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Boundary Issues, Dad
8/7/10 11:24I should be working, but I just read this and I'm creeped out and thoughtful.
Briefly: Larry Rivers, "proto-pop" artist, who died in 2002, left a huge pile of work, photographs, letters, and film, the sort of thing that gladdens the hearts of art historians and biographers (he was friends with all the Big Players from the 40s onward). These archives are going to NYU--including (and here's the creepy part) film that Rivers took over several years of his two then-adolescent daughters, nude or topless. In some of the clips he "interviews" his daughters about their developing breasts.
Not surprisingly, one of his daughters wants the film returned to her, or destroyed. Emma Tamburlini was 11 when the filming began; at 16 she was anorexic, and she feels (and I don't doubt) that there's a causal connection. NYU has pledged to keep the material off limits during the daughter's lifetimes, and to continue discussing the ultimate fate of the film. The director of the Larry Rivers Foundation, which sold the film to NYU as part of a larger archive, refused to destroy the film at Ms. Tamburlini's request: "I can't be the one who says this stays and this goes. My job is to protect the material."
Well, yes. We'd know more about some writers and artists of the past if well-meaning or embarrassed relatives hadn't destroyed their letters or work. But still... The article goes on to cite Sally Mann's photos nude photos of her kids; Mann, at least, stopped the photography when her kids hit puberty. Rivers, on the other hand, seems to have been fetishizing breasts under the guise of some weird memory book-anthropology notion:
You think? Rivers' widow says that the film was meant to be a present to the girls, something they could look back on. Me, I remember developing breasts well enough; I certainly didn't need to have my father document it on film. I hope Ms. Tamburlini gets some closure on this; the more I think about it, the more squicked out I am.
Briefly: Larry Rivers, "proto-pop" artist, who died in 2002, left a huge pile of work, photographs, letters, and film, the sort of thing that gladdens the hearts of art historians and biographers (he was friends with all the Big Players from the 40s onward). These archives are going to NYU--including (and here's the creepy part) film that Rivers took over several years of his two then-adolescent daughters, nude or topless. In some of the clips he "interviews" his daughters about their developing breasts.
Not surprisingly, one of his daughters wants the film returned to her, or destroyed. Emma Tamburlini was 11 when the filming began; at 16 she was anorexic, and she feels (and I don't doubt) that there's a causal connection. NYU has pledged to keep the material off limits during the daughter's lifetimes, and to continue discussing the ultimate fate of the film. The director of the Larry Rivers Foundation, which sold the film to NYU as part of a larger archive, refused to destroy the film at Ms. Tamburlini's request: "I can't be the one who says this stays and this goes. My job is to protect the material."
Well, yes. We'd know more about some writers and artists of the past if well-meaning or embarrassed relatives hadn't destroyed their letters or work. But still... The article goes on to cite Sally Mann's photos nude photos of her kids; Mann, at least, stopped the photography when her kids hit puberty. Rivers, on the other hand, seems to have been fetishizing breasts under the guise of some weird memory book-anthropology notion:
In a voice over Rivers said that he made the film over several years in spite of "the raised eyebrows of society in general and specific friends and even my daughters--they kept sort of complaining."
You think? Rivers' widow says that the film was meant to be a present to the girls, something they could look back on. Me, I remember developing breasts well enough; I certainly didn't need to have my father document it on film. I hope Ms. Tamburlini gets some closure on this; the more I think about it, the more squicked out I am.