50 Shades Of Class

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

Described shortly after its publication as “sheer unrestrained pornography,” the tale of Humbert Humbert’s abduction of his adopted child Dolores Haze (a.k.a. “Lolita”) and their sordid road trip across the United States is still considered one of the greatest literary masterpieces in English. In the recent Gagosian Gallery exhibition, “The Last Studies,” 155 polaroids taken by Balthus of his last model Anna raised similarly thorny questions of pornography, pedophilia, and the cultural obsession with prepubescent girls as sexual objects.