pain? Childhood, Trauma, Imagination, ASCA Press 2002
Mann, Sally, At Twelve: Portraits of Young women, Aperture Foundation, 1998
Mann, Thomas, Death in Venice, Penguin, first published 1926
Marianne Hirsch, editor, The Familial gaze, University Press of New England, 1999
Mause, Lloyd de. editor. The History of Childhood, NY Harper 1975
Mavor, Carol, Pleasures Taken: Performances of Sexuality and Loss in Victorian Photographs, Duke University Press, 1995
Mitchell, Juliet, editor, The Selected Melanie Klien, Penguin, 1986
Moi, Toril, editor, The Kristeva Reader, Blackwell, 1986
Moore, Susan and Rosenthal, Doreen, Sexuality in Adolescence, Routledge, 1993
Morgan, Stuart and Morris, Frances, Rites of passage: art for the end of the century, Tate Gallery Publications, 1995
My little pretty: images of girls by contemporary women artists, Exhibition Catalogue, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, 1997
Nabakov, Lolita, Penguin, originally published 1959
New Labour, Exhibition Catalogue, Saatchi Gallery, 2001
Obalk, Hector, Paula Rego, Art Random, 1990
Pa, Michael, Reading Theory: an introduction to Lacan, Derrida and Kristeva, Blackwell, 1993
Philips, Adam The Beast in the Nursery, Faber and Faber, 1998
Piaget, Jean and Inhelder, Barbel, Psychology of the Child, Routledge, 1969
Postman, Neil, The Disappearance of childhood, Delacote Press, NY, 1982
Reinhardt, Brigitte, Tracey Moffat: Creating one's own reality, Hatje Cantz, Germany, 1997
Rose, Jacqueline, Sexuality in the Field of Vision, Verso, 1986
Starr, Georgina, The Bunny Lakes are Coming, London: Emily Tsingou Gallery, 2002
The Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize, Photographer's Gallery, 2001
The Darker side of Playland: Childhood Imagery from the Logan Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2001
Warner, Marina From Beast to Blonde: on Fairytales and Their Tellers, Chatto, 1994
Warner, Marina, The Lost Father, Chatto 1994
Wolf, Naomi, Promiscuities, Vintage 1997
Zipes, Jack, Happily Ever After: Children, Fairytales and the Culture Industry, Routledge, 1997

ARTICLES, ESSAYS AND THESES
Burns, Anna, 'Children and Sexuality in the Visual Arts' in Contemporary Visual Arts, issue 18, Spring 1998 pp. 38-43
Burnside, Anna, 'What Are Little Girls Made Of?' in The Sunday Times, 13.10.02
Cowan, Amber, 'Starr's Turn' in The Times, 04.05.02
Essays, Articles and Theses
Freud, Sigmund, Essay on The Uncanny (Das Unheimliche) in Art and Literature (14), Penguin, originally published 1914
Gibbons, Fiachra, 'Is it Art or Child Porn?' in The Guardian, 18.12.02 pp.3
Jones, Malcolm, 'Love, Death and Light' in Newsweek, 29.09.03
Lewis, Charles, Stirring Long Forgotten Memories of Childhood, The Otowa Citizen Magazine, p.5, 15 Oct 1995
Morrison, Blake, 'No Place for this Moral Panic' in The Independent, 11.03.02
Mustafa, Fauzan Bin Childhood: Facts and Interpretation, Thesis MA Communication Design, 1995
O'Hara, Delia, 'Female Artists take a Look at Little Girls and Big Issues' in The Chicago Sun-Time 18.04.97
Ortas, Rachel, Presumed Innocent, Thesis MA Communication Design, 2002
Quinn, David, 'They're Only Young Once, so let's Keep it Like That' in The Eire News, 29.01.03 pp.19
Robertson, Fiona A Likely Story: Childhood Fairytales and Society, Thesis MA Communication Design, 1999
'The War Over Winnie', The Week, p.11, 15 November 2003
Wood, Gaby, 'Candid Cameron' in The Observer, 02.02.03


FILM, TV AND VIDEO

Bunny Lake is missing (Video recording) directed by Otto Preminger, 2000
Company of Wolves, Angela Carter, 1984
Fresh: Part of What I am Made of, (Video recording), Tracey Emin, LWT, 1997
Kids [video recording] /directed by Larry Clark videocassette Publication Date: 2000
Mona Hatoum, [Video recording], Publication Date: 2001
South Bank Show: Christian Boltanski
Starr, Georgina, The Bunny Lakes are Coming, London: Emily Tsingou Gallery, 2002
Talking Art 1 - Susan Hiller, Mary Kelly, Sophie Calle, Series of Talks, ICA 1993
The Bunny Lakes are Coming 1-3 [videocassette], Georgina Starr, 2002
The Late Show: The End of Childhood, BBC2, 1994
Tracey Emin, South Bank Show, LWT, 2001


ILLUSTRATION SOURCES

Plate 1: I am a camera/The Saatchi Gallery, Saatchi Hardback Publication 2001
Plate 2: Reproduced in Pictures of Innocence: the History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood, by Anne Higonnet, Thames and Hudson, 1998
Plate 3: Reproduced in Mona Hatoum: Domestic Disturbance, Heon, Laura Steward (editor), MASS MoCA, 2001
Plate 4: From The Darker side of Playland: Childhood Imagery from the Logan Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2001
Plate 5: Still from video The Bunny Lakes are Coming, Starr, Georgina
Plate 6: Reproduced in Pictures of Innocence: the History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood, by Anne Higonnet, Thames and Hudson, 1998
Plate 7: ibid
Plate 8: Reproduced in Pleasures Taken: Performances of Sexuality and Loss in Victorian Photographs, by Carol Mavor, Duke University Press, 1995
Plate 9: ibid
Plate 10: Nikki Hobberman, Saatchi gallery Publications - exhibition Catalogue 2001
Plate 11: Reproduced in Pictures of Innocence: the History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood, by Anne Higonnet, Thames and Hudson, 1998
Plate 12: ibid
Plate 13: From The Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize Catalogue, Photographer's Gallery, 2001
Plate 14: ibid