Make your mother sigh (crying babies o'plenty)

From Jill Greenberg's "End Times" exhibition:

via qotile/slocum

Comments

[fatty jubbo]

I used to work in a dreadful cyber cafe and we had a regular who was a very well dressed older gentleman. I would occasionally peak at what he was looking at online and it was usually stuff like this or stock photos of frightened children.

[Jesse Ford]

Ms. Greenberg was criticized by Thomas Hawk in his blog for the techniques she used to get these children in a state of dishabille. In response, Ms. Greenberg called Hawk's (completely unrelated) place of work and involved his boss in the matter.
BoingBoing posted it here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/28/photographer_calls_c.html

[Kenzo (lastever.org / kenzodb.com)]

Let's try to be clear about what "criticism" was apparently levied by Hawk (see his post here): His post seems to call her a child abuser, a child pornographer, claims she is "taking babies" and "stripping them of their clothes," her purposes are "sadistic," draws an analogy between giving a child a lollypop and then taking it away to prisoners at Abu Ghraib, claims she did more to provoke the kids than merely what she claims she did...

I don't directly know what else happened (beyond what I read in various posts), and I don't have any feeling about right and wrong here. I just wanted to get more facts out there, since the comment above and the BoingBoing article seem a bit one-sided.

[Aaron]

Variations on a theme?

[Krys O.]

Doesn't sound like anything Judy Garland's or Shirley Temple's moms didn't do for the sake of show business.

[The Contrarian]

As the parent of a 3 year-old who sure knows how to belt out a good cry, I didn't get upset at all by these photos. Heck, I wanted to give these tykes a hug and tell them that it's okay (please don't sue me...its just the parental instinct coming on). My son cries when I tell him that he is not getting that $45 Thomas the Tank Engine toy. If that's child abuse, then lock me up, I guess.

Without setting off a political firestorm, if you wanna see some real distressed toddlers, someone e-mailed me a Flikr page of depressing and disturbing photos taken in Lebanon this week (NSFW). I dunno about art, but war is always hell.

[Alexa]

reminds me of De Stijl's last, I mean "Third Toga Party from the Sun" - an oil painting