Britain's Tate Modern has temporarily closed an exhibition that includes a nude image of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields as it was controversial piece of art based on a 1975 nude photograph of actress Brook Shields and it breaches the U.K.'s obscenity laws. The piece shows a 10-year-old Brooke Shields, nude, oiled, and heavily made-up, standing in a bathtub and looking directly at the camera.
The Tate Modern took down the provocative 1983 piece called "Spiritual America" by American artist, Richard Prince, after Metropolitan Police launched an investigation.
Above, (l.) a Shields at 14 in 'The Blue Lagoon' and (r.) at a 2009 event.
The artwork was based on the infamous image of Brooke Shields taken by photographer Garry Gross.The work was removed from the Tate Modern exhibit Pop Life: Art in a Material World. The temporary closure of the room where the photo was exhibited comes after the Metropolitan Police said they were investigating to see if the artwork might violate obscenity laws.The work, which is actually a photograph of a photograph taken in 1975 by artist Gary Gross, shows a nude 10-year-old Brooke Shields, heavily made-up and oiled, looking directly at the camera while standing in a bath tub.
The artist describes the artwork as “an extremely complicated photo of a naked girl who looks like a boy made up to look like a woman.”The original photo was taken after the photographer hired Shields to pose as a model, reportedly with her mother's consent. However when he later tried to republish the images in the 1980s, Brooke Shields and her mother began a legal battle to stop him. Ultimately, Gross won the case.Officials at the Tate Modern are said to have sought legal advice prior to including the Price image and had given careful consideration to the reaction it could provoke from the public.
As a result, the gallery decided to hang a notice in the exhibit alerting visitors to the piece's "challenging" nature.The photograph "Spiritual America" appeared in New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2007 in an exhibit by the same name.
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