Reply #117: ... Spiritual America is a photograph of a photograph. The original – authorised by Shields's mother

[struggle4progress]

for $450 – had been taken by a commercial photographer, Gary Gross, for the Playboy publication Sugar 'n' Spice in 1976. Shields later attempted, unsuccessfully, to suppress the picture. Prince used the image as the source material for his own 1983 piece; he placed it in a gilt frame and displayed it, without labelling or explanation, in a shopfront in a then rundown street in Lower East Side, New York ...

Tate Modern removes naked Brooke Shields picture after police visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/30/brooke-shields-naked-tate-modern

I suppose some people might consider the photograph erotic, though I think almost everyone would find it too jarring, too unpleasant and too unattractive, to serve erotic ends. It certainly raises real issues about the exploitation of Shields as a child. I'm not sure why you think Richard Prince -- who merely rephotographed and reframed an existing image -- has some special moral culpability here, compared (say) to the original exploiters: Shields' mother, photographer Gary Gross, and Playboy