Art as motivation, not justification.

"No, but it is naive to assume that an elementary schoolteacher who was doing creepy things with his students and took creepy pictures of them without telling the children's parents (or anyone else), during school hours no less, was making modern art. I've seen people here come up with some pretty cockeyed defenses, but the notion that this guy was making art probably takes the cake. He was not an artist; he was a sleazeball, pure and simple."

As I indicated in my other post in this thread, "making art" may be a motivation for his actions, but it is not necessarily a defense or justification.

I will come out and say right now that I consider those pictures to be art whether they were intended to be or not.

But assuming they were taken unethically (and this appears to be the case, though I will always try to refrain from making judgments about cases I read about in the news, simply because I wasn't there), I don't think they should have been taken. That position has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they were art. A motivation is not a justification. Just an explanation.

P.S. The terms "artist" and "sleazeball" are not mutually exclusive. Art is not limited to the pleasing, socially responsible portraits you (or anyone else) decide are worthy of that designation.