When the News of the World visits the Saatchi Gallery, you know we're in for a moral panic
STEPHEN GLOVER
Eight weeks ago an exhibition opened at the Saatchi Gallery in London. Among the exhibits were 15 photographs by a female photographer called Tierney Gearon that document her family life. Two show her children Emilee and Michael, aged seven and four, in what used to be called a state of undress. The critics were generally reverential — excessively so, some might say, given the commonplace nature of Ms Gearon's work. The word 'obscene' did not pass anyone's lips. It did not occur to any of the critics that the photographs might titillate paedophiles. Nor did it seem to occur to anyone else. Until a few days ago the Saatchi Gallery had received no complaints during the eight weeks of the exhibition.
Ms Gearon's obscurity would have been safely preserved had it not been for the press. Though reporters on the News of the World may not be in the habit of visiting the Saatchi Gallery, they eventually heard about the exhibition. 'Upper-class "artlovers" are paying £5 a head to ogle degrading snaps of naked children plastered across one of Britain's most exclusive galleries', was how the paper put it last Sunday. Two journalists who may have come from the News of the World had visited Ms Gearon's home masquerading as reporters from the Daily Telegraph. The paper appears to have tipped off PC Plod, who as I write is threatening to remove two of the photographs. The anti-censorship lobby which has been slumbering these 20 years has therefore found a cause. At the Independent on Sunday, its editor, Janet Street-Porter, has made time in her hectic social life to pen a mighty tirade. Over at the Guardian Polly Toynbee has snapped another crankshaft. Fleet Street is in uproar. Andreas Whittam Smith, president of the British Board of Film Classification, was visited on his sickbed by John Torode of the Daily Mail. Rather surprisingly, in view of his record as a no-holds-barred man, Andreas pronounced himself disturbed by the photographs.
What should have been a quickly forgotten exhibition of no great importance has been turned by the media — with a little help from PC Plod — into a burning national issue. Ms Gearon should surely be allowed to exhibit photographs of her fouryear-old son Michael peeing in the general direction of the camera if she really wants to. I can't believe that many paedophiles patronise the Saatchi Gallery and, even if they did, it seems unlikely that they would be excited by these pictures, which are innocent if slightly disgusting. There is, of course, the question of whether Ms Gearon has taken advantage of her children. Michael, I suspect, may have something to say about the whole affair before he is much older. Even now his reputation as a cool dude among his friends at his pre-prep may have suffered. His standing with Zoe and Charlotte may not be what it was. But all that is between Michael and his mum, and is not really our business.
Ms Gearon confined to the Saatchi Gallery is all right. but Ms Gearon, or her photographs, spread over our national newspapers are another matter. Some titles such as the News of the World, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday fuzzed out the private parts or stuck pieces of Elastoplast over them. The Independent and the Guardian were gung-ho for the pictures, and used both the controversial ones unadorned. The Daily Telegraph simply ran the shot of Michael peeing at us. The Times, less worked up than most about the whole affair, managed to use the photographs in a more oblique and delicate way.
I can understand the case for the defence: readers must make up their minds about these photographs, and they can only do so if they see them. But how many of us really want to see Michael peeing while we eat our cornflakes? In an art gallery Michael may be acceptable, largely because visitors to the Saatchi Gallery know what they are letting themselves in for. The readers of national newspapers are taken unawares. One moment we are reading about Posh Spice, the next — wham! — there is Michael. I don't expect to come across him in my Telegraph or even in my Independent. It is a matter of taste. Moreover, if there are paedophiles out there who
get a kick out of these pictures — I doubt it, but concede the possibility — papers are magnifying the dangers by lifting them from the obscurity of the Saatchi Gallery.
The press does not come out of this story covered in glory. The News of the World has succeeded in giving enormous exposure to pictures which it claims are damaging. How much better to have left them where they were, discussed in the arts pages and viewed by 'upper-class art-lovers'. As it is, the shocking and the mediocre are celebrated, and the winner is Tierney Gearon. The maelstrom of publicity has conferred celebrity status on her. She complains in the Guardian and Independent of being misunderstood, but in truth she has achieved a degree of recognition she otherwise could never have dreamed of, and thanks to the media will be laughing all the way to her next exhibition.
The new edition of the Dictionary of National Biography is eagerly awaited. It is expected to be published in 2004. But the publishers, Oxford University Press, are already trying to whet our appetites. Last Sunday, both the Observer and the Sunday Times carried similar accounts, mentioning people excluded from the present edition who will be included in the new one. One such person is Randolph Churchill, son of Winston, who, according to the Sunday Times, was banned from existing volumes on account of his alcoholism. It is certainly true that young Randolph does not figure.
The Observer, similarly briefed, also picked up on Randolph Churchill. Unfortunately, it chose the wrong one. We were told that 'Lord Randolph Churchill [had been] previously ignored because of his alcoholism'. A picture of Winston's father, not son, was published, complete with beard. But Lord Randolph Churchill was not best known for his alcoholism, and in fact rates 14 pages — a hefty chunk — in the DNB. The Observer had got its Randolphs in a muddle. I do not particularly blame the paper's consumer affairs correspondent, who wrote the piece. Consumer affairs correspondents are no longer expected to have even an elementary grasp of recent history. But surely some supervisory editor should have spotted the clanger. It would not have happened in David Astor's day.
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