"But empirically I've come to understand that my photographs really don't do any harm"
About this Quote
There is a lawyerly chill in the word empirically, as if Sturges is trying to reroute an argument about ethics into an argument about evidence. Not “I believe,” not “I mean well,” but “I’ve come to understand” through lived trial-and-error that the work “really don’t do any harm.” It’s a defensive sentence that performs calm while circling a bonfire: Sturges is one of the most contested photographers of the late 20th century, celebrated in art circles for luminous, classical compositions and condemned elsewhere for making nude images of adolescents. In that context, “harm” isn’t an abstract concept; it’s the accusation that has followed him through censorship fights, investigations, and public outrage.
The intent is rhetorical triage. By foregrounding empiricism, he’s claiming neutrality and method, trying to sound like a clinician rather than an artist. It subtly shifts the burden of proof onto critics: show the damage, produce the victims, demonstrate causality. The subtext is a bid for moral permission built on an absence-of-evidence standard. If no visible harm can be documented, the work is presumed acceptable.
What makes the line work - and what makes it unsettling - is how it narrows the frame. “Any harm” implies a clean, measurable injury, not the diffuse harms that culture debates actually hinge on: power imbalance, consent shaped by adult authority, the permanence of an image, the market that circulates it, the way a photograph can outlive the subject’s understanding of it. In one sentence, Sturges tries to rebrand a controversy about gaze and exploitation as a lab report with a negative finding. That move is both savvy and revealing.
The intent is rhetorical triage. By foregrounding empiricism, he’s claiming neutrality and method, trying to sound like a clinician rather than an artist. It subtly shifts the burden of proof onto critics: show the damage, produce the victims, demonstrate causality. The subtext is a bid for moral permission built on an absence-of-evidence standard. If no visible harm can be documented, the work is presumed acceptable.
What makes the line work - and what makes it unsettling - is how it narrows the frame. “Any harm” implies a clean, measurable injury, not the diffuse harms that culture debates actually hinge on: power imbalance, consent shaped by adult authority, the permanence of an image, the market that circulates it, the way a photograph can outlive the subject’s understanding of it. In one sentence, Sturges tries to rebrand a controversy about gaze and exploitation as a lab report with a negative finding. That move is both savvy and revealing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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