Our society encourages freedom of expression. Today’s artists revel in this freedom, often creating “controversial” or so-called “shock art”. Being a liberal society, we celebrate such art. It is no secret that art can provoke world-wide controversy, and controversy equals publicity. These “shock tactics” favoured by Jake and Dinos Chapman in Tragic Anatomies, (Chapman 1995) feature freakish life-size sculptures of genetically modified children. This work is made up of naked girl mannequins morphed together with phallic noses and rectal mouths.
The term ‘Artistic merit’ is common in obscenity and censorship trials, and is often used to differentiate “high art” from “base pornography”. At times, the distinction is slight.
Artists using children as subjects will always face some denigration. For these artists often come up against allegations of exploitation. This is a serious concern for artists, as child protection laws decree that people can now be arrested for photographing their own children naked. United States v. Knox (1994) deemed child pornography illegal, not because it “harms” children, but rather because “it might give people ideas.” [Chatelle, 1997].

part my thesis on the sexualisation of children in art