An American photographer's controversial Moscow exhibition is set to reopen a year after it was shut over allegations of child pornography.
Jock Sturges’s exhibition of nudist families dating back to the 1970s was closed two weeks after its opening in September 2016 after conservative activists accused him of spreading child pornography.
The Lumiere Brothers’ Center for Photography in Moscow have announced the reopening of the exhibition on Dec. 8, dubbed “Absence of Shame 2.0.” In addition to the 32 original works, it will include news pieces and investigative documents relating to the exhibition’s closure last year.
In the investigation that followed complaints about the nature of the exhibition, Russia’s Investigative Committee concluded that Sturges’s photographs possessed artistic value “not aimed at stimulating sexual desire,” according to a document obtained by the Meduza news website.
The document states that criticism of the exhibition came from members of the public “whose over-the-top social feelings came into dangerous proximity to ignorance.”
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