In the wake of the controversy over the Vanity Fair photographs of 15 year old Miley Cyrus, which photographer Annie Leibowitz defended as “simple” and “beautiful”, Sydney has had a taste of the controversy about artistic representations of adolescent bodies with the opening of celebrated photographer Bill Henson’s latest exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Paddington. Henson’s exhibition includes photographs of 12 and 13 year old unclothed models, taken with their and their parents’ consent.
Miranda Devine was quick out of the starting blocks to loudly condemn:
Such images presenting children in s*xual contexts are so commonplace these days they seem almost to have lost the capacity to shock.
The effort over many decades by various groups – artists, perverts, academics, libertarians, the media and advertising industries, respectable corporations and the pr0n industry – to smash taboos of previous generations and define down community standards, has successfully eroded the special protection once afforded childhood.
Miranda modified to be safer for work.
Well, there you have it. As Devine observes, there is currently a Senate inquiry into the sexualisation of children and adolescents in the media, which was an initiative of Democrats Leader Lyn Allison.
Aside from the highly questionable narrative implied in Devine’s claim (and it’s noteable that she doesn’t go on to refer to Henson’s photographs further in what is quite a long article), what’s interesting is the inattention to context and the elision of art with commercial representations – whose motivations are more likely to be about making money than some avant-garde attempt to shock the bourgeoisie, if indeed it still exists as such. (And incidentally, I think Miranda is stuck in a sort of modernist time warp in terms of how she thinks about artistic motivations!)
And what is a “sexual context” in the context of these images?
Henson’s artistic interest is in adolescence as a time of metamorphosis which exposes the tensions and strains of living in a body, of being embodied, and of a certain relation of the psyche to the body. He eschews statements of political or sociological intent, though he’s aware that audiences may read such statements into his work. He invites reflection on times of transition, and what it feels like to undergo change. His images are classical and painterly, and ethereal.
His work deserves a lot better than the treatment that Miranda Devine has afforded it. Her response is typical of an inability to understand the complex interactions of the aesthetic and the social, and in my view, constitutes a deliberate blindness – a refusal to see. The gaze of the viewer is also implicated in Henson’s work, of course, but what’s seen through that lens might say more about the beholder than the art.
You can view the current exhibition online here.
Update: You can’t any more, because it looks like Miranda has taken the scalp she wanted, and the gallery is under police investigation.
Elsewhere: More at Junk for Code.
Update: Comments on this thread are now closed, and the issues raised here and in further discussion of the so-called “debate” that’s erupted in the public sphere after charges were laid against Henson and the Gallery can proceed at this thread.
How is it so shocking that Mylie was on the cover with that sheet when she and all the other little poppetts get aorund in dresses that would certainly get her let into any licenced club in Australia.
But she’s all about Jesus just like Britney was, right? poor girl
http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news?id=41303
Not that I should bother even responding to Devine. But seriously, what a load of shit. In sociological terms, this ’special protection’ is as old as a newly-hatched mayfly, and in any kind of real sense is of a patchy and inconsistently applied nature, anyway.
Besides, Devine seems blind to the implication that perhaps the hysteria – and the fetishing – that we see (or may participate in) is a symptom of said ’special protection’, rather than a sign of its demise. This is how fetishes are born. Heh. She should read some Fouccault (no. I take that back, I wouldn’t with that on anyone).
Oh dear.
Those Henson images are stunning. Being the owner/operator of a child starting her adolescence, I think he captures the awkwardness and the “letting go” of childhood near perfectly. That blossoming self awareness and (at times) painful acknowledgment of change. Shit, I think I’ll have a little cry now.
Devine is an idiot. Anyone who views those images as sexual fodder is a sicko.
Yes, he’s an amazing artist.
“..Anyone who views those images as sexual fodder is a sicko..”
Definately, but where does art end and the gratification of a sicko begin? The artists intent isnt to give fodder to perverts, but probably is. Does that make the art “bad” or irresponsible?
What if that art was used on a billboard to advertise something, would it cease to be art and become pervert fodder then?
Should certain pictures be off limits, or does the prevalence of porn (both sicko and normal) make it all a moot point anyway?
IMOHO certain things should be off limits, absolutely, to artists/perverts/pornographers and advertisers alike. Because the boundary blurs and thats where the bad men are.
But it wouldn’t be. Henson is an internationally renowned art photographer. He’s not taking photos to flog to advertisers.
Ok, what if it is printed on a mass circulation magazine cover about the artist? My point was even if the artist intended it as serious art, it will tickle the fancy of a pervert.
The same goes for any material once it entrs the public domain. Id be willing to bet money that some of the pictures from this exibition will be found on a pedophiles computer tommorrow. Not because the artist intended it to, but because its now public.
Why wouldnt some pervert be able to pass off his thai “happy snaps” of naked kids as art, that defence has been tried before.
Im just much happier having a definate “line in the sand” on issues like this, abuguity is hazardous.
Mole wrote:
I don’t think so. The problem as I see it is that while in a sexual context, nudity can be arousing, that doesn’t make nudity automatically arousing in every context, especially when the subject isn’t sexually mature.
While we know that there are a (small) percentage of men who are aroused by images that contain no sexual content (i.e. sexual undevelopment), there is absolutely no need to re-contextualize every non-sexual image just for those people. When Devine approaches these kinds of images in this way, she seeks to whip up a moral panic which just makes parenting harder. It’s tough enough to bring up adolescent girls as it is without making them instant sexual objects in every place they appear.
I think the Miley Cyrus/Disney machine treads a pretty fine line in making “family friendly” entertainment as it is without turning their commercial focus into prurient interest in the poppets on display. You just can’t stop the tweenagers from developing breasts, very publically and awkwardly on TV. That isn’t the problem though, it’s the automatic association of breasts and sex (innapropriately in this case) thats the problem.
Counter intuitively, perhaps more relaxed attitudes to nudity would help, but our advertising agencies and TV/movie producers have a vested interest in ensuring that nudity=sex=sales, so I’m plumb out of ideas on what exactly can be done about it. It makes me a little sad that girls are now not allowed to feel comfortable in their own bodies.
Mole, perverts’ fancies are by definition easily tickled. That’s why they’re perverts.
You can’t have society constantly guarding against somebody taking sick pleasure in things the rest of us see as healthy and normal—that way lies paranoia.
Well, maybe an education in the art of The Nude from classical times to the present in our schools so these kind of images aren’t sexualised or claimed to be sexual by idiots like Devine, who is obviously just trying to stir sh*t anyway.But then again, that would take years to take effect.
(I can’t think of a period in the history of art from Ancient Greece onward, where some-one hasn’t painted/drawn/sculpted teenage girls nude.)
Word Liam. By your definition Mole, any child should be kept from the general public until the reach adulthood for fear of encouraging paedophilia.
I remember a friend of mine worrying about taking her (very young) daughter to the beach – because ‘perverts’ might see.
Though it wasn’t exactly the response she was looking for, I told her to take a more utilitarian approach to it. If some dude looking at kids at the beach goes home and gets his jollies, whilst parent, child et al. are unaware, is that really any justification for robbing your kid of the totally awesome beach experience? What will cause the most harm to the child in the long run, never going to the beach? Or going to the beach?
God, people are so caught up on perverts, you’d think they were bloody lurking behind every door. I blame Today Tonight for this hysteria. Someone should do an expose.
Oh, sorry, Byzantium is an exception, I think.
Actally the idea of normalising nudity seems the best idea. I hadnt even considered that!
On the other hand, the subject matter here is inherently edgy, which is part of its point. It’s hardly the same as someone taking artistic photos of sheep or shoes and unwittingly giving fuel to bestiality pervs or foot fetishists, because the whole point is the crossing of a threshold, and thus exploration of the boundary, between innocence and experience. Or more straightforwardly between pre-sexuality and being “ready for sex”.
On my reading, (a big) part of what we’re being asked to do is consider the subject’s experience of awakening sexuality. Still totally fair game as far as I’m concerned, as long as the subjects know what they’re being asked to do and why.
Clive Hamilton will be choking on his cornflakes.
Concern about this is based on the idea that nudity is automatically sexualising, which is a strange case to make.
But I think it’s interesting to ask how these images would be read in different contexts. Saying that because Henson is a famous art photographer therefore it’s irrelevant doesn’t work. After all, Liebowitz is also a fantastic photographer, but her images for ‘Vanity Fair’ are bascally high class advertising. There isn’t a thick, black line that can be drawn between images which are ‘art’ and images which aren’t. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory is the idea that Henson’s images have been used in ads – I think for Benetton.
Anyway, what a kerfuffle. I find it hard to see paedophiles slavering over these as they are too complex.
FDB wrote:
Why? Why aren’t the images about being ready to do the cleaning and cooking? The development of breasts and pubes isn’t just about sex, FDB.
“The development of breasts and pubes isn’t just about sex, FDB.”
I see you were never a teenaged boy. Interesting…
You have to be really careful here to separate out hysterical responses to child abuse (as in Devine) and the notion that child sexual abuse is rare. It ain’t rare. It remains distressingly common. It is just that most perpetrators are not strangers on a beach but family members, neighbours and friends.
“It is just that most perpetrators are not strangers on a beach but family members, neighbours and friends.”
Exactly. And they’re unlikely to be emboldened to commit such gross acts by seeing an artwork, billboard or TV ad. They do it because they are ill and can’t help themselves, and/or think they can get away with it.
I agree FDB. I don’t necessarily think that child rapists are ‘ill’ in a DSM IV sense, many of them are not and I don’t know how I feel about Henson’s photos, conflicted I guess, but I certainly do not think that they will inspire child rape.
FDB wrote:
Well, FDB, yes I was.
Thankfully, I not any more. It’s an odd process, this “growing up” thing but wow it makes your perspective wider.
Just joshing DR. Like I said, the “awakening sexuality” thing is a major theme in the pics, but not necessarily the only one. In your position, I’m sure the prospect of one extra cleaner/cook around the house is quite compelling! I think most people’s reaction (and that of ALL hetero teen boys!) would be to ponder the models’ sexual status. Because they’re like, nude.
Huhnhhhrr huhuh. He said, like, “nude”.
Indeed Sue. I should have made that more clear. If people want to be glaring suspiciously at anyone, it’s the family or the friend, not some poor schmoe at the beach.
More seriously FDB – no, I don’t think so. When I was a teenage boy, I was interested in girls with, you know, actual sexual maturity. Like Christie Brinkley, say, or that lady writhing around on the car in that Whitesnake video currently stinking up the reality TV show (Tawny Kitaen or whatever she’s called). I understand what you’re saying about the emerging sexuality of the images being a part of why they could be considered edgy, but I think it’s a mistake to take that away as the major message. Most people will do the washing up more than they have sex.
Another thought – I would put these images alongside those of Cherry Hood, whose portraits of very young children I find too painful to contemplate for long. I do not think they are pernicious however, my response is an entirely personal one.
I can’t quite tell if all these subjects are girls or not. If they are all girls, then that has a significance, I think.
I’m reminded of Ella Dreyfus’s photographs of 12 year old boys, which I found more upfront and interesting than Henson’s work.
Su, I’d suggest ‘conflicted’ is probably the response Henson wants, as they are not simple images.
Suz at 29, he frequently photographs adolescent boys similarly. If you google image search him, you’ll find some.
An excellent point, Fine. The social and artistic contexts of nudity are also time and culture dependent, and it’s just too simple to equate nudity with sexuality. Unless you’re Miranda Devine.
Oh sure, Fine, but context is important. Devine’s vision is actually a kind of vulgar postmodernism – an inability to see and read complexity and specificity and an attention only to surfaces and obvious citations.
Any image has an excess which overflows its intended meaning. In the case of self-consciously artistic images, that may be more deliberate. Or not. But policing meanings and representations requires justification.
Bolta chimes in:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/children_exposed/
It really is interesting how the moralizing types will attack artists who take a great deal of care to preserve and respect the dignity of their models and remain silent on the exploitation of adolescent sexual imagery in advertising. It’s hardly surprising that Devine and Bolt do this. They’re both obviously riddled with surplus resentiment toward artists for the very simple reason that they aren’t such.
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Another martyr to the fundamentalist and dirty minded is Jock Sturges whose Radiant Idetities is a work of startling beauty. Sturges grants his models unprescedented control over the imagery and withdraws the images from view if at some date they feel uncomfortable. However the FBI’s raided his studio on the pretext that he’s a child pornographer. These witless androids haven’t the nouse to recognize that Sturge’s nudes are not entirely of children or adolescents but of humans across the full spectrum of life. Hello?
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Funnily enough Sally Manne hasn’t been subjected to the same treatment. Women of course don’t have a sexuality and men have nothing but. Says more about these whitebread corpses from the waist down then it does about the targets of their repression.
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Sturges made a remark in his defense that what the authorities were doing was seeking to make innocence obscene.
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What all these blockheads refuse to admit is that sexuality is innate. It’s not something one is granted license to after turning 17 and taking a test or something. And it’s not some disease that’s to be avoided at all costs. Adolescents are not children either. I wonder what kind of culture these people want when they wish to hide what is both natural and beautiful as if it were a source of great shame.
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Well, they’d say, they’re protecting their children. Really? Interesting then isn’t it that the evidence always shows a strong correllation between puritanical repressiveness and sexual exploitation. Open societies are quite the reverse. I myself found Bill Henson’s work when I was an adolescent and fell in love with it and not as masturbation material either.
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But you can’t get thru to the likes of Mr Bolt. He’s no more chance of understanding art then a virus has of mastering astrophysics. He will persist however in displaying various items of kitsch wallpaper displays of tulips as an example to follow.
The exhibition was cancelled after a visit by police today. That link to the online pics doesnt work either anymore? is that right?
Good point. We should ban the The White Album and The Bible.
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Just to be safe. It’s okay. We can still enjoy ourselves. We’ll go ’round to Miranda and Andrew’s for scones and tea. Maybe they’ll show some of their emroidery. Pictures of tulips.
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Noice.
I don’t think the controversy should be that such images act as fodder for perverts but that they sexualise early adolescence. i haven’t seen the images (yeah i know what comes next – therefore of course i’m going to criticise) but if Henson wants to capture the blossoming of childhood into puberty, why is it neccessary to photograph the young things naked? Think people of any age can reveal their essence without taking their clothes off.
Suspect that most people who post at LP haven’t, ever or yet, raised their own children into teenagers, and can still afford to wear these detached, uber-sophisticated attitudes to minors.
And…
To the latter: it’s called art. The study of the nude has been around for millenia. The purpose is sometimes sexual (in the 19th century) but the more liberal the culture (eg ancient Greece, Italian Rennaissance) the more purely aesthetic the reason. The idea that an image of nudity is inherently pornographic is simply prudish. Art can be pornographic (ie sexually arousing) but Henson’s isn’t. At least not intentionally. You want porn in your art? Here’s the guy. Specialised in wedding chamber scenarios for the aristos and high bourgeoisie of Italy some 400 years ago.
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Henson’s work is dark and it’s beautiful. It spoke to me when I was an adolescent about what I was going thru. If others can’t see the beauty in it that’s reason to pity ‘em. But please be polite and leave those of us that can out of it. Thanks.
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Photographs don’t sexualise early adolescence. Early adolescence does.
Further to Casey @ #36.
“Nude kids”?
Nakedness is not necessarily sexual. In fact what I’ve seen of the images they are definately less sexual than most of the clothing aimed at the teen and tweenager girls.
It looks as though Miranda and Bolt have been heard. I caught an ad for the news displaying one of the pictures (non existent breasts blacked out) and talking about police interviewing (the parents I think).
(Sigh)
Sheesh!
Really, casey? Do you have a link? And yes, it looks like the photos have been removed from their server. You can still find some of them by doing a google image search on Henson’s name though.
So Devine and Bolt have taken a scalp? How pathetic.
Sorry, have now seen Dr Cat’s link. Hetty Johnson piling on, calling for prosecutions.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/22/this-is-not-art/#comment-469958
Where exactly was the “community outrage” in Australia over the Vanity Fair pictures btw? Did anyone much notice?
Are the police going to investigate the Newcastle Council art gallery?
http://www1.newcastle.nsw.gov.au/strangecargo/pages/henson.html
Or the ABC?
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/deepend/features/gallery/gallery2005/gallery/henson.htm
Or the Sydney Morning Herald?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Arts/Timeless-sculptures-made-with-a-camera/2005/01/10/1105206045369.html
All of which feature Henson’s work with adolescent subjects on their websites.
“Suspect that most people who post at LP haven’t, ever or yet, raised their own children into teenagers, and can still afford to wear these detached, uber-sophisticated attitudes to minors.”
This is a big bit of presumption. I’ve talked to a number of people on here with adult kids. Of course it’s also beside the point. To suggest that those without teenage kids can have no legitimate position on these images (only “detached, uber-sophisticated” positions of irresponsibility) is a lot of garbage. You’re also speaking for a lot of other parents in carrying on with these assumptions.
I’m making the presumption that all of us have been adolescents, and all of us have undergone changes to our bodies, which is the theme of Henson’s work as I outlined in the post.
It has a particular resonance for me because cancer and amputation of a leg followed the onset of puberty in my case.
But clearly he has a serious artistic intent. What the hell is the law on this? How can the cops justify an “investigation”?
I note both NSW & Qld have a very puritanical attitude to nakedness, especially involving those under 16.
I wonder if it’s the political influence of Fred Nile in NSW, and Hetty Johnson channelling Sir Joh in Qld ?
[Where exactly was the “community outrage” in Australia over the Vanity Fair pictures btw? Did anyone much notice?]
Readers comments on news.com.au
Oh yeah, there you go. Bolta’s mob are the community.
[But clearly he has a serious artistic intent. What the hell is the law on this? How can the cops justify an “investigation”?]
In the pre digital camera age, there were several cases of photolab staff reporting parents for taking kiddie pr0n when the parents were just taking their happy snaps of the kids in the bath etc.
The gallery’s website, we now learn, has been referred to the AMCA and is being examined by “Child Protection Internet Unit” detectives according to Lateline.
[The gallery’s website, we now learn, has been referred to the AMCA and is being examined by “Child Protection Internet Unit” detectives according to Lateline.]
THey should’ve hsted the pics overseas, out of the clutches of the ACMA
The kids and their parents are also to be interviewed by the police. What’s likely to be more traumatsing for the kids? Having their photos taken or being interviewed by th epolice and possibly made to feel shame and humiliation. I feel angry about this sort of witch hunt.
Any one else ever see Germaine Greer’s book The Boy, a few years back? I remember finding myself quite conflicted reading it; as a mother, a woman, an artist and social worker.
Never resolved it, mind you.
From the Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/22/1066631496604.html"Her new, lavishly illustrated art book about the erotics of boyhood flaunts all the qualities of its author's flawed brilliance and is sure to provoke more than its fair share of debate.
Part of the purpose of her book, Greer tells us, is to "advance women's reclamation of their capacity for, and right to, visual pleasure".
The public recognition and legitimation of female sexual desire in the 20th century should now be refined, she thinks, by the recognition and legitimation of women's right to appreciate male beauty in art.
Unfortunately for men, Greer's vision of male beauty is transient and fleeting. It is typified by the boy "old enough to be capable of a sexual response, but not yet old enough to shave".
"This window of opportunity is not only narrow," she writes, "it is mostly illegal."
Having grown up as part of the nudist movement, the current idea from the Devine-Bolta crowd that all nudity is necessarily pornographic amuses, bemuses and bothers me, because it just ain’t necessarily so.
Certainly, nude bodies posed for the sake of art raise more eyebrows than nude bodies photgraphed playing tennis or volleyball, because there is an interaction with the viewer and the static/posed nude body appears much more vulnerable than a nude body engaged in normal daily activities.
I haven’t seen the images because they’d been taken down before I read Kim’s post, but I certainly can see how the concept of exploring children’s reactions to the bodily changes of puberty could be very profound and with no intent of titillation. However, my beloved who didn’t grow up around nudists finds the idea much more disturbing.
In general, the antidote to our society’s prurient interest in nudity lies in encouraging more casual public nudity involving people just enjoying being in their skin, demonstrating that sexual interactions are not their prime consideration in getting their kit off, not mandating less of it.
That’s an interesting point of comparison, sc, and I can see why those tensions remain unresolved.
The way I see the Henson thing is that it’s somewhat different because his art remains ‘open to interpretation’, whereas Greer’s project is ’self-interpreting’, and that this whole response has happened the wrong way round: if anything it is Greer who is veering towards pederasty.
But I suppose this is the challenge of the photograph: we tend to read photographs as in some way an unmediated contact with reality and self-evidently mimetic (all the while bringing almost all of the meaning with us). This interpretive framework ends up protecting Greer, who is openly advocating certain kinds of visual pleasure – ie she can be ridiculed but not prosecuted – and leaving the troubling, ambiguous photographs of Henson open to censorship and prosecution.
What I find most disturbing is the chain of equivalence we are supposed to accept between a wide range of cultural practices. We are all made part of a shadowy conspiracy between artists, academics, advertisers, perverts and pornographers to make the violation of children acceptable.
This must be banned immediately
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Babies
Tigtog – we are a rather open family, but i vividly remember my daughter when she was 10 suggesting i put some of my nude paintings away during her birthday party “in case some of the mum’s think you are weird”.
(Alas its too late, i thought to myself!)
“I haven’t seen the images because they’d been taken down before I read Kim’s post, but I certainly can see how the concept of exploring children’s reactions to the bodily changes of puberty could be very profound and with no intent of titillation.”
Henson has been troubling us with the same themes for more than three decades. There is lots of his earlier material available online that is more readily appropriated to this panic than the current exhibition. The belatedness of the panic indicates what this is really about: it’s about a certain way of thinking about sex and childhood taking hold, and it has emerged at different sites across the political spectrum, which indicates how powerful it can be. For those of us who are actually concerned about children being sexually abused this is a massive setback for that campaign: the fact that victim advocacy groups are becoming involved shows how easily this new way of thinking can coopt legitimate concern, and render actual abuse once again invisible.
Matilda wrote:
Get fucked.
Civility, David!
I had exactly the same thought last night. Particularly since this will no doubt come to nothing, and the cops probably know that.
I’m sorry mark. That matilda comment got up my date. As has Kevvie’s assessment that the photos were worthless which was a real J-Ho moment. Just when you think societies reins could be loosened a little in the quest for meaning, the numbnuts and fatheads start fulminating again. It angries the blood!
Fine@53,
Yeah. I’ve been concerned at the impact that will have on the kid(s), and parents. What is perhaps even worse from the family point of view, DOCS have been brought in.Can you imagine the impact the fear of being removed from her parents might have on that young girl.
Also pertinent, that, what , for her, was probably a significant artistic achievement has been turned into something ugly by the likes of Devine, Bolt, Channel 10, the morning TV programs, and unforgivably, Kevin Rudd. I mean, he could have said this is a matter for the police and left it at that (presuming the Channel 9 Puppets would have let him do so.)
And think of what she’ll now cop at scnool, with the narrative the exhibition has been given.
As far as I’m concerned, its no longer about whether its kiddie-porn, or not. Its a debate about censorship. I feel like I’m back in the days of America, Hurrah!, Lady Chatterly, Lolita, Oh, Calcutta! etc etc.All those old fights having to be fought again.
Oh, I share your pain, David! I haven’t heard what Rudd said, but I continue to be disappointed whenever PMs are asked questions that have nothing to do with well PM stuff and feel obliged to comment. Rudd should know better.
The police are protecting themselves – it’s basically a PR exercise so they don’t get tarred with the same brush. Devine’s chain of equivalences is constructed from a set of ‘for or against’ questions implicitly offered to each potential link in the chain. Rudd’s response is probably much the same: he doesn’t want to be a link in that chain. In refusing to become a link, however, they confirm the validity of the question. What is needed is for a victims advocacy group, or some other ‘untarred’ position to stand up and say that this is beside the point and obscuring the problem.
That’s why it’s a pity that Hetty Johnson is the “go to” commentator on these issues from the media pov.
People, people, society doesn’t care what convoluted, pseudo-sophisticated theses you come up with to justify why you enjoy looking at children’s private parts.
Society thinks it more important that children be protected from exploitation and that it send a strong, unequivocal message that children will be protected.
Henson gives comfort and encouragement to child molesters, and so do you.
And the other poster is spot on, most of you clearly don’t have children of your own.
“Henson gives comfort and encouragement to child molesters, and so do you.”
Explain how this is the case, PaulW? The burden of proof should be on those who claim such things, not on those accused. It’s not at all self-evident what harm is being done and to whom, or for that matter which criminals are being ‘comforted and encouraged’ and how.
There’s a post on this at Sarsaparilla which compares what’s happening to the culture wars over art (eg. Mapplethorpe) in the US:
http://sarsaparillablog.net/?p=672
I’m not sure the parallel is exact, because the accusations are different, but it looks like we might be in for something similar.
Maybe it’s worth revisiting our thoughts on the sexualisation of children last year, and juxtapose the ideas there with teh ideas here. I know everyone is a bit emotional about this, but debate is GOOD not bad.
A lot of the ideological ideas are around intent and context of the images to explore vs exploit.
So would the images be different if, say, they had a Brand name at the bottom and they were an Ad in Black and White?
What about if the images do end up on a dubious website.
What about the fact the images are for sale at $25 000 each? What of the buyer?
What if the kids took the pics themselves?
What if the kids were Asian and the pics for sale on the street?
I think these are really important issues to discuss so bring it on!
“Society thinks it more important that…” blah, blah, blah.
Society is no more capable of thought than some of the individuals within it. If you are trying to say that the majority of those who make up ’society’ think a certain way, I presume that you have some evidence.
Or maybe you’re like David Spears (on ABC radio this morning) from Sky ‘News’, who has decided that ‘community sentiment’ is with Dewhine, Bolt, etc. without providing a scrap of evidence.
It’s the self-fulfilling prophesy technique – say something often enough and it comes to be believed as the truth.
Sc, I think a lot of those questions have already been addressed:
(1) It’s not just intent but also context. Different images are viewed in different ways and in different places. Normally the gallery’s website would probably only attract a very small audience, primarily those who are aware of its existence or people who got there via a google image search for Bill Henson’s photography, that is – people who are going there expecting to see “art”. As Kim pointed out, very similar images can still be found on other art gallery sites – run by government – and indeed on the Sydney Morning Herald’s site. The images have just been violently wrenched out of their intended context and inserted into a much bigger one – where the rules of discourse are different and the urge to condemn is instant. So while we might have a debate, and in fact I think we already have, what’s happening now in the “public sphere” is anything but a debate.
(2) Similarly with your other questions – context is key. Henson makes more money – probably – as one of Australia’s most famous artists (he’s had major retrospectives this decade at the Art Gallery of NSW and the NGV) than most if not all commercial photographers. So these images per se are not going to end up in Black & White or on an ad – because he’s got a proprietary as well as an artistic interest in them, he’s likely to be very careful indeed as to their dissemination. But they’ve just been placed in quite a different frame, and potentially one where people have other protocols for viewing them than the relatively small audience who would normally look at them.
(3) I don’t think the images are about “sexualisation” of children in the slightest – except in the really stoopid “nudity = sex” or
“puberty = sex” way, because the poses and the actual composition of the images point to their meaning (or one of their meanings) – the awkwardness of embodied adolescence. Incidentally, the “painterly” nature of the images Kim referred to is also a clue to their artistic nature. Note that I’m not trying to adjudicate or rule on what is or what is not art, but what I am suggesting is that the visual semiotics and the usual viewing context of these images give multiple signals that they’re to be seen within an artistic tradition.
I think it’s also very important as a condition of impossibility for a “debate” to take place that we now can’t see the images in question because of the police action. So all people have to go on, if they don’t go to the trouble to find other examples of Henson’s work, is Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt’s assertions about what the images are like.
PaulW wrote:
See comment 60, it applies to you too.
I tend to agree Mark. If there are artists i really struggle with, its some of the Chapman brothers models of children, (pictures of which i have, included in a book i own btw, bought in an art bookshop in Brissie).
Well, I’ll put a word in for the cops here.
When it comes to child protection, they know what they’re doing. And sadly, they deal with enough of the real thing to know that this is a waste of their time.
The cops will also be laughing behind their hands at what amateurs Devine and Bolt are. If they think that this is protecting kids, well the cops really know what’s involved in child protection.
I predict they’ll go through the motions, file the paperwork, and let it through to the keeper.
I have adolescent children, Paul W and I have personal experience of child molestation. A little like Tigtog, I grew up, initially, in a family that was pretty relaxed about child nudity. I don’t think I wore clothes much at all until I went to school. The danger did not lie within our family, nor did it occur when we were scuttling around beaches and forests in the buff. The danger came from without, from people who did not have a relaxed attitude to nudity but whose superficial primness disguised a darker core.
It is a mistake to think that a child’s perceived sexuality leads to their abuse. Projecting adult sexuality onto a child’s nascent sexual feelings may play a role in excusing or denying abuse after the fact but as for the actual act itself, it is the vulnerability of children physically and emotionally that abusers prey upon. And it is this very vulnerability that Henson takes as his subject matter. That is why I believe his photographs actually stand in direct opposition to, for example, the advertisements of pouty preteens striking provocative poses; images that endow children with a sexual agency that they just would not have in their relationships with adults or much older children.
I am sorry that David Rubie had to be so abusive to Matilda because she has a point – you do have a different perspective on childhood as a parent than you do as an adult surveying your own childhood memories. It is very difficult not to project some of your adult self back into those memories.
su wrote:
Where exactly did Matilda make this point? The Matilda comment merely chose to make some deeply incorrect assumptions about the posters on the thread in order to derail the discussion.
Mercurius, I’m not blaming the police. It’s something they probably have to do and they’ll probably do it well. I’m just saying it pisses me off that the kids are put in that position, especially by people who are ostensibly concerned for their welfare.
I was also very perturbed by a quote from Iemma I read in the Oz, questioning the parents’ bona fides. Next Hetty Johnson will be swooping down on them offering counselling.
Well then you are reading her last paragraph differently to me. And although I don’t agree that these images sexualise children for reasons I have already stated she wasn’t derailing the thread she was putting an argument. And your grossly offensive reply was unnecessary.
I wonder how the children in the photos will feel about this in years to come?
su, I’ve pointed out to David that his comment to Matilda was out of order.
Kevin Rudds’ response has been disappointing but predictable.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=567968
I wonder how he feels about his nephews’ work being held back from exhibition in Melbourne? It might be worth catching Van Thanh Rudds site before it is taken down for conveying dangerous political thought.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/rudd-v-banksy–ripoff-or-real-art/2008/05/23/1211183062478.html
http://www.van-thanh-rudd.net/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
I have an adolescent child. To suggest that Hensens’ pictures were “revolting” is pretty sad; “sensitive” seems much closer to the mark. Mind you, there is still a lot of disgust about the sight of any human body, regardless of it’s stage of development and that is even sader.
su wrote:
Uncivil yes. Unnecessary, no. I found it grossly offensive that the only argument Matilda could muster was to clump together the reasoned responses of people in this thread into
Not only is it presumptuous and startlingly reactionary, it legitimises the stupidity of Miranda Devine, Bolta and The Kevinator. What exactly is “uber-sophisticated” supposed to be other than yet another “elite” slur against people who apparently are too sophisticated to judge their attitudes on their own children, of whom apparently we have none (irrelevent, but I have three daughters and I think I know more about them than Matilda).
Getting insulted in the vernacular is piffle in comparison. I take back my apology.
Kevin Rudd – John Howard with more hair.
Geez, su, get a grip. DR’s comment was less offensive to me than the original comment that inspired it.
Ok, let’s put a stop to the civility discussion and get on with discussing civilly, please!
My first thought on reading about this was to compare it with the Clive Hamilton v. D*vid J*nes Corporate Pa*d*philia stoush last (?) year. And behold who should pop up on today’s crikey but Hamilton himself. Mark, I hope this isn’t too long a quotation. I’ve bolded what I think are the best points:
His slightly confronting conclusion is that Henson is an innocent victim of these changes, but an innocent victim ‘who should have known better’.
Does he explain why Henson “should know better”, Dr Cat?
I’d go back to what I said at 72 – under normal circumstances these images would never be viewed as pr0n, nor would the website have much of a reach outside those who view the images as art. To the degree that Henson knows that some will misunderstand his images, he’s stated that’s not his responsibility, which I think in a strict sense is true – given again the other points I made about how he would normally try to manage the dissemination of these images.
When similar ones were shown at the Art Gallery of NSW, does Hamilton think there’s a problem? Or is it that they’re on the net? (which appears to be the flashpoint for these concerns)… A lot more people would see them in the Art Gallery of NSW.
I don’t think there’s any obligation on Henson other than to take some care about the distribution of the images (which as I’ve argued he would do anyway as a matter of course), to be accountable within reason for stating his artistic intent, and to deal ethically with the subjects and their parents.
My final point @77 was not about civility but that adults project their adult selves onto childhood reminiscences and that becoming a parent challenges that in many ways. That is what I took to be underlying Matilda’s comment and despite disagreeing with her and having children of my own I wasn’t offended.
Adrien upthread was saying that early adolescence sexualises but the audience for these images is largely adult, not other early adolescents and Henson himself has called his previous works “half-conscious projections” so I don’t think that a point about how we see childhood from an adult perspective is irrelevant.
Well this is strange. I actually agree with Clive.
Mark says:
Perhaps its ignorance on Henson’s part, but there is effectively no real limit to the reach of the website as soon as you have open access to the site. It is optimistic to the extreme to think that there won’t be be people who distribute these images among groups who trade in child porn.
And perhaps that is why the latest news is that charges are likely to be laid for “publishing and indecent article.”
“Perhaps its ignorance on Henson’s part, but there is effectively no real limit to the reach of the website as soon as you have open access to the site. It is optimistic to the extreme to think that there won’t be be people who distribute these images among groups who trade in child porn.”
Chris (a different one), did you actually see the images, on the site, before they were taken down? There is no way they could possibly be conceived of as prOn apart from people who are in involved in a witchhunt. Those who trade in that stuff are likely to do better from a junk mail catalogue. There you will find many examples of the creepy se#ualisation of children and it hardly gets a mention.
[Those who trade in that stuff are likely to do better from a junk mail catalogue.]
And magazines targetted at kids like Barbie and Total Girl – heck even the newspapers themselves in Summer, plus public events featuring the local dance school – one bloke in WA got charged for videoing the dancers at a community festival.
I only saw one on a news website, and I don’t think I would have considered it porn. However I don’t know what the legal definition of child porn is. I think its useful to remove or change the context (as the context will change as images are distributed around the internet) and ask if the police found a series of similar photos of children on a person’s computer and they had been trading these sorts of images with others on the internet, would they prosecute?
Predictable comments from readers of PertNow, but one commentator makes a good point about naked babies on TV ads and kissing of their bottoms.
[What double standards people have. If this guy is a paedophile for showing children naked in non-sexual images then so too are most mums and dads after all how many have taken photos of their own children like this? And what about the t.v ads showing naked babies and people kissing bare babies bums? People no matter who or how old being naked may not be suitable in certain situations, however it is not depraved or dirty.If you think it is I suggest go to a counsellor and seek help.All the exhibition can be charged with is being confrontational and tacky.
Posted by: mat of Perth 11:45am today
Comment 27 of 32]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/comments/0,21590,23745340-948,00.html
Let this guy help you out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potter_Stewart
In the meantime, can we please ban photographs of people’s feet? I hear there are people out there called foot fetishists. I’ve also heard about this site exclusively featuring images women bogged in their trucks. Fully clothed, mind you. Just sitting in their trucks.
“Well, I’ll put a word in for the cops here.
When it comes to child protection, they know what they’re doing.”
Hm. My wife works in a women’s service/women’s shelter. last year they were sheltering a woman with three kids (eldest 10) who’d fled from the abusing husband/father and a call came from the department asking the woman and her kids to come in to the office for some interview-type reason. Wifey and another worker go with the family to the meeting. All very cordial and accomodating. Mum leaves the room with Govt officials for interview. After she leaves, four cops show up with the father (”Heeelllllooo kids”) and the children instantly go *nuts*. The two little ones hide under furniture crying and the 10 year old runs to try and find a back door. It takes three cops to get the kicking, screaming and biting 10 year old girl into the back of her father’s car.
So yes, I’m sure you’re correct. The cops know exactly what they are doing in child protection.
d
[“Well, I’ll put a word in for the cops here.
When it comes to child protection, they know what they’re doing.”]
Well after the stuffup with The Chaser at APEC, I wouldn’t trust the NSW Police with organising a root in a Brothel. Or indeed any Police organisation, the laws regarding child pornography are so broad, I rckon a parent putting the naked kids on a blog could be charged.
Heh, should I take down the ultrasound images of my kid naked in the womb?
Hmm, interesting aspect about the proposed charges.
[Commander Sicard says if charges are laid against the gallery, it would be through New South Wales laws, while the photos which were republished on the internet are a matter for the Federal Police. ]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/23/2253956.htm
[while the photos which were republished on the internet are a matter for the Federal Police]
Might be a tad difficult to prove since the offending pictures are no longer online.
In a world where any and every relationship is available for the production of desire, as a means of enhancing the value of production, why are we surprised when the ‘market’ for images designed to stimulate the desire for consumption, starts to reach further and further into the realm of ‘innocent’ intimacy and connection, such as thhe family, especially the family relationship of the dependent and socially immature child, with herself?
There have always been those who sexually prey on children. Well heeled males paid a premium in Vctorian England for sexual access to children, often pimped by their own parents. We like to think we are now more ‘enlightened’, as well as more ‘democratic’. Consumption of everything, even the ‘forbidden’ has now been democratised. It is excellent. Now, however the perpetual desire machine that is the world of interminable consumption requies more and more consumers at an earlier and earlier age, and the ‘edgier’ the images deployed to stimulate/shock into the desire for possession, the better and more successful the pimp who does this for a living.
No images may be ‘quarantined’ in the age of instant visual communication, and no meanings can be ‘imposed’ or limited by a superior capacity for an educated and refined aesthetic, removed from the vulgar world of commerce, and from the untutored eye of the merely ‘vulgar’. The genie is out of the bottle, and no-one, not Henson, not anyone, can be ‘innocent’ about the ways in which no thing and no relationship, no matter how ‘innocent’ or ‘artless’, can ever be innocent once they are permitted to fulfil any purpose other than their own. Yes, the hysteria is sad and funny at the same time. But maybe, just maybe, the dirty little secrets of the not so secret perpetual desire machine that we all participate in, may be able to be discussed and debated, with the kind of refreshing and libertarian brio that matters of far less import are discussed.
But I won’t hold my breath. Far easier to engage in crap culture wars stuff, retail stories of appalling behaviour by some thuggish male, retail points of view based on one’s own ‘innoocent’ appreciation of the aestetic possibilites suggested by the world of the maturing child, and leave the difficult questions about any limits we might impose on the invasion of the market place into every single aspect of social existence, no matter how ‘off limits’ we pretend they are, to some other debate, somewhere else, about some other matter.
After all, imposing limits on what can be said and done in the name of the holy god commerce, that would be too hard. I mean someone, somewhere, might have to say ‘no’ to someone a lot more powerful than some 12 year old girl. Anyway, what is one to say to the cheery soul who pipes up ‘but it is up to the individual’ and if you object to it, just don’t ‘buy it/watch it/read it’. After all, isn’t consumer resistance nothing more than turning your head away and refusing what is offered, and isn’t that enough?. If it is not enough when it comes to the utilisation of children for purposes removed from their ‘being in and for themselves’, why not? On what possible ground can the cheery libertarian sink his/her trusty ethical spear?
On the question of projecting adult selves onto remembered childhoods: there is still the implication that those without children of ‘their own’ are not in caring relationships with children, or only have their own childhoods to refer to. Miranda gave us two positions: detached, childless vs interested, with children. The options aren’t satisfactory for the ‘childless’ or for all parents. Also, in this case the distinction was being used to ’shut up’ the ‘childless’.
An example: I’m young and without children but I care about my partner’s siblings a great deal, to the extent that I was involved in helping them and their mother to escape an abusive situation. My partner has no children of her own but is involved in caring for and educating children in her work. The idea that parenthood is the only legitimate position from which to think about a childhood that is not your own is quite offensive to those of us for whom children are a real part of our social realities, and some of our most important relationships. The ‘childless’ (a stupid word in itself) are not always in an alien social universe, in spite of how popular culture may depict us.
The comments on the Perthnow article have now been disabled.
[For legal reasons, comments cannot be published on this matter.]
Just read the NSW Crimes Act 1900 Section 91H Production, dissemination or possession of child pornography. I persume that this is likely going to area of the law used. If I am wrong someone will correct me I am sure. But this part got my attention:
(4) Defences It is a defence to any charge for an offence under subsection (2) or (3):
(c) that, having regard to the circumstances in which the material concerned was produced, used or intended to be used, the defendant was acting for a genuine child protection, scientific, medical, legal, artistic or other public benefit purpose and the defendant’s conduct was reasonable for that purpose, or
Don’t believe it,Frank.
If they were online then there will be a trace of them and that will be admissible.
Nothing at all about that is difficult,even a tad, under our laws and rules of evidence.
[(4) Defences It is a defence to any charge for an offence under subsection (2) or (3):
(c) that, having regard to the circumstances in which the material concerned was produced, used or intended to be used, the defendant was acting for a genuine child protection, scientific, medical, legal, artistic or other public benefit purpose and the defendant’s conduct was reasonable for that purpose, or]
And there goes the Police Proecution case in one foul swoop
And the Seven News report has just pointed out that section of the act 
Chaser Mark 2 here we come
_
I should have posted the link .
Frank, that’s a defence under the law once evidence has been admitted, not an exclusion of evidence under the rules of evidence.
Once that evidence has been admitted then see what happens if your client has only accessed it online if he or she tries to use the defence under sub-sub-section (c) that you have cited.
The onus to prove a defence under law is on the defendant. It is not a burden on the prosecution to disprove it.
And if the defendant doesn’t then he or she is in for a belting.
So much for your:
No, the burden on prosecution will be to prove that the child is depicted as being shown in a sexual context. The girl in question does not appear to be in engaged sexual activity nor a victim of toture, cruelty or physical abuse. So “sexual context” is the only criteria it could possibly be described as child porngraphy.
I don’t see the case being very strong. If I lived in NSW, I would annoyed that cops aren’t off chasing real cases.
I wonder if it will end up with the same police chasing Corey for the child pornography photos on his phone. What ever happened to that, anyway? The twister photos were headline news, but it seems to have disappeared..
Perhaps crime only occurs when Miranda Devine decrees that it has?
I didn’t see the photos before they were taken down, but from the other examples of Henson’s work Kim linked to, I don’t think I need to. His integrity as an artist is beyond question.
Any work of art that contributes to our perception and understanding of what it is to be human is, in principle, fine with me. It’s inevitable and necessary that artists will push the limits of social norms of a society with unnecessary taboos, but I don’t think this is the artist’s purpose at all. I think it’s more about what Kim said in the post:
On personal experience, I remember growing up just after WW2 my mother saying something like, “They wouldn’t have seen anything that God didn’t make”. I can’t remember the exact context, but obviously someone was caught being seen in the raw. It told me that there was nothing bad or shameful about the unadorned body. Quite the contrary.
She was like that, my mum. Always worth listening to.
I do, in the case at hand, have a lingering worry about whether it is possible for the child to be adequately informed, but I make no judgement on the parents giving permission.
Yes, Brian, I think that’s right. Devine’s meme of pushing the envelope is part import from the American art wars and part just outmoded and over-generalised residue of whatever understanding she might have of modernist art movements. I think it’s very clear indeed that Henson isn’t about confrontation for confrontation’s sake.
Precisely, Kim. His work is much less about the interplay of taboo and transgression than the post-60s decadence narrative implies. My theory is that it is the very discomfort and difficulty of his work that has made him an easy mark in this case for a discourse that is fundamentally indifferent to what his art really does. It is not a ‘Lady Chatterly’ repeat performance by any means. This indifference to the content – apart from the subject being a child – means the perversion he is accused of – being obscured by the relative interpretive inaccessibility, something which could not be said of, for example, Lawrence’s deliberate, strategic, self-interpreting transgressions – can become invested with all kinds of sinister half-dreamed elements. This is about conjuring and fabulation on the part of his critics.
Klaus @105 well you are inferring what I am not implying. It is much harder to continue to ascribe inappropriately mature motivations to children after one is a parent but it is certainly not impossible – I am not making Miranda’s detached/involved distinction at all. Parenthood is a distinct perspective, not the only valid one. It is certainly different from other kinds of involvement with children. You become much more conscious of that fragility that Henson speaks of, when the ultimate responsibility for guarding a child’s bodily and emotional integrity lies with you. Your viewpoint shifts fundamentally and there are many things that you will never see in the same way (and by the way this has been true for friends of mine who worked with children before having their own). Sorry if that sounds inappropriately mystical but it was true for me and for my friends who became parents, so I assume it is a common experience.
@116 -I think that part of the problem is that in trying to move away from conceptions of violence rooted in individual pathologies and locate the causes in society, especially in gender imbalance you are faced with a situation where every cultural product will contain traces of those causal dynamics. A man utilising children in his work is explicitly manifesting the hierarchical nature of our society where adults, men in particular, have enormous power over children. His work is inevitably fraught with concern over how that power has been enacted. People are not reacting to something that is not in the work. It is there alright but it is everywhere. It is inescapable. And reacting to every trace is jumping at shadows. The overreaction by Devine and Hetty Johnson (who I have a lot of respect for)is based on the assumption that there is no possible way that Henson can perform his work without using that power in an abusive way. It may seem like a ridiculous conclusion but his work does not just exist in an exclusively artistic context and to claim so is also ridiculous.
su, it is Miranda’s intervention I take issue with. I can accept your position of parental incommensurability because you are not trying to prevent the childless from speaking on this issue, only suggesting that there are necessary epistemological limits imposed by different ways of relating to children. I would be the first to argue that – for example – teachers can arrive at perspectives on children that parents never can, so I’m prepared to accept the opposite.
In my comment at 116 I’m not suggesting that his work exists in a purely artistic context at all, but trying to understand why this work and why now? The work doesn’t fit into the transgression/taboo economy at all, which suggests that the narrative being offered for it is indifferent to the work itself. Henson is not pushing boundaries so much as interrogating them. Of course those power relations are inescapable and art is never outside them, but I think you are being too generous in how you read the objections being proferred by the likes of Devine.
“Henson is not pushing boundaries so much as interrogating them.”
I agree with that. It is what I was trying to get at when I said that I thought his work was really in direct opposition to images which I see as inappropriately sexualising children.
I was trying to get Hetty Johnson off the hook rather than Miranda. I hate it when people make snide comments about her because she stood up to an abusive patriarch and is doing whatever is in her power to tackle abuse in the community. When it comes to prevention though, I think we are all at sea and missteps are inevitable.
My comments about artistic context really related to earlier comments rather than yours. As always you have given me a lot to think about.
It’s interesting that (apparently) no charges have been laid under s 91G of NSW’s Crimes Act 1900, “Children not to be used for pornographic purposes”
(3) For the purposes of this section, a child is used by a person for pornographic purposes if:
(a) the child is engaged in sexual activity, or
(b) the child is placed in a sexual context, or
(c) the child is subjected to torture, cruelty or physical abuse (whether or not in a sexual context),
for the purposes of the production of pornographic material by that person
Applied to this case, I believe the prosecution would have a devil of a job proving “sexual context” beyond reasonable doubt. Reasonable doubt could easily encompass the artistic aspect. That’s probably why police haven’t used s91G, although it wouldn’t surprise me if one day they tried to charge Michelangelo or closer to home Norman Lindsay retrospectively. (Police charged some college mates of mine in that Captain Cook stunt in 1969 with “impersonating an official person” to wit Cook himself, ha ha!)
91H as mentioned above by other commenters gives the definition:
(1) “child pornography” means material that depicts or describes, in a manner that would in all the circumstances cause offence to reasonable persons, a person under (or apparently under) the age of 16 years:
(b) in a sexual context,…
That would in all circumstances cause offence to reasonable persons. Same problem for the prosecution “in a sexual context” but must “cause offence in a reasonable person”. Both elements to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. In the latter, not the subjective view of complainants like the Bolta or M/s Devine, a reasonable person would for example understand artistic merit and context. So it’s an objective test, and constricted by “in all the circumstances cause offence” which I would interpret to mean “causes offence on every occasion” (to the reasonable person)
All this suggests to me that the prosecution has to prove essentially that such an artistic depiction of adolescence is never redolent of meaning in an asexual context.
(At least that’s what I’d be arguing what the prosecution has to prove.)
I’d advance an analogy to the photo of the napalmed Vietnamese girl/child:
http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/kim-phuc-the-napalm-girl-1972.html
Is that pornography? Of course it isn’t. Context is all. That photo is within the context of news and horror. But how was that photographer so different to Henson, in the anguished/troubled/whatever world of adolescents?
“I was trying to get Hetty Johnson off the hook rather than Miranda. I hate it when people make snide comments about her because she stood up to an abusive patriarch and is doing whatever is in her power to tackle abuse in the community.”
It was, as I understand it, Hetty Johnson who laid the complaint that resulted in the police taking action. When she was interviewed on ABC local radio yesterday she angrily rejected any alternative views of Henson’s work (she observed that she didn’t move in “chardonnay-sipping, arty circles”)and stated that she would have intervened to stop him years ago if she had known of Henson’s existence and his “disgusting” artistic themes. She also muttered darkly about the supposed motivations of the models’ parents which I found a tad alarming.
I’m not impressed by messianic zeal no matter the incarnation in which it manifests
or the worthiness of the cause that underlies it. When balance is seen as a necessary sacrifice to the zealot’s concept of the greater good, we’re in trouble.
“My comments about artistic context really related to earlier comments rather than yours. As always you have given me a lot to think about.”
Your critique has reminded me of things that I should know, but tend to forget. Thank you, su.
It is difficult to maintain critical distance and read as generously as a difficult situation demands when one feels one is under direct attack (and I note that this is rarely the case for me as a white man in Australia, and I am certainly reflecting on how my critical responses make others feel at the moment). I’m sure my response has been less adequate for that fact that I’ve stood in front of Henson’s photographs and given them my time. The idea that this man can be prosecuted, and that the Prime Minister effectively condones it, makes me feel alone in a way that I haven’t since the NT intervention was announced last year (something that was also a deeply inadequate response to real problems).
Geoff, I am sure that in many ways she is a social conservative. I give her credit for the good that she does. She no more represents balance than do the people on the news last night who were just repeating “this is art, not pornography”. Balance is an equilibrium state between competing interests. Overall the balance within society is weighted against the interests of children- that is what motivates Johnson and I think it is important to acknowledge that if you are going to show how suppressing artistic work like Henson’s will not help redress that balance one little bit.
Anybody who wants the last word on this subject – read the Age’s art critic’s take on all this. Perfectly captures the conundrums.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/creepy-perhaps-but-its-not-porn/2008/05/23/1211183102325.html
I’m actually not sure I agree with Nelson’s reading of Henson’s work, wbb, especially the way he positions Henson in that tradition. Still, a thoughtful piece, and the point about the way this kind of action precludes the possibility of debate is pretty fundamental.
I agree with Nelson’s point about the outcry being more damaging than the photographs themselves. I caught a bit of Hetty on the today show yesterday and I’m quite sure she said something along the lines of children should not be photographed naked. (I can’t remember if she specified whether that was just in terms of public display or more generally) that seems to me to send images to children about naked being bad, and their bodies being something that must be hidden. I think it could create a vulnerabilty that could have the opposite effect of what she is after. It’s also pissing me off that I’ve read quite a few comments talking about the exhibition of naked photo’s of adolescent girls. Isn’t it girls and boys? Is the point of saying it’s just girls to provoke the idea of innocence and needing protection? Quick! We need some chastity belts!
I just don’t know about Hetty Johnson these days. I have something in the memory banks about her use of, or attitude to repressed memory techniques that worried me.
I can’t remember the details, just how I felt about it at the time.
Does anyone else remember? I googled and turned up a few references to blog threads, including LP, but couldn’t find the comment.
“I’m not impressed by messianic zeal no matter the incarnation in which it manifests
or the worthiness of the cause that underlies it. When balance is seen as a necessary sacrifice to the zealot’s concept of the greater good, we’re in trouble.”
I’m with you on this Geoof.
Su, I really don’t understand the comment you’re making. You acknowledge that Johnson isn’t balanced, but then seem to defend her because she represents the defence of childrens’ rights.
I think she’s a dangerous zealot and hypocrite. We’re in major trouble if her arguments can cause censorship. How much harm is she doing to the child, or children in question with her campaign? She is hardly redressing the balance in terms of the children’s reprentations. As Robert Nelson points out, it’s all about speaking for the child. Bugger what the child thinks, or wants.
All that will happen is that the charges will found to be false. The child will be damaged, the artist will be damaged, the gallery owner will be damaged. It’s a no win situation. Except for Johnson, if one wanted to be really cynical.
1. If we had a Bill of Rights, maybe Hetty’s children could shut her up on the basis of their right to privacy.
2. Wonder what Hetty thinks about the not artistic but commercial work of that other well known Queenslander, Anne Geddes.
[Wonder what Hetty thinks about the not artistic but commercial work of that other well known Queenslander, Anne Geddes.]
I’m pretty sure Bravehearts have done a calender either photographed by, or inspired by Anne Geddes.
And I note that the NRL are sponsors of Bravehearts, which is rather hypocritical in light of recent controversy over alleged Sexual Misconduct amongst NRL players.
http://www.bravehearts.org.au/index.ews
Henson should swear out an injunction against the NSW Police’ continued confiscation of his property.
I hope Henson is prosecuted.
The trial would be as farcical as the Oz Trial.
Australia needs a first-rate legal farce.
Bravehearts does a very worthwhile job as a victim’s support service and as a portal for investigation of child abuse. I am not willing to condemn her because she has an unsophisticated attitude – one she shares with our esteemed Prime Minister (that must make him a dangerous zealot too but somehow the condemnation of him is comparatively mild)and, I suspect, the majority of the population. I am saying that in order to combat those ultra conservative reactions you have to understand where she is coming from and argue accordingly (beginning with an acknowledgment that child protection is an ongoing failure in our society). Blanket condemnation, especially of such a popular viewpoint gets you nowhere.
I don’t think she is a hypocrite at all; that would be saying that she knew that she was doing a child damage and that is clearly not the case, she genuinely believes that right is on her side. I have not seen a report saying that it was she who made the complaint to police but if charges are to be laid then clearly the law is need of reexamination.
[Australia needs a first-rate legal farce.]
And an addition to the NSW Police’s fine record of idiotic prosecutions both involving the Chaser Team.
“Blanket condemnation, especially of such a popular viewpoint gets you nowhere.”
Except that that she deserves that condemnation, because she, apparently is the person who made the complaint. And of course, it’s impossible to know what the general population thinks about this matter at all. Interestingly, the item on Channel 7 news, which I thought would rip Henson to shreds, was very sympathetic to him. They showed images of the Nirvana cover with the swimming baby and snapshots of naked toddlers on the beach and basically pointed out how ridiculous it would be if these images of naked children were called pornography.
I don’t see why there’s any reason for critics of this farce to say they abhor child pornography. It seems to imply that if isn’t stated explicitly, than you may be suspected of supporting it, which is unfortunate. I rather think the pressure should be on her to justify her actions.
There’s also the matter of censorship and freedom of speech. This is just a serious matter as child pornography. To describe Johnson’s as “unsophisticated” is downplaying the damage done.
If she can’t imagine that she would be causing terrible grief to the child involved, than you’re right. She’s not a hypocrite, she’s a fool. And she’s also in danger of damaging her own cause, which is even more unfortunate.
Hmmm. Nelson says this:
It seems pornographic if it’s nothing but a tool for masturbation. Confronted with Henson’s images, the community is in some doubt; but the fact that they show adolescents heightens the anxiety and causes widespread condemnation, which even arises among some art lovers.
What does he do when confronted with an example of a film, labelled as pornography, that nevertheless has a good script, wit, and interesting characters? This is what David Stratton claims for the porno Deep Throat.
You must be kidding me, Fine. If you really think that censorship ( which, by the way I do not and have never supported) is on a par with sexual abuse of children then I have nothing further to say to you.
“And she’s also in danger of damaging her own cause, which is even more unfortunate.”
This is what I would be pointing out to her were I put in a room with her, because her attitude in this situation has made me quite sceptical about what exactly Bravehearts exists to do and it’s potential effectiveness in achieving it’s stated aims. I can’t unreservedly support the activities of the organisation at all.
Su is right, though, Rudd shares this view, and if there are prosecutions then it is the law that is the problem. We should take care not to scapegoat Johnston in order to maintain a particular view of Rudd.
[Su is right, though, Rudd shares this view, and if there are prosecutions then it is the law that is the problem. We should take care not to scapegoat Johnston in order to maintain a particular view of Rudd.]
I note that both being Queenslanders, I wonder if their views are being inluenced by JOh’s general puritancial and moral stewardship of the state ?
Sorry, you feel that way, su. I thought one would be allowed to disagree about these matters and state positions and priorities. But it seems you feel that isn’t possible. But, is this just part of the problem?
I guess that if a person has directly come into contact with someone who has been sexually abused, or has themselves been sexually abused, then a comment like fine’s, which stresses the importance freedom speech, would read as utterly alien to their life experience. The primacy of children’s rights would come first for them. Given Hetty Johnson is an advocate who campaigns for the rights of children and adult survivors of sexual abuse and given that she is targetted by loony mens groups as a rabid feminist out to destroy men with her work, then I would suggest that this woman is a little more complex than a zealot out to shut down civic freedoms. It wouldnt hurt to consider that as much as she has disrupted the dearly held idea of freedom of speech and censorship here, she also disrupts the lives of pedophiles and helps bring to account those people who have facilitated and overlooked the sexual abuse of children.However she does it, she brings into the public arena the very silenced subject of child sexual abuse. She problemetises and disrupts with her campaigns. Hetty Johnson quite successfully managed to have Peter Hollingsworth ‘resign’ as Governor General if you recall. An outcome which was very good, to my mind.
I dont agree with the cancellation of this exhibit. But I dont think one needs to demonise Hetty Johnson if one disagrees with her stance here. Ive seen his work. I think its beautiful. He captures the liminal spaces of adolescence with such poignancy that it is breathtaking. Im very sorry for Henson. Ive also seen her work. I think its also beautiful. Im glad Johnson brought the utterly patriarchal Hollingsworth down, with her unrelenting campaign against him.
Demonisation needs to be levelled at the SMH. With one hand they taketh away via Miranda Devine’s idiocy, then todays paper carries no less than three editorials in defense of the artist. The whole beatup was really about selling papers, not defending anybodies children or anything near as noble. Absolutely, utterly disgraceful.
But those in ‘the arts’ ARE actually being demonised all over the place in this, whereas I haven’t seen very much of the same directed at Johnson over this. It is all very well to defend Johnson’s good works, but all we are offered is an either/or: either we are amoral sophisticates who give support to abusers or we reject Henson. Devine was quite explicit about making links between academics, artists and paedophiles, and Johnson has bought into it with her reported comments on not mixing in certain circles, even if she didn’t make the complaint that initiated the investigation.
It is very difficult to maintain equanimity in the face of this. I don’t want to see Johnson ‘demonised’ but I think she is totally wrong about this, and I don’t see why I should be expected to qualify my criticism with constant reference to her ’successes’.
I didnt actually personally ask you to qualify anything Klaus. Im not sure why you thought I was addressing you directly. I was merely pointing to the good work Johnson has done because I do know a number of adult victims of sexual abuse and they are great supporters of Johnson. This is because for many years the subject went without any public advocacy, which she now provides. For me, at least this allows me to apply a more nuanced approach when considering Johnson. She has provided my friends some relief by speaking about the unspeakable. But if you dont want to qualify your criticism, dont. Its no business of mine what you feel you can or cannot qualify.
I don’t feel obliged to defend any thing Hetty Johnson says or does, she comes across to me as nothing more than a dangerous zealot. What makes her an expert in this area anyway? What she has done over Henson is terrible, it’s nothing to do with protecting children, in fact I think it will expose the children in the photos to more harm now than before. And the SMH, miranda devine and prime minister all share the blame too.
Lets call a spade a spade, wilful pig ignorance is what it is.
Why should anyone be concerned about a “nuanced approach” to Johnson et al when they won’t apply a similar “nuanced approach” to the targets of their ignorant derision? If they want to have their little two-minute-hate in private they are welcome, but I’m sick of these self-appointed moral guardians pushing their narrow agenda onto every other sphere of human activity and only viewing it through the one fixed-focal-length lens. If they want to play the game of waste-the-landscape-and-take-no-prisoners, let’s have at it then, and that means we are playing as rough and as unsubtle as they are.
Sure pedophilia is a nasty nasty crime that deserves severe punishment, but actual harm-to-a-child must be involved. This nonsense is pure thought-crime stuff, if the “enforcement” causes more harm to the child than the original “crime” (the taking of the photos), then there should be no “enforcement” becuase it is supposed to be about THE INTERESTS OF THE SPECIFIC CHILD ARE PARAMOUNT. People (i.e. Johnson) who think it contains sexual images are the people who are committing the thought-crime anyway, they are ones who are sexualising the images, so if we are going to prosecute thought-crime, Miranda Devine and Hetty Johnson are the first who should be sent straight to Room 101.
My final words: Chris Morris. Brass Eye. Pedophilia special.
I have used pictures of Henson’s images in conference papers Tyro Rex so I am quite a fan of his work and am distressed by this rubbish that has blown up. I also have friends whose lives have been personally changed by Hetty Johnson, so of course, my critique of Johnson in regards to Henson is mediated because of personal experience. How else could it be?
So: Like. I. Said. Call a spade a fucking shovel if you like. Thats your right. I sympathise with your outrage at what has happened. But I do not agree with your labelling of Johnson.
Well I have nothing to do with Johnson except what I read and see of her in the media, if she thinks it’s ok to rubbish stuff on this basis, then game on, sister.
I’m with you Tyro Rex, I think.
I don’t think we should be asked to choose between freedom of artistic expression (provided that no-one is being harmed in the creation of the art) and child protection, or give primacy to one or the other.
Greg Barns tells of an interesting encounter with Hetty Johnson and her associates. After settling the differences with her and agreeing to disagree she and her “cohorts” continued to pursue him.
Hetty Johnson is out of her patch and should be made to go back in it.
The same applies to Comrade Rudd. Certainly child protection is his business, but art criticism isn’t. According to ABC RN’s The World Today Rudd was on Channel Nine when a special viewing was sprung on him. He then gave an instant opinion, which was then fed out to all the news broadcasts.
I hope he and his advisers have a good think about the advisability of giving instant opinions on everything under the sun when a microphone is poked under his nose. We don’t need it.
Also it’s a possible indication that there is a dimension of Rudd’s personality that’s deficient. If he is to be a leader it would be best if he had an appreciation of the arts.
[Well I have nothing to do with Johnson except what I read and see of her in the media, if she thinks it’s ok to rubbish stuff on this basis, then game on, sister.]
In WA, we have Michelle Stubbs who does similar work to Hetty, and she has that same Zealtory as Hetty, being a Survivor of childhood abuse.
But unfortunately, they cannot give the issue any rational thought, and in fact to their cause more harm than good, and results in laws which could potentially criminalise activities which most people would class as innocent.
I’m waiting for Hetty and her peers to start reporting parents who post pics of their toddlers in the nude on their personal blog recounting normal, everyday events.
From that Greg Barn’s article;
Also, the likes of Bravehearts have the ears of the shock jocks like Steve Price and Howard Sattler – who aren’t known for being fair and balanced in these issues.
For information, there an interesting little video clip of art market analyst Michael Reid via the ABC.
@120 I missed another element of an alleged offence re:
for the purposes of the production of pornographic material by that person
This represents an element of “intent”. The Crown must prove there was intent to produce pornographic material. Now while that could theoretically be inferred from the circumstances, it’s another heavy burden on the Crown.
I agree with David Marr this morning at the SMH
An even bigger farce I would suggest than the OZ trials here and in the UK:
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oz_(magazine)
the conjunction of schoolchildren and arguably[allegedly] obscene material
Has a familiar ring to what’s happening now…
“Rumpole” Mortimer and Geoffrey Robertson would have a sense of deja vu on this one.
I have a feeling that NSW police are searching for conspiracy law, perhaps looking for a combination: “conspiracy to defraud young people of their youth” ???
My last comment in the spaminator?
Roslyn Oxley gallery has been getting threats – I don’t see any outraged comment from the self-appointed moral guardians of society over this.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/arson-threat-farce/2008/05/24/1211183177189.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
When I said that we need to understand where Johnson is coming from I did not mean that Henson or his supporters or anyone needed to continually state their opposition to child pornography but that we need to see opposition to Henson’s work in the current social context. A context in which there is a necessary reexamination of the social roots of violence (and child abuse in particular) underway. Necessary because child abuse is epidemic. Society for the last decade+ has found convenient outgroups on which to project a social ill shared by all; clergy, indigenous people. Calls for a royal commission etc are the first signs of moving beyond that response. It is important to be aware of the context so that efforts to tackle abuse are not shut down because inevitably there will be a huge amount of resistance. It is important that those efforts are not distracted by issues like this current one, and it is very important that we don’t impose restrictions and forms of censorship that both punish the innocent and fail to address the root causes of violence.
I was thinking that we needed someone who could speak to that context to defend Henson’s work and this morning I saw that Catherine Lumby has a piece in The Age
That should read “for example the clergy and indigenous people.”
How come we are being asked to view Hetty J’s position “in the current social context” when she refuses – willfully and deliberately – to consider anyone else’s context? As Greg Barns has said she and her fellow-travellers have “zero tolerance” to anyone who deviates from their party line. Personally I am sick of having to negoitate everyone else’s hard-line context, it’s time that they learnt to negotiate mine, and if they don’t want to, then, they’ll find out I can have rock-hard limits just like them. And ignoramuses who complain about art and have never even seen the artwork in its context are one of those rock hard limits, I’m afraid.
Let’s look at what her “context” is anyway. As far as I see, a prosecution is meant to be in the interests of the child, that is, specific to an individual’s case. But the complaints of Johnston will surely expose the child in the photograph to far more hurt than experienced so far. What she is doing is claiming the special case of “won’t someone think of the children?” … in other words, these photos are bad not because they harmed a CHILD, because they are species of thought-crime that harm CHILDREN, in the abstract (which is why, for example, a completely fake, virtualised computer depiction of a naked child would also be regarded similarly).
This type of zealotry, which is willing to sacrifice the specifically human for the sake of the big idea, the abstract concept, is exactly the type of thing to which is applied the phrase “the road of idealism leads straight to the gates of the death camp”.
As Michael Reid says, by all means lets have a debate about this type of art, but it has to be a debate that takes in the context of the art and not some imaginary context* of a zealot or the toxic environment of talk back radio.
* I say imaginary context not to deny Johnston’s personal context but because that’s the only context that someone refuses to engage in the artworks own context can actually have of it.
People used tro complain that John Howard wanted to take us back to the Menzies era. He failed but Kevin Rudd hasn’t. Hensaon’s trial, or at the very least, the coverage of this trumped up scandal is likely to receive international publicity, and our country is going to come off badly about it, all because of a batty fanatic whose methods seem highly questionable and a Prime Minister who lacked the spine to stand up to pressure from the MSM. In my book Kevin Rudd stands forever labeled as a moral coward.
We are going back to those days when we were world laughing stocks because we banned James Joyce’s Ulysses, methinks.
Oh God I can’t believe this! As if the Bill Henson photo row were not enought, the Sunday Telegraph (http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23752827-5005941,00.html) now has people complaining about nappy television advertisements featuring nude or partially clad babies, because “I am disturbed when I think of the thrill a pedophile would get from this image,”. This is just sick!
Actually I am getting very disturbed at the way normal human life and relations between adults and children in our society seems to be getting dictated to by pedophiles. People are already driving kids to school and not letting them wander the streets because of ’stranger danger’ and now this. There is nothing wrong with nudity. It’s amazing to think that in the 1970s things like the Nimbin Festival happened here at all. What is Australia coming to?
The wierd thing is people are imagining what paedophiles may get turned on by, that is to say: imagining themselves as paedophiles – isn’t that a little sick and perverted?
In the Age this morning, the egregious Kevin Donnelly, after rehearsing the usual cliches against the allegedly p0*n-tolerant, post-modernist “cogniscenti” (how’s that for an exercise in serial demonisation?) concludes with the following;
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/porn-not-art/2008/05/24/1211183187087.html?page=2
C’mon Kev, stop being a Wuss. As Peter Kemp correctly stated at #120 above, it is vanishingly unlikely that Henson or the gallery will be convicted of any offence under NSW legislation.
That being the case, you (Kev) are just beating your gums as you rush as close as you can to the head of an ad hoc lynch-mob of monomaniacs, prudes, panderers and self-promoters (Rudd being the worst example of the latter).
If you were really serious about this you’d be campaigning for some truly draconian censorship laws. But you won’t be doing that because that is too much like hard work, and because any attempt to draft such a law will demonstrate just how evanescent and disunited is the lynch-mob currently careening about the normally sedate suburban streets of Sydney.
So feel free to continue to beat you gums, it’s doing no good, but more importantly, it’s doing no harm.
That Lumby piece is pretty much correct, as far as I’m concerned. I like that she is discussing the difficulty of the concept of childhood and its historical specificity: adding a diachronic dimension to this is very important to countering the eternal present of panic discourse.
Lumby has herself been vilified for holding pretty moderate views, so I suppose this hits pretty close to home for her. It probably also means that she won’t be taken seriously by precisely the people who really need to listen to her.
“We are going back to those days when we were world laughing stocks because we banned James Joyce’s Ulysses, methinks.”
Going back Paul? We were the poor white trash of asia only 10 years ago but commodity prices have saved us for a while- as long as you agree that being in the possession of a growing GDP transfers some value to our society.
Hopefully the soon to be launched education revolution starts with Student No 1 PM Rudd front and centre at some art history and crtical thinking lessons.
“In my book Kevin Rudd stands forever labeled as a moral coward.”
“The same applies to Comrade Rudd. Certainly child protection is his business, but art criticism isn’t.”
“I hope he and his advisers have a good think about the advisability of giving instant opinions on everything under the sun when a microphone is poked under his nose. We don’t need it.
Also it’s a possible indication that there is a dimension of Rudd’s personality that’s deficient. ”
So what’s the score at this stage of the game ? Wowsers 1 Elites 0?
On page 5 of the Age there’s a photo of the offending photo. How weird is that? Surely the Age is in danger of publishing child pornography now? Just shows how silly this is.
@120 I missed another element of an alleged offence re:
for the purposes of the production of pornographic material by that person
This represents an element of “intent”. The Crown must prove there was intent to produce pornographic material. Now while that could theoretically be inferred from the circumstances, it’s another heavy burden on the Crown.
I agree with David Marr this morning at the SMH
An even bigger farce I would suggest than the OZ trials here and in the UK:
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oz_(magazine)
the conjunction of schoolchildren and
arguably[allegedly] obscene materialHas a familiar ring to what’s happening now does it not?
“Rumpole” Mortimer and Geoffrey Robertson would have a sense of deja vu on this one.
Perhaps NSW police are desperately researching the laws of conspiracy. Perhaps they are thinking about “Conspiring to defraud young people of their youth” but “conspiracy to deprive the media of a moral panic” and “conspiracy to allow gutless politicians to determine what is artistic” could be also on their minds.
What I’d like to see is all the proponents for prosecuting Henson gather together for a mass burning of material. I’d like to see Mr Rudd enact legislation to demonstrate the courage of his convictions on “revolting” art.
And then we’d know exactly where people stand, or goose-step, as the case may be.
A few brief legals, and a bit of background on Hetty Johnson: http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/05/the-bill-henson-kiddy-porn-fiasco/
Well said Katz.
[Test: Will the spaminator swallow this comment
some verboten word in a wiki link about the Oz trials on my last attempt?]
Gary Sauer-Thompson has reproduced the image in question at Junk for Code:
http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/archives/2008/05/bill-henson-6-u.html
He also quotes Kevin Donnelly:
Forget about the “nihilistic cult of the postmodern” for a moment. It seems to me that Henson’s intent and his sentence beginning “art deals with…” are actually quite close. But none so blind as those who can’t see, it seems.
David Tiley’s view:
http://barista.media2.org/?p=3458
“On page 5 of the Age there’s a photo of the offending photo. How weird is that? Surely the Age is in danger of publishing child pornography now? Just shows how silly this is.”
Fine, yer@165. I was under the impression that the main chance of a prosecution was the publishing of the photos on the internet by the art gallery. Now The Age has published the image considered to be of most concern in the paper and on the internet.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/the-controversial-career-of-bill-henson/2008/05/24/1211183189567.html
Nirvana’s Nevermind anybody?
But seriously, K Rudd just got surprised and while he could have just gone with a “no comment – will have a look into it”, went for a comment from which he could retrack if he felt necessary. i doubt this will go much further, once its realised the prosecution has no case.
m
and it will no doubt being discussed in future years around the uni tutorial in subjects like this one.
Mark-
Agree and disagree. It’s important to note that adolescents aren’t children. Or if one wants to really split hairs: there are pre-sexual children and their are sexual children. What else does puberty mean really? I think Henson’s work is about sexuality, psychology, fear. It’s very difficult to seperate sex from anything let alone the depictions of the nude. To be sure there are purely aesthetic depictions but even in that case sex features somehow. In Henson’s work I see a preternatural sexuality. His human figures are not participating in ‘human sexuality’. They are catlike.
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However it is a stretch to say that the pictures are pornographic – ie designed to arouse. They may be capable of arousing someone. There are foot/shoe fetishists out there. Should we therefore banish shoe store window displays?
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When I first saw Henson’s work I was of the age of his models. I didn’t find the work ‘arousing’ (which is saying something considering the predicilations of teenage boys). I found it a psychological landscape that accurately depicted ‘teen angst’ for want of a better phrase. It is sexual but only in the sense that we are sexual. I think the objections to it, like Sublime Cowgirl’s daughter’s fears about the disapproval of parents are based in that mode of ‘virtue’ whereby sex is compartmentalized away into some locked box. Sexuality in this mode is something to be fought, something to be controlled, something to be held at bay.
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Doubtless to a certain extent it is. However there are many ways of doing this. History is resplete with societies that manage sexual decorum without shunning the erotic imagination or making its members feel guilty every time they’re turned on. Sex needs be controlled yes, but one doesn’t need to be ashamed of it.
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What comes to mind during this episode, reading all this puritan self-righteous guff from the likes of Mr Bolt is my memory of Catholic Boarding School. The first night there we were informed that there were no doors on the showers anywhere in the school. Anywhere! During shower time our toad-like, bewigged monk-in-charge patrolled up and down inspecting us. I’ll bet green money this is still going on. That was disturbing to me. Henson was the opposite. Brother Toad’s job was to ensure that we weren’t doing anything lude (officially). Henson said to me – you are not lude, you are beautiful.
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And I don’t see Brother Toad gettin’ prosecuted. In fact I see those good and pious fellows who’ve either committed sex crimes against minors or defended those who have getting protected by the the very same ‘upstanding’ persons who’d denounce Henson.
>
What can I say? Well nothing. So let’s have some scripture shall we?
The Gospel According to St Matthew.
Su –
Indeed Henson is an adult. So the photographs are from an ‘adult’ point of view. As I said before I first encountered his work as an adolescent. But my point about adolescence sexualizaing adolescence is that that’s what it is yeah? Whatever the culture does it does but the body sexualises. Culture of course respinds to this.
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Our culture, cleaved as it is between Judeo-Christinaity, Greco-Romanic civility and modernity is probably not clear as to how culture should treat burgeoning sexuality. The pedophile hysteria is not helping. It would help if these ‘won’t somebody please think of the children’ people would realise that ignorance is the best help a child molester ever got.
Considering that he’s been at it for decades I reckon there’s plenty of ex-models about. Ask ‘em.
John Howard: I’m a stiff old wooden puritanical dead-from-the-waist down Monty Python charicature of a sexless, joyless clod.
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Kevvie: Me too!
I know this is a revolutionary thought, but maybe Kevin Rudd and other detractors really are revolted by this study. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that in their opinion, it isn’t art, no matter who took the photograph. You don’t have to like their opinion, but it’s their right to express it.
I haven’t seen the image, so I can’t comment either way, but art, like beauty in its various forms, is in the eye of the beholder, I think. For example, I think Picasso is overrated. Plenty will disagree, but that’s the response his work evokes in me. Salvador Dali, on the other hand has the wow factor for me; I find his work endlessly fascinating, but I’m sure there are any number of people who loathe it.
Likewise Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Ulysses, two works which I found dreary and unreadable, but are loved by others.
I guess the point is that people’s perception of art is very subjective and nude photos of pubescent and pre-pubescent children could be construed less as art and more as exploitation-the artist as a dirty old man, if you will.
For the record, I wouldn’t have allowed my daughter to pose nude at 13, whoever the photographer was and probably would have been deeply suspicious of his motives. I’ll admit I may be unnecessarily paranoid.
Whatever, IMO Henson was pretty stupid to use such a young model for a nude portrait. If he’d used an 18 year-old model, all of this brouhaha would have been avoided. As it is, I predict it will be a storm in a teacup which will disappear from the front pages as quickly as it appeared on them, tabloid attention spans being what they are. And I bet it won’t do the price of Henson’s work any harm, either.
Well, jane, since his theme is the fragility of bodies in the transformation of puberty, using an 18 year old model wouldn’t exactly have worked! Also, if you follow the link I posted above you can see the image at the centre of the brouhaha.
Here’s the link again:
http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/archives/2008/05/bill-henson-6-u.html
Jane, while I don’t want to preclude any particular response to a work of art – except maybe those responses that seek to destroy it – I would be surprised if there were many people who were revolted by this in the literal sense of that word if it were put in front of them in context. With enough preparatory work – especially the kind of work done by the censorious black bars put across the work in some of the newspapers – maybe ‘being revolted’ could be genuinely achieved in a viewer. I question the spontaneity of such an affective response: I think that to be revolted by Henson you have to become articulate in a certain kind of ‘revoltedness’.
However, I’m certainly prepared to accept that Henson’s work causes discomfort, even a great deal of it, since it is speaking to and about an often uncomfortable area of human existence. Some of his photos make me uncomfortable also because they speak to something at the core of my adult subjectivity, that repressed and disavowed state of bodily shame and awkwardness of early adolescence.
I also find it difficult to imagine being aroused by those feelings, and thus by these images, without having some sense that finding shame and awkwardness in others is inherently arousing. Those who would wish that state upon others, who are aroused by finding the other in that state, or creating that state, bring that with them to these images as much as those who are ‘revolted’ by them, I imagine.
“I know this is a revolutionary thought, but maybe Kevin Rudd and other detractors really are revolted by this study. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that in their opinion, it isn’t art, no matter who took the photograph. You don’t have to like their opinion, but it’s their right to express it.”
Indeed it is but it’s quite another thing to invoke the criminal law to reinforce one’s opinion.
We can all have different takes on Bill Henson’s work but I utterly reject the notion that there is a case for legally suppressing it.
Graham Young’s take:
http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/003100.html
What’s scary and completely indefensible is Clive Hamilton’s take. His argument seems to be it doesn’t matter whether it’s pornography or not, if it can be consumed as pornography than it should be banned.
The consequences of this logic will be very unpleasant.
Indeed.
The other logic of all this censorship stuff apart from the fact that it actually implies viewing stuff as if one were a pedophile (which is repulsive enough) is that it infantilises adults by suggesting that only the image police are all seeing and all knowing enough to decide what we can and can’t see.
Well said, Adrien, I think.
In response to queries, I’ve decided to give a detailed run-down on the relevant legislation at our place, and – because some people felt it was necessary – have also made the standard libertarian argument re porn/censorship. It does look like Hetty Johnson’s success at bringing down Hollingworth has made her a tad too big for her boots. http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/05/the-bill-henson-kiddy-porn-fiasco/
Logic that only card-carrying pedophiles can experience sexual arousal by looking at images of those under the legal age is deficient. There is nothing in our make-up which automatically align our sexual responses with current societal strictures.
The invitation to pedophilic eroticism is open to all. There is a choice here that must be made by the individual.
If we sanctioned wide-spread dissemination of sexually freighted characterisations of the under-aged we could re-focus our erotic impulses with ease.
It is over-statement to say that these Henson fotos must be empty of sexuality. There is likely a strong artistic ambivalence. The fotos will not have a clear and anodyne meaning.
There is a danger here. That doesn’t mean that this particular photo should be banned. But it does mean that we cannot maintain a strict policy that all and anything that is deemed art by its producer is given a free pass or must not be discussed in terms of its dealings with the taboo. For one thing that is to under-estimate the value of the art itself.
No matter the intent – which is entirely unknowable – of the artist – every piece of art of this type can be judged as aesthetically valid or else as immoral. One does not have to be a pedophile to see something forbidden in these types of representations.
Whether or not we as a society can cope with this is another matter. But the art should not be interpreted so as to conveniently fit in with our political views on censorship etc. That’s a get out too comfortable to be real.
This is just another one of these whipped up moral panics that sweep through Western media from time to time in the absence of any real crisis to boost sales, get eyeballs on the ads and keep the pundits in work.
And like all such moral panics, this one is backfiring too. As has been pointed out here before, the kids in question are gonna be traumatised far more by the reaction than by agreeing to pose in first place.
But beyond that, If Hetty Johnson hadn’t whipped up this moral panic in the first place, then only a few thousand already sick, decadent and corrupt arty inner city types would have seen the images in question, either in situ or online.
But now, thanks to her stentorian efforts, sweaty-palmed pedophiliac deviants around the world are now googling “Bill Henson”. And they’ll be mightily disappointed when they turn up stuff like this – from an V&A exhibition.
And who censors the censors? If Hetty, Miranda and co think a Henson snap is gonna give most viewers the horn, then they’ve got far sicker minds than the overwhelming majority of the people whose delicate lives and sensibilities they claim to be guarding.
And who’s gonna clip that media pundit tart Kevin Donnelly around the ear for namechecking “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” as a benchmark of declining moral standards?
The only people emerging with any real dignity from this whole ludicrous exercise are Bill Henson (who ain’t sayin’ nuttin’, as always) and his models, who will continue to look back at their viewers the way they’ve always done – first and foremost as human beings framed for a second as they live within our civilisation’s many psycho-sexual, economic and cultural settings – and as blank slates for excitable and filth-seeking minds definitely last.
And who HTMLs the HTMLers?
“And they’ll be mightily disappointed when they turn up stuff like this from an V&A exhibition.
[And who censors the censors? If Hetty, Miranda and co think a Henson snap is gonna give most viewers the horn, then they’ve got far sicker minds than the overwhelming majority of the people whose delicate lives and sensibilities they claim to be guarding.]
They say that paedophilia describes people who have an unhealthy sexual obsession with Children.
If that is the case, wouldn’t Devine Miranda and Hetty’s obsession with photos of kids in the raw be classified as the same type of person as they are rallying against ?
“One does not have to be a pedophile to see something forbidden in these types of representations.”
I think that one has to get off a little bit on shame, abjection and awkwardness in the case of the particular Henson photos that I have seen, to read them as ’sexual’ in a way that would be problematic. Sexuality is under interrogation here, but not through the problematic arousal of the viewer. In my reading this is clearly NOT a case of deliberate transgression, or of seeking arousal in order to problematise it, but I’m prepared to accept the possibility that there is art that does do this. I’ve seen art that transgresses in other areas.
I certainly don’t think art has a prior exemption categorically from this sort of critique, I just think that Henson’s art (that of it which I’ve seen – this is an argument specific only to what I’ve seen, I can’t vouch for every photo he’s ever taken) is doing that unless you bring a great deal of that with you. An artist could go too far, but I don’t believe Henson has – far from it. I actually think the lack of self-evidence here is feeding the panic: it plays to the idea that there is something nasty ‘hidden’ within the art world, in much the way that pedophilia is posed in relation to the gay ‘community’ (Paul Sheehan in the SMH today makes reference to this). It’s about casting inaccessibility to ‘ordinary people’ as itself a sign of perversion.
*isn’t doing that*
That last comment was badly written.
But that’s the point, they obviously do think it should be legally supressed and are rejecting your notion that it shouldn’t and I still think that if he’d used an older model (18 seems a non-controversial age) or perhaps bunged some diaphanous covering on the 13 year-old, none of this would have happened.
If nothing else, it’s focussed attention on how different people interpret the line between art, pornography and exploitation.
Obviously, there’s a group of people who are convinced it’s exploitation and I suspect they have a lot of support out there in McMansion land.
I also suspect that if the PM hadn’t condemned it as he did, it would have given what’s left of the rotting corpse of the Rodent party an oxygen mask and a shot of adrenalin.
As it is, it will blow over in time for the next shock horror titillation that passes for news. It seems to have knocked pensioners off the front page. Is anybody seeing parallels with Ben Elton’s Blind Faith? Are we all emoting enough and are we concerned enough about the kiddies?
Actually it’s resulted in a police prosecution, or at least the threat of one. So the end-result isn’t a nice little debate about conflicting values between the art-world and talk-back-radio-land. The end result is that some children are exposed to greater harm than previously inflicted, what with all this brouhaha, a celebrated artist has to endure prosecution or at least the threat of it, and a gallery owner the same – oh and also death threats.
We could have had this debate without the toxic public spectacle but the moralisers want to side with the rabid shock-jocks so I am not listening to their arguments until they come down off their soapbox and talk about the issues rationally.
I hesitate to say the following, because language, the definition of terms, which I haven’t thought enough about, and hence communication is difficult.
I think it’s fine, healthy and should be welcomed that the erotic be part of our perceptions and feelings in everyday life. The issue of sexualisation I see as something different. It’s OK, I think, to enjoy the sight of beautiful bodies, without a sense of guilt and shame. How we behave in these circumstances is another matter entirely and will always be constrained by social norms.
That’s one point. On the matter of artistic intention, when I was at university a million years ago, there was one school of thought that said the author’s conscious intention was important, as were the personal circumstances in which the artist created the work, for understanding and criticism.
There was another school of thought that said all that stuff was irrelevant and we should react to work as we find it.
I’m a bit in both camps and sometimes the first position above is more relevant than at other times.
Artists often don’t fully appreciate what they are doing at the time and can later change their view about what they were about. They can even learn from their own earlier art in terms of understanding the human condition. Sometimes they reject the whole experience and destroy the art. Sometimes brilliant artists are terrible in articulating about themselves and their art.
So it’s all very complex. I think it’s OK to personify the art work and say “This work of art is telling us …”. IMHO what it is telling us if it is unequivocally art is something about the human condition.
Henson’s pictures, those that I’ve seen, do this for me.
I remembered some pics I’d seen in Der Spiegel last year. You can find them from here. The first 12 from the first photo gallery of students at a sports university in Cologne are technically very good, I think, and are done by professional photographers with a genuine interest in the human body. The results are mostly pleasing to the eye. Those bodies are wonderful and are wonderful in live action with clothes on. Beautiful bodies in motion is one of the enjoyments of watching sport.
But in terms of artistic intent, as inferred from the pictures, they are in a different category from Henson’s work (I think markedly less artistic, than his). The remaining 7 pics are a further step away from artistic seriousness.
Then open the the second gallery. I’d contend that art simply isn’t part of the equation.
Skepticlawyer says Henson should have found an 18 year old who looks pre-pubescent. I don’t think that one will fly. Our life experience is written on and in our bodies. An 18 year old looking like a 13 year old is just that.
Jane, as I said above, if he’d done that it would have been an entirely different work. It’s not the way out of this one IMO.
I think Skepticlawyer’s point was a legal, not an artistic one- that parents cannot consent on the behalf of their children and so if the child is below the age of consent then legally there is a case to answer.
Quite so, su. But I think there are times when the artist is justified in pushing the law as well. Laws are based on social norms, but sometimes reflect minority positions or even majority ones that are not in the long term public interest. Another can of worms.
I’m reminded of the case when traditional dancers were made to cover up in Qld. A law specifically enforcing this would be ridiculous.
On norms, I’m reminded of the Lutheran missionary in PNG many years ago who impressed on the local women that they must cover their breasts when a local dignitary was introduced to them in a public gathering, many decades ago. They did so, but by means of lifting their skirts to cover the offending bits.
The rest of the exhibition images are back online now at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery website. The images that were removed from the exhibition are currently proudly on display at The Age, The Daily Telegraph, and various other news sites.
The Telegraph still censors the image that started all the fuss, but The Age wouldn’t have a bar of that (pun intended) and published the image uncensored.
What I wonder is, what are all the school children who attended the guided tours and workshops hosted by the AGNSW and NGV supposed to think now? The images at the retrospective were *far* more open to the suggestion of sexualisation than any of this latest series.
Whilst it’s definitely a knee-jerk reaction, in terms of the moral crusade, hasn’t it also been a knee-jerk for the other side, too? I think it’s very easy to rope this into a debate on censorship and art, etc, and to side with the “this is art” debate because of what it REPRESENTS.
I loathe Divine, who’s just looking for more publicity out of this, but there is a reasonable question as to the law surrounding this. How can we be so subjective as to say that it’s okay in one instance to photograph young children naked, and not okay in another? And it’s about much more than the intentions and mindset of the photographer – it’s even about more than the consent of the children (but is it okay to let parents decide if their kids can be used for such material?) – yes, it’s also about the viewer’s gaze.
The irony is that I was with a group of very respectable, inner-city, bohemian, hetero boys who saw the pics along with me, and they began discussing how one of them looked like she would be “hot” when she grew up. That suggests, to me, a sexual arousal or judgement of some kind – and they’re certainly not child predators. And the point made by police about the potential use of these photos on internet, etc, is valid.
Oh, but it’s “art”, and we want to use them to explore intellectual concepts, bla, bla, bla. Interesting that so many people, on another post, felt so moved to speak out against classism, but isn’t it slightly elitist to think that one set should have a different set of rules to another, in terms of what is and isn’t acceptable in something so important as the use of children for sexual arousal? Are there no sexually unhealthy people in the arts world, anyway? Or do they only exist in less intellectual circles?
I’m completely against most forms of censorship – and I think the public response to this is, as usual, filled with too much emotion and not enough rational thought – but I must say, I kind of agree with this one. I don’t see it as a personal attack on me – yes, I could look at these photos and not have a response that is sexually unhealthy. But I recognise that my fleeting moment of intellect is not so important as to not recognise the potential in other circumstances and the many ambiguous elements around this. I’d have a problem if the censorship was against anything involving consenting adults. But these are kids! C’mon, there’s got to be a line, somewhere.
Yes Aaron. Ive been thinking about how a child can possibly consent here and how a parent cannot really consent on their behalf. Ive been really thinking about that one. A child cannot consent because her brain is not fully developed. What is the law regarding this?
Today’s Age (syndicated to the SMH) has interviews with two of Henson’s former models.
“How can we be so subjective as to say that it’s okay in one instance to photograph young children naked, and not okay in another?”
Well, we do say that already don’t we, in the form of family happy snaps?
Your objection seems to be that these photos could be used for pornographic purposes, regardless of the context in which they were produced. Of course that’s true. Anything can be used in a pornographic context. Schoolgirls in unform, underwear catalogues, feet, etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. So, on what basis do we choose to censor, or not? Or do we censor all images involving adolesecents that may be connected to sex?
Is it on the basis of nudity and adolescence? We’d have to do a an awful lot of retrospective censoring then. Caravaggio is one artist who quickly comes to mind. Michelangelo’s David was only 15. Should that be censored? In fact, the reproduction of the sculpture was censored years ago in Melbourne. Should that happen again?
Is it because the adolescent models will regret it in the future. Possibly. We all do things we regret. But there’s quite a few speaking up saying they have no regrets.
Henson has be doing this work for 30 years. Should we go to the National and State based galleries and confiscate those images? Should we confiscate the ones in the Parliamentary colection? Or raid Malcolm Turnbull’s place and confiscate his? Why just the ones at the Oxley Gallery?
Is it because they’re available on the internet? This seems to be a dreadfully elitist argument, because it implies that it was okay when you had to go into a special place called an art gallery and need to have special knowledge to understand it. Now on the internet, any sleaze bag can look at them. So should only a special few be allowed access to them?
Yes there are ‘ambiguous elements’. Would you prefer your art without any? And what makes you think you can handle that ambiguity, but others can’t? Who’s being elitist now?
The category ‘art’ doesn’t exempt anyone from anything, I hope, and to the extent that the responses have continued to deploy that category as a justification then they are offering us very little assistance in coming to sound judgements over these questions. Even Catherine Lumby’s sensible piece has the headline ‘Art, not porn’ (although I doubt she chose that title). I’m not pleased with a number of these responses, but then I guess a lot of these people are wondering about how long it will be before they’re being put in gaol. If we are going to put the aggression of the most vocal critics into context, then we must do the same for the defensiveness of those in the arts.
I’m fairly confident that these photos do not depict children in a way that we need to draw a line over. My defence does not rest on any one aspect of the work: context is important, but not everything; content is more important, but is always interpreted, not self-evident at all even if the images in question are photographic; conditions of production are also always important. People seem worried to admit these notions because they fear that the producers of child pornography may be somehow emboldened by our qualifying our judgements, making them more specific. I don’t believe this will be the case – although I’m sure defense lawyers will be bringing this stuff up, if not successfully – because I think where children are genuinely being exploited and injured paying attention to context, content, and the conditions of production will make this all the more obvious.
Taking context and the breadth of interpretative possibilities for any image into account is going to be harder work, but I think we can have more faith in judgements that do these things than blanket bans and panicked prosecutions based on more nebulous criticisms. We might also find a few things that seemed self-evidently ‘okay’ are in fact more dubious than we suspected. Has anybody looked closely at the conditions of production of the advertising images of children, for example?
Interesting post from Liz Conor making a comparison with Nabakov:
There’s more. All worth reading.
http://lizconorcomment.blogspot.com/2008/05/bill-hensen-and-explicit-beauty-of.html
And Troppo’s Missing Link has a comprehensive roundup of Henson posts and articles, including those of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair:
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/05/26/missing-link-daily-70/
(Mainly in the Arts section)
And Kevin Rudd is no longer the darling of the arts set:
http://trevorcook.typepad.com/weblog/2008/05/artists-turn-on.html
And Glenn Milne wants him to dump his Gippsland candidate who’s apparently an “artist” and a “perv”:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23756133-33435,00.html
An issue worth noting here, although probably best explored on a new thread, is what exactly people mean when they say they are concerned about the “sexualisation of children”.
If by this term they mean that they are concerned about the sexual exploitation, objectification and/or abuse of children and adolsecents, then of course I endorse their concern. However it seems to me that in the current “sexualisation of children” discourse there is an element of unease about the very idea of children and adolescents being or becoming sexual, no matter how free of abuse and exploitation are the circumstances under which this occurs.
In raising this I hope not to muddy the important issue of whether children or young adolescents can be portrayed naked in a way which is artistic or aesthetic without being “sexual”. I am simply suggesting that a rational discussion on the wider issues requires that we recognise the possibility of adolescents and children being able to be sexual – as much as possible on their own terms – without being abused, exploited or objectified.
[An issue worth noting here, although probably best explored on a new thread, is what exactly people mean when they say they are concerned about the “sexualisation of children”.]
I reckon it’s more an issue of having photos of kids au natural, and assuming that this automatically causes sex offenders to get a “Hard on” and start attacking them
Eye, you make a host of points. I can’t answer tham all.
I’d just like to point out that early adolescence is the transition point from one developmental psychosexual stage to another and not an easy one. People younger than that are usually called “children”. For those older the term “students” is usually preferred in schools, but “young adults” is the term preferred in the publishing industry.
But in answer to your main point here, there’s context, intent and most importantly the nature of the finished work. And yes, the context for presenting a work is important, and I’m inclined to think that making it available on the internet could be problematic from the artist’s point of view.
Surely you can do better than that. Our response to a work of art is emotional as well as intellectual. My lecturer in aesthetics back in the 60s, a bloke called Val Vallis who has an award named after him used to say that in really good art you should respond entirely at an emotional level in the first instance. Then your intellect looks for reasons for your reaction and examines the means used by the artist to achieve that effect. Information from other sources and exchanging views with others feeds in. Oft repeated this leads to what they used to call a refined sensibility. It’s a cheap shot to call that elitist because it is hard won and can increase the pleasure of each new experience of art. So “bla, bla, bla” isn’t relevant, I’m afraid.
Finally, it’s quite usual for young men to be attracted to young women with clothes on. If they are hetero in their orientation you’d wonder why if they aren’t. And I can’t see it an offense as such to wonder how someone might appear when they grow up. What you say about it, in what tone and in what context is another matter. I make no judgement about that because I wasn’t there.
Eye, I meant to say also that at the outset I had some unease about the issue of consent, and I still do.
But does not anyone see the implications for this, in terms of THE LAW. How can the law discriminate on the basis of art? They’re making an example, partly, and they’re reacting because, yes, Divine put them in a position where they effectively “had” to. How can you say, “Oh, yes, that’s okay that this older man took naked photos of 13 year old girls, because he’s an artist, and his parents didn’t mind”? Do you know what that would open up, in terms of more “real” situations involving child pornography? All you have to do is call it art and have consent? C’mon!!! Do you know how many parents actually sell off their children to make money? What about those offenders who are sexually abusing their own children and posting pics of them on internet sites – they’ve given their consent, haven’t they? Maybe they’re just exploring adolescent sexuality? Maybe those sites are celebrating child sexuality – it’;s their right to be sexual, isn’t it? Children are sexual, aren’t they? I’m sorry, but if you think about the greater concerns, I think our right to art, bla, bla, bla, is really selfish and egocentric. If some things are out of bounds because it protects other situations, then so be it. It’d be nice if there was some objective way we could use “art” to determine law, but that is so obviously, obviously going to be corrupted.
“Fine” (#203), how can you compare this to the use of sculptures and paintings from two centuries ago? This isn’t remotely connected. “We all do things we regret”, you say – but surely being photographed naked as a 13 year old isn’t something so everyday in our list of things we regret?
And if this was art aimed at children, even – by children – but it isn’t. It’s a gaze on the adolescent BY an adult FOR adults. Does a 13 year old model understand the very clever meaning in the work? Unlikely. Did anyone say, “Look, these may very well end up being used as an object of arousal for perverts online or (I did make the point that even the artworld contains unhealthy people, so you interpret me incorrectly, there), is that cool with you?” unlikely. So, are they not, then, being exploited? They’re being exploited for an adult gaze on adolescent sexuality. That makes me extremely uncomfortable, if we say that is okay. I don’t personally find the photos offensive, as such, but that’s not the point for me. “Art” is subjective. Cannot “art” arouse? Of course. And that’s all fine, but we have to be very careful with something so subjective being translated to law, when it involves children.
“If some things are out of bounds because it protects other situations, then so be it. It’d be nice if there was some objective way we could use “art” to determine law, but that is so obviously, obviously going to be corrupted.”
Who here is invoking the ‘it’s art, therefore exempt’ defense as a legal principle, Eye? You seem to be arguing with things that aren’t being proposed as far as I can see.
Also, Fine is right: Caravaggio is being viewed now, his work is being circulated and exhibited now. If there is something wrong with these kinds of representations, then his work is in question too, surely, no matter when it was created. If you’re going to go for reductio ad absurdum, at least be consistent.
Angela Mitropoulos’ take on this:
“Stateporn”
“Fine” (#203), how can you compare this to the use of sculptures and paintings from two centuries ago? This isn’t remotely connected.
Why? You actually need to make an argument here, not an assertion.
I notice you haven’t answered any of my other arguments yet.
Paul at 209, I’m working on a new post addressing (among other things) that question right now.
Here’s a very long post on it from me!
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/26/questions-on-the-bill-henson-sexualisation-of-children-debate/
Eye, I think it’s her parents, although the SMH link Gummo made did refer also to a boy. In any case I’m not saying that this isn’t problematic. It is. My mind wasn’t set at rest by the assurance from former models, now adult, about how confident they felt. My mind turned back to an a time 14 years ago when our youngest boy was 7 when two men knocked on our door recruiting for a karate club. The younger, in his 20s, immediately attached himself to our son telling him how great the club was, what he could do with karate and even mentioning residential camps. He clearly had a gift for rapport with young boys, creating instant confidence. I thought I might be watching grooming before my very eyes, but there was nothing specific I could object to.
In the event the teaching was so hopeless that our son lost interest after about two nights. I was immensely relieved.
Henson has a record of behaving with integrity long enough for us to be confident that this sort of thing isn’t a problem in this case. Nevertheless the problem of consent in the case of minors remains a problem in principle.
On being objective about what’s art, of course it’s impossible.
Back at 195 I referred to some images in Der Spiegel. Rather than try to define art I gave four gradations of images, with Henson’s, I think, clearly art, and the second photo gallery clearly not. Other artists think Henson’s work is art, and this fact is not without significance.
Klaus K said:
I thought the earlier discussion about the law indicated that artistic intent was a defence. Or would the defence simply have to prove that the intent was not pornographic?
David Tiley at barista takes the view, I think, that artists should be allowed to get on with their work without harassment. David, I think, has a background in arts administration. In any case I respect his views on these matters. He extends the right to free expression. It’s not open slather though. The example David uses is a film to promote holocaust denial. He says:
I think David is talking about what the law should be rather than what it is.
I’d also make the point that no-one should be harmed in the process of creating an artistic work. I’m not implying that there is a concern here, but I’m uncomfortable with the images floating around on the internet. David says:
David points out that it’s commercially dumb also because a large part of the value of the images lies in their scarcity.
In principle I think artists have a right to respect as to the contexts and the manner in which their art is used. If they retain copyright, the law should be on their side.
I’ve really got other things I have to do, so you might be relieved if I say I intend to move on now.
No, Brian, I appreciate your contributions very much!
Anyway, to make sure we can continue to have a coherent discussion about this, and not have it spread across two threads, I’m closing this one and asking people to comment here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/26/questions-on-the-bill-henson-sexualisation-of-children-debate/