Three More Civil Rights Groups Demand Fort Worth Police Return Seized Sally Mann Photos
Three civil liberties organizations submitted a joint letter to the Fort Worth Police Department demanding the return of multiple Sally Mann photographs that were “unconstitutionally seized” from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth last month.
On January 7, police seized a set of Sally Mann photographs from the Diaries of Home exhibition at the museum which ““feature[d] works by women and nonbinary artists, who explore the multilayered concepts of family, community, and home.” Mann was one of 13 documentary photographers included in the exhibition which the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth described as “intimate and compelling.”
A reporter from The Dallas Express visited the exhibit and accused the museum of “promoting child porn.” After riling up the local authorities, police arrived at the Museum and seized the offending photos and have not returned them. The exhibition at the museum has since ended.
Three days after the seizure, the international artists’ organization The Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) publicly condemned the action calling it a “brazen act of censorship.” Today, three more civil rights organizations joined that call and have demanded the return of the photos.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas together sent a letter to Fort Worth Police Department Chief Neil Noakes calling the actions taken by his department unconstitutional.
“None of the photographs come even close to fitting the legal definition of child sexual abuse material or ‘obscenity.’ But after local officials denounced the exhibit, police entered the museum and removed the artwork — ostensibly to investigate ‘child abuse,’ even though Mann’s now-adult children still support their mother and have never suggested they were abused,” the three organizations say.
“Anyone who’s ever taken a photo of their child or grandchild taking a bath understands that not all photographs of child nudity are malicious, let alone child abuse. The seizure of Mann’s works is an egregious abuse of power that dishonestly conflates artistic expression with sexual exploitation,” FIRE Director of Public Advocacy Aaron Terr says.
“Publicity stunts like this one—in which artworks that have been shown and discussed for over 30 years are suddenly the focus of an unfounded ‘investigation’—do nothing to protect victims of child abuse, and serve only to chill the creative expressions of artists and cultural institutions by subjecting them to the threat of political prosecution and the unconstitutional seizure of artwork,” Elizabeth Larison, Director of NCAC’s Arts and Culture Advocacy Program, adds.
“It’s shameful that government officials would use the criminal legal process to censor art and expression. This is a clear violation of the First Amendment and of the guardrails against abuse of the criminal justice system. Artistic expression should not be subject to the whim and punishment of government officials’ personal taste,” Adriana Piñon, legal director of the ACLU of Texas, concludes.
The full letter can be read on FIRE’s website.
