The Art Newspaper

Acquitted: Curators cleared in child porn case

A court of appeal in Bordeaux has thrown out the charges and the case will not proceed to criminal court

By Gareth Harris | From Armory daily edition, 5 Mar 10
Published online 5 Mar 10

A court of appeal in Bordeaux has thrown out charges of child porno­graphy brought against three curators following an exhibition held in France in 2000. The case will not now proceed to a criminal court in June.

Last year, a magistrate ordered the trial of Henry-Claude Cousseau—director of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris—and Marie-Laure Bernadac, a Louvre curator, along with art critic Stéphanie Moisdon, who curated “Presumed Innocent: Contemporary Art and Childhood” at the Bordeaux Museum of Contemporary Art.

La Mouette, a children’s charity, complained that the exhibition, which included works by artists such as Cindy Sherman, showed pornographic images of children.

The Bordeaux court rejected the charges because “some of the disputed works have already been shown in other prestigious museums worldwide such as MoMA in New York.”

Bernadac said that the outcome “demonstrates that the law made a mistake from the outset…the charge was unfounded.”

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