aw hells no!

Check out Thomas Hawk's rather on-point post on this ridiculous work in which the photographer states, “I manipulate my subjects to evoke an emotion to illustrate my personal beliefs."

"I had to learn the hard way that they had to be no older than three because beyond that they just don't cry so easily," Greenberg explains. "At that age, one needs to merely give them a lollipop and then take it away, et voila - pain and agony."

I mean, is she kidding? She says, "“I love the raw emotion of children, because it comes close to the anger and helplessness I feel about our current political and social situation.”" Man, folks will do anything to make a buck, especially in the name of so-called art. Like that means something. It's like the great catch-all excuse for doing dumb shit. Somebody slap that photographer and her dealer. And them kids' parents.

This whole issue of ethics reminds me of work I recently saw by Barbara DeGenevieve, in which she solicited male panhandlers for nude portraits. She apparently paid them each $100; read more about it here. Rather disappointing from her; I've generally liked her work but I gotta say, Barbara, what's up with this? I don't even know what to say about this notion of artists exploiting other people to work through their own issues. Why is this considered okay?