Texas Lawmaker Seeks Ban on ‘Harmful’ Art in Wake of Sally Mann Controversy

After the Sally Mann photographs controversy in Fort Worth, Texas, a lawmaker in the state has proposed a ban on “obscene” artwork being displayed at museums.

Police seized four of Mann’s photographs from the Diaries of Home exhibit held at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in January after a complaint was made the images constituted child pornography.

But last week a grand jury declined to take action against Mann and the case was closed.

In response to the furor, Texas House Representative David Lowe, a North Richland Hills Republican, has filed House Bill 3958 which would create a civil penalty against museums that exhibit “certain obscene or harmful material.”

Fort Worth Report notes the bill characterizes obscenity as materials or performances that depict sexual conduct in an offensive way that lack literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

“It establishes that museums displaying such material in violation of specified sections of the Penal Code could face a civil penalty of up to $500,000 for each item displayed and for each day the display continues,” a summary of the bill reads.

“The Attorney General is granted the authority to seek injunctive relief, impose civil penalties, and recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs associated with the investigation or litigation.”

That means had the museum faced charges under this bill, it could have been fined $2 million for the photos plus whatever attorney fees a court decided it should pay.

Lowe tells Fort Worth Report that he sponsored the bill specifically because of Mann’s photos and was critical of the exhibit after a report appeared on conservative news website The Dallas Express.

“The bill was introduced because the protection of children is paramount and I am committed to doing everything within my power to safeguard them,” Lowe says in a statement.

“The situation involving actual nude photos of minors, not mere artistic depictions, displayed at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth spurred me into action. We must dedicate ourselves to protecting children from any institution that might seek to harm or exploit them under the pretense of art.”

The images in question are from Mann’s 1992 book Immediate Family which features nude photos of the photographer’s children. A reporter from The Dallas Express shared photos from the Modern Art of Fort Worth Museum showing a naked girl jumping on a table and a boy with liquid running down his body.

Mann is one of the most famous image-makers of her generation. Her intimate, large-format portraits of family life in Virginia have made her a star of the photography world. But her photos have attracted controversy before, in 2015 the photographer revealed that a federal prosecutor warned her that eight of her photos she selected for an exhibit could subject her to arrest.

Mann defended herself: writing in an article that “all too often, nudity, even that of children, is mistaken for sexuality, and images are mistaken for actions.”

She continued, “The image of the child is especially subject to that kind of perceptual dislocation; children are not just the innocents that we expect them to be… But in a culture so deeply invested in a cult of childhood innocence, we are understandably reluctant to acknowledge these discordant aspects or, as I found out, even fictionalized depictions of them.”

Chloe Kempf, staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, tells Fort Worth Report that the legislation put forward by Rep. Lowe is a threat to the constitutionally protected right to artistic expression in the state.

“As we recently witnessed with the attempted censorship of Sally Mann, legislation like this seeks to intimidate artists and curators through baseless investigations of, and penalties against, our artistic communities,” Kempf tells the news media outlet. “The people of Texas, not government officials, should have the freedom to decide what forms of art we want to view and support.”

If the bill is passed and signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, House Bill 3958 would take effect September 1.