“I’ve always lived with a little fear that something like this was going to happen,” said Sturges, who has become the reluctant hero of the Bay Area arts community. If something like this had happened during the Renaissance, the Renaissance wouldn’t have happened.” The board is scheduled to act on the resolution within two weeks. “If they are doing this to someone of (Sturges’) stature, imagine what they are doing to the young artist,” Alioto said. “There is a dangerous state of hysteria and repression over freedom of expression of artists in the United States,” concludes the resolution, authored by Supervisor Terrance Hallinan and supported by Supervisors Angela Alioto and Richard Hongisto. In the most recent development in the case, a Board of Supervisors committee has approved a resolution siding with Sturges and criticizing the Justice Department’s employment of a federal grand jury in the case. They liken his situation to that of the 2 Live Crew rap singers arrested in Florida, and that of Cincinnati museum director Dennis Barrie, who faces obscenity charges for his role in an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs that included sexually graphic images. But Sturges’ supporters tout him as the latest victim of what they see as a national wave of hysteria that is eroding freedom of expression by imposing a conservative view of morality. Sturges still faces no charges, more than two months after a call from a photo-lab employee prompted the raid. Sturges, whose works have been purchased by museums in San Francisco, New York and Paris, said that when an FBI and police anti-pornography team raided his Richmond District home and studio in late April, it was like a bad dream. The county Board of Supervisors is scheduled to act on a resolution condemning a federal grand jury investigation of a prominent local photographer caught up in an apparent FBI crackdown on sexually explicit photographs processed by commercial photo laboratories.Īt issue is an FBI investigation of photographer Jock Sturges, 43, whose work often depicts nude women and children.
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