Image by Bill Henson – sourced from DailyServing.com
I’ve made my interpretation of Bill Henson’s images of adolescents clear in a previous post, and I want to talk here about some of the issues raised by and about the “debate” on Henson’s photography and the subsequent charges laid against him and the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery owners.
The first point to make is that whatever the “debate” is now about, it’s not about Henson’s images as such. They literally disappeared from view on Thursday afternoon, and the interpretation of the image that’s attracted the most angst has been heavily slanted by its reproduction in numerous tabloid media outlets, with black bars over the subject’s breasts which have made it a sexualised image no matter what Henson’s (or the subject’s) intentions or its original context might have suggested. For what it’s worth, you can see the photo here at Junk for Code. The interpretive context for this image has been shifted, and violently reinscribed as the invisible or altered focus of a media circus where the battle lines have been drawn between “the arts community” (some of whose spokespeople have been doing the debate and themselves no favours, incidentally) and “society” – as represented in part by agents of vigilance such as Hetty Johnson and in part by the instigators of the talkback outrage, the Miranda Devines of this world. As soon as they get up and running, you’ve got zero chance in the so-called public sphere of making any sort of nuanced point, as nuance is immediately equated with “condoning pedophilia” or whatever heights of absurdity we’ve reached.
In the farther reaches of the blogosphere, that absurdity has included equation of any defence of Henson and his images as akin to “an ideology that considers Islamic women being decapitated as the price to be paid for a more “tolerant” world” and of course, those who are pointing out that things might be more complex than “enjoying artistic child abuse” are apparently the exact same “Western liberals” (!) who “opposed John Howard’s intervention to save Aboriginal children from sexual exploitation”. That might make no sense whatever, but then it’s not meant to. It’s all about starting a war – a culture war on the usual suspects – and closing down any possible debate that tries to even slightly question the unexamined and apparently unquestionable premises which are its conditions of (im)possibility.
In fact, according to Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt as well, joyfully employing their favoured method of “selective quotation” and selective ellipsis on The Age’s Robert Nelson as Troppo’s Missing Link points out, it’s all actually about some sort of evil cultural relativism that just as easily “accepts” “beheading women”. Whatever.
When things have taken this turn, you know you’ve lost already if you try to actually say anything intelligent. You’re already inscribed as the evil destroyer of all that is innocent and beautiful, the condoner of the murder of women, and the complicit accomplice in “the stripping and photographing of 13-year-old girls” for “soft porn”. Don’t ask me how all these links make sense – you’d need a better cultural critic than I am to understand what sort of “logic” has lead the culture warriors to this juncture.
In their world, I suppose I just have to wait for the inevitable link and to accept my punishment – loud denunciation as an appropriate slapdown for even daring to suggest that things might just have spiralled a little out of control in this risible “debate”. After all, by suggesting there’s something more going on with all this than “soft porn”, I must be complicit in “beheading women” and “child abuse”, mustn’t I? So there you have it, but in the hope that this is a place where we can have some sort of reasonable debate, I’m going to proceed to ask some questions regardless.
Here are some, and they don’t exhaust the possible range of questions:
(1) What constitutes the “sexualisation of children” and why is it wrong?
Audrey Apple thinks she knows:
Artistic might be capturing images of children running around laughing on a beach, caught between the devil-may-care nakedness inherent to children and the fig-leaf necessity of adulthood.
Placing them in a darkened room and fashioning them into poses not natural to a child does nothing but strip them of their power and turn them into subjects – and to me, that is the great difference between nudes and pornography.
Censorship be damned. The police were right to shut down Henson’s “exhibition”. That none of his fawning audience could see why is proof the art world in general needs to get a new tailor.
What are “poses not natural to a child”? We’re actually not talking here about the sexualisation of children, surely, because this post from Audrey, and every other one making similar arguments I can find, completely effaces the transitional nature of adolescence. There’s apparently some dividing line between being a child and being an adult that you just leap across in an instant. No awkward response to puberty, no fear at an awakening sexuality. Just a line between “innocence” and – well, what?
It seems to me that legitimate questions can be raised about “the sexualisation of children”. But it’s wise to remember that human development isn’t a matter of sudden transformations but of gradual awakenings often accompanied by fear as well as by joy. It’s not that there’s some “original sin” of sexuality that suddenly morphs an “innocent” into something other. I mean, we all know that’s not true, don’t we? We’ve all been adolescents, haven’t we? It’s these sorts of questions I think Henson’s work poses to us. And he’s had his answer – at all costs we have to forget it seems, forget that we were ever something both less and more than a child and both less and more than an adult.
A lot of the prior debate about the “sexualisation of children” revolved around the posing of children younger than the subjects of Henson’s photos in provocative images, almost always created not for artistic purposes but for marketing and advertising and without any reflexivity. This discussion worries about the premature depiction of children as sexual beings offered up for adult consumption, in poses that invite sexualisation. That’s a legitimate concern, although sometimes it ignores the fact that children are sexual beings, but there are questions, I think, about what the glossy marketisation of kiddy sexiness does to socio-psychical development, and ones that can be addressed more broadly in a cultural sense.
But what are we talking about here? It seems to me, anyway, that the flipside of worrying about children being “sexualised” too early is to then want to prolong childhood almost indefinitely. And that, in turn, needs auto-authorised guardians of what is and isn’t appropriate to draw these lines, to impose these lines on fluid human bodies.
(2) Isn’t what is at stake here mainly the dissemination of these images on the internet? The internet – always constructed in these discussions as a domain existing outside rules, a zone of libidinal and circulating energies and a place where restraint is cast off – apparently functions as a site where we can’t tell who’s looking and why they’re looking. Forget the fact that the images which have now been removed from the gallery website almost certainly wouldn’t have been accessed by the troubling eyes of those who might see Henson’s photos as pr0n… they’re not accompanied by any of the tags and codes that the marketers of pr0n embed to get search engine’s attentions, and they’re not being circulated privately by pedophiles. That doesn’t matter it would seem – in the intertubes, no one knows who’s looking. There aren’t any museum guards to watch the watchers for inappropriate behaviours (though how any thoughtcrime committed without obvious signs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales could be forefended is beyond me). There isn’t a wall around the photos and frames around them on walls which keep out those who don’t see them as intended to be art. That seems to be the logic that’s been suggested in the “internet changes everything” argument made by Clive Hamilton and others.
Is this why Hetty Johnson hasn’t made a complaint to the police about the Art Gallery of NSW? Aside from the fact that a small (private) Paddington gallery probably better fits the stereotype of “edgy artist”? Are we to assume that the officially sanctioned temples of art are safe from any lurking eyes?
(3) And who exactly is Hetty Johnson “protecting”?
Is it the subjects of the photos? They seem to be an afterthought in all this. Perhaps thought of belatedly because (rightly) the exploitation of children and adolescents for the purpose of producing sexualised images does appear to be the most central aspect of the debate about sexualised images. That’s true whether we’re talking about images taken by pedophiles or whether we’re talking about advertising images of eight year olds whose parents are happy to celebrate their kiddies’ burgeoning “careers” as models…
But the objection – first off – appeared to be about the images themselves, and secondly about their dissemination online. Here another question can be raised. If someone finds such an image titillating, is that the responsibility of its creator or its publisher? Isn’t it proverbially the case – recorded in so many fictional representations of puberty and adolescence – that prior to the existence of the internet, adolescent boys would pour over medical texts in school or public libraries for images of female bodies? Or perhaps even get turned on by the figure of the nude in art books? Were the publishers of those texts held to account? Should they be? Do we need to be “protected” from ourselves?
How about other sorts of images produced for purposes which have nothing to do with sexual excitation? (And I think there is a difference between pedophilia and forms of fetishism aetologically, but as with most differences in this case, it’s being effaced, and what I’m talking about is the responsibility of the image as such.) I, for instance, might post photos of myself online for all sorts of purposes – I could be dressed ever so demurely, but because there are people out there who fetishise amputees, any image of a woman with one leg is going to provide voyeuristic fodder for someone – and perhaps therefore be in some contexts a “sexualised image” no matter how asexual my intent or its context. Do I need to take this into account? Should I?
Or should it be up to adults to regulate their own behaviour? We all know not everyone can do this successfully or effectively (and indeed I’m sure lots of us get turned on by looking at stuff we find sexually exciting – which in my case certainly doesn’t extend to images of children – but I’ll be damned before I allow others to take that ethical responsibility out of my own hands). But what appears to be missing in all this “debate” is what it does to the cultural representation of adults – who are figured as predatory. Or rather adult males are. Perhaps they’re also in some ways feminised because they might be those dreaded art-loving “pervs” (an easy equation the loathsome Glenn Milne made today). One thing this is about is protecting the “innocence” of girls against the male gaze, and Henson’s own gender is significant in it, as is the fact that there are similar images of boys in his work has been completely erased.
There are some questions anyway. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I think there is an obligation on us to discuss this issue seriously, and not rush to loudly condemn. There’s enough of that about, that’s for sure.
Elsewhere: A ton of relevant links at Troppo’s Missing Link, and Skepticlawyer looks at the legal questions surrounding the prosecution of Bill Henson. At Hoyden, tigtog also sees “so many knees jerking, so little real debate”.
Update: Audrey Apple responds to her interlocutors, and does some rethinking in a long post.
Further update: [by MB] A post from Pavlov’s Cat which is well worth a read. And Laura’s take in another excellent post.
Should the legality of the images depend on why they are created? Also in the end Henson would profit from the sale of his art so in some sense they were made for commercial purposes. Would it make any difference is some large corporation bought the rights to one of the photos and stuck their logo on it with some marketing spiel?
All great questions, Kim. I wonder if the photos had been taken by a woman would there have been the same uproar?
I also wonder why the moral guardians aren’t demanding that the State Galleries give up their Henson photos.
It also reminds me a story I read about the Yorkshire Ripper. If you remember he murdered many women in the north of England during the ’80’s. When asked if there were any books or films which influenced him, he said ‘Yes. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky”. Which of course makes sense when you think about it and shows that the pornographic imagination can feed on anything.
Another good question, Fine!
Chris, on the legal issues, see Skepticlawyer:
http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/05/the-bill-henson-kiddy-porn-fiasco/
I don’t know how in practice his intent would be judged, because I’m not a lawyer. Most artists I think would like to make their living from art. And in practice, as I said early on the other thread, someone of Henson’s renown would make all the money he wants without having to do commercial photography, and advertisers would in any case be very unlikely to want to appropriate such an image, for a whole range of reasons.
I think a workaround while we wait for the charges and/or trial – please contribute to the defense btw. thank you – is to reproduce the images online as widely as possible, right around the free world.
Mid-term it is vital to win this case and pour scorn on those idiot police.
Longer term we need to get the Gilead types out of government*, establish a proper democracy and lower the age of consent in line with documented science.
*No representation without taxation. No God – No Master.
Worth a thousand words:
Link on interesting video about Bill Henson’s photographic work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEi9ESRB8o
I believe if your an adult you can make up your own mind,I sure I don,t need to be told by some bunch of harpies what I can or cant see,its my business I,m afraid.
Devine, Hetty Johnstone,uncle Tom Bolta and all have no right to interfere in my private life,if they dont like it don,t go see it,I would not go and see it but thats up to me,all these stupid twits do is publicize it same as Jones with Salo,I did not know it was on till the right wing idiots opened their mouths.
Sorry that,s what I think,no one has the right to tell you what you can or cant see,its none of anyone’s bloody business
Can I just point out that in many cases the transformations are violent and sudden. That a large number of us (as many as one in three but estimates vary) never have the freaking luxury of this soft focussed “gradual awakening” that you speak of- an extraordinarily idealised portrait of adolescence that definitely does not apply to “us all”. Why am I not surprised that people keep reiterating a narrative that obliterates the experience of abused children and then have the gall to say that it is the Hetty Johnsons and other moral hysterics of the world who are overly idealising childhood?
Isn’t the flipside to worrying about prematurely ascribing adult sexuality to children a debate about where the boundaries are? I don’t believe I have ever seen anyone moaning about the premature sexualisation of 17 year olds so I doubt indefinite prolongation of childhood is really at stake.
Another thing I want to point out is that people keep talking about “paedophiles” but paedophiles are probably the minority of abusers. Paedophiles experience a primary sexual orientation toward children and their targets are mostly boys. The majority of victims of abuse, as far as we know, are girls and so situational abuse is more common than paedophilia.
If between one in 3 and one in 8 children are being sexually abused then there are a lot of predatory adults out there. They aren’t being shipped in from Mars. The awareness of this is just emerging and you seem to want to send us back to automatically presuming benevolence. It isn’t just adult men either. There are two age groups who are most likely to offend; around 14 and about 30.
I don’t believe Henson’s work should be censored but if you want to talk about sexualisation and child sexual abuse (not just paedophilia) then you need to be better informed about the context. You may be capable of self-regulating your behaviour but clearly many people and specifically many men cannot.
“I don’t believe Henson’s work should be censored but”
So what is your solution? The current hysteria isn’t helping anyone.
Kim, you’re brilliant.
The first person with that unique combination of will, sanity, education and ability with language to winkle out the salient underlying components and their relation ship with each other and the whole, to produce a comprehensible and definitive objective adult discussion on the issue.
The essays are gems, tributes to what can be acheived thru intellect, training and hard work combined.
Hetty Johnson had problems with abuse as a kid, so most would take this into account concerning her intensely subjective responses. The cold blooded op ed columnists who have exploited the thing for political purposes totally unrelated to the issue itself are the real problem.How much attention has been distracted away from so many other issues at least as deserving of attention.
re Apple, This writer knows and loves someone with a history similar to Johnson’s and their responses, usually objective on a given issue, have also coloured by recollected pain and humiliation; personal wounds from the past reopened through the current bout of exploitative hysteria.
On another issue, it seems curious to me that this issue has received so more attention than that curious case in Melbourne, where a twelve year old girl has been allowed a sex change operation over the objections of family.
If a twelve year old kid apparently can’t decide whether to appear in a photo, as some claim, how could one possible make an objective, then legally sanctioned, choice for major surgery, at the same age?
I dunno, may be am old fashioned, but the thing has taken me genuinely aback.
You know what I would like to see, Adrian – I would like to see some of the people who spend their entire time pointing out moral panics to engage with the issues to which those panics are a response.
I think you’ve misread the intent of my post, su, with respect. I’m not trying to suggest that “violent awakenings” don’t occur with regard to child sexual abuse, but it seems to me, if anything that Henson’s work can act as a prophylactic to that – in that to the degree it does suggest tensions between innocence and sexuality are normal – that is to say, it is possible to experience adolescence otherwise as a subject rather than an object of sexuality, but that subject position is always unstable and imbued with fear and that’s also normal – anyway, that’s (part of) my reading of the photos.
No I do not.
But automatically assuming that predation is the default for the relations between adults and children is not the answer either. The construction of “innocence” in its day allowed institutions such as churches, governments, etc, to hide what was occurring lest its shocking force disrupt comfortable assumptions about the “safety” of childhood and “care”. But the presumption of predation is as obscurantist with regard to solutions as its opposite.
I’ve chosen to discuss the images in terms of “pedophilia” because both “sides” of the debate are interpreting them this way – and because as I said the cultural hot spot here appears to be the (presumed) analogy between accessing Henson’s photos and the circulation of images produced for pedophile networks.
It seems to me that having an adult and measured debate is the best way to address these issues. Not censoring images. Or regulating speech. I note that you say that’s not what you’re arguing for, but I’m not clear what you are arguing for.
And the solution is? I very much doubt that child sexual abuse per se, where it’s not pedophilia (and I did note that this term has its own etiology) has anything at all to do with images and representations as it’s most commonly found within familial or other comparable contexts. I am happy to stand corrected, but I don’t believe there’s (a) much of a causal link between any sorts of images and child sexual abuse as such and (b) it has anything to do whatsoever with the contexts of Henson’s photos except concerns about the issue of the consent of the subject/s and ethics, where there are some parallels – overdrawn, though, in my view.
Crossed with lots of other comments, su. I do not believe Henson’s photos, as I’ve just said have anything material to do with the phenomenon of child sexual abuse as such. As I’ve said, pedophilia rather than situational sexual abuse has been the touchpoint for the so-called “debate” and the connection between these images and the “sexualisation of children” and its connection with child sexual abuse doesn’t seem to me to have been argued, or even asserted. I suppose we’re meant to infer it from Hetty Johnson’s involvement, but I haven’t seen anything from her which attempts to really place these images in this context with any sort of reasoning.
I would welcome a broader debate on child sexual abuse, but I don’t think Henson’s photos are either an appropriate starting point for such a debate nor that any debate arising from them would be particularly useful in elucidating the issues that are key to the prevention of child sexual abuse.
John Ryan. I don,t need to be told by some bunch of harpies what I can or cant see,its my business I,m afraid.
I’ve seen Hensen’s exhibitions, and I always find them, as David Marr said on the Insiders, ‘creepy’. All the re-assurances about the subject feeling in control and comfortable remind me of Linda Lovelace pre Damascus. But mostly I’m noticing a gender divide. Angry men defending their right to view everything, and women trying to defend ‘art’ whilst having a very bad feeling about this.
Su, I’d ask you to read what I wrote again (and in the previous post) and ask yourself whether that’s what I’m saying. I don’t think I’m doing “idealising adolescence” here – quite the contrary. That’s partly what I’m trying to illustrate with the contrast I’m making between Henson’s images and what Audrey Apple thinks is “natural” and proper to childhood.
Paul at 9, thanks.
Excellent post Kim. Truly. Well done.
What Ms Apple is really saying is that photos of a kid on a beach bring nothing but good connotations here. A sunny-Disney world of tanned kitsch and Coca-Cola commercial wholesomeness. Henson’s photgraphs express some thing, well, darker. And Ms Apple and Mr Bolt and the rest don’t like it. They cannae hack it Cap’n.
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That’s the problem here. The notion that the photograph renders a subject powerless is Jurrasic tosh. In what way are you rendered powerless? A photographic location, studio or otherwise, is simply a place. Apart from the models’ obligations to folow the photographer’s instructions (s/he is after all master of the image) the models are not powerless. They can quit if they wish. Did Henson steal these children? Did he drug ‘em? Did he offer ‘em a fucking boiled lolly?
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No.
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This was done with the consent of these
childrenadolescents and their parents. Henson’s been at this for years. Is he the subject of any complaint on behalf of his former models? Not to my knowledge. Are his models doing anything sexual or otherwise degrading to their person? Not unless you call nudity degrading.>
I don’t find it difficult to imagine that Mr Bolt does find his own nudity degrading. And anyone else unfortunate enough to be present could well feel even worse.
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The schpiel re this is applying adult sexuality to children is likewise the drivel of a boneheaded philistine. Not because it doesn’t happen, but because it’s not happening here. Henson’s photography depcits the psychological landscape of adolescence. The sexuality is adolescent. And like most good visual artists he hasn’t articulated any of this but simply ‘draws’ what he sees with the mind’s eye.
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ANd no Fine he prorbably wouldn’t be prosecuted if he was a woman. Throughout the occassional miscellaneous uproars whereby a photographer is hounded by the forces of ‘purity’ – Sally Manne remains unscathed.
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Check it out – http://images.google.com.au/images?um=1&hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=Sally+Mann&spell=1
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Should she?
What follows is an extract from my article for New Matilda tomorrow (just sent off to NM)
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What did Bill Henson do? He photographed a naked girl. Apparently, that is now enough in this country to warrant serious investigation from police on the grounds of child pornography.
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To realise just how absurd this situation is, let’s take a a few moments to consider the biology of the issue. It was the British anthropologist Desmond Morris who called his 1967 book The Naked Ape.
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Morris’ thesis was that humans, the only predominantly hairless species of ape, were essentially adapted to life as nomadic hunter-gatherers. We – Homo Sapiens – lived in glorious nakedness for more than a million years in Africa, before radiating out into the Eurasian continent sometime around 100,000 years ago.
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The invention of clothing may have been a key innovation that enabled that exploration, from warm Africa to the colder climates to the north. The anthropologists Ralf Kittler, Manfred Kayser and Mark Stoneking have speculated that the evolution of human body lice is directly related to the development of clothing – which human body lice in fact need to survive. They put the date for the origin of body lice at around 107,000 years ago.
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For at least the last 50,000 years, humans have made art – beautiful, fully formed visual art, as Australian indigenous rock art and the equally beautiful rock paintings in the French caves of Lascaux prove. In other words, visual art is nearly as old as clothing. They are both fundamental characteristics of the biologically modern human being.
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No wonder so much visual art has consisted of depictions of the naked human form – from the Venus of Willendorf to the highly explicit art-as-pornography of Jeff Koons. Indeed, so common is the depiction of the naked form in western art, it has a technical name (”the nude”), and life drawing is still considered an essential part of the curricula of most art colleges.
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Just to spell it out to you again: none of us are born with clothes on. And when we take them off, this is what we really look like – even if we are 13 years old.
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As Catherine Lumby points out in Friday’s Age, “it is now the task of art historians, critics and fellow artists to explain Henson’s work and defend his status as one of our finest artists. Their job is almost impossible.”
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Lumby is right. The hysteria over paedophilia and child sexual abuse is now so extreme that any sensible analysis of the issue is almost impossible. Looked at dispassionately, it’s hard to see how Henson’s images are “sexualised.” There’s no sex act going on, and his models are clearly not aroused. Sure, they’re naked. But sexualised?
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As the anthropologists and aesthetics professors agree, sex is like beauty: in the eye of the beholder. I shake my head at the lunacy of a nation where broadband internet makes the most depraved material imaginable instantly accessible, while zealously policing what hangs in high-scale art galleries.
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How hypocritical are media outlets like The Age, which has posted the offending image on its website here If the gallery and artist are now about to be charged, should not Fairfax? Or Dolly, which regularly portrays young women in an overtly obviously sexual manner, as the University of Melbourne’s Rod Jones suggested in today’s letters to the same newspaper. Should we also ban the British TV drama Skins, airing on SBS right now? This is a drama all about adolescent sexuality – gay and straight.
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The rippling consequences of the police action widened yesterday, with the Albury Art Gallery removing some of Henson’s photographs due to concerns over whether the photographs might be illegal.
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Which is why Peter Garrett’s comments on the issue – an amazing five days after the event – are so inadequate. Our Arts Minister kept mum for nearly a week on the biggest issue in his portfolio since taking office, declining to comment on the matter because it was the subject of a police investigation “except to say that while artists have a right to challenge and confront audiences, they also have a responsibility to operate within the law.”
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It’s a weak statement. Just a month ago, Minister Garrett was happy enough to defend the moral rights of artists in this speech to the Australian music industry body APRA at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion. The speech was entitled “The politics of Art.” Oh, the irony.
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During his speech to APRA, Garrett lauded the songwriting agency for its “strong representation for the rights of songwriters and composers-rights articulated in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, ‘Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he (sic) is the author.’” His speech included a long discussion of Nelson Mandela’s role in freeing South Africa from Apartheid. But hang on, wasn’t apartheid also the law in South Africa?
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That was a month ago. Now that supporting the universal right of artistic expression is actually in danger of costing his government support, our Arts Minister has gone to water. Oh Peter Garrett, just where has your power and passion gone?
Thanks for the link to Sally Mann’s work, Adrien. I think it is relevant to ask the question Fine asked with reference to her images. There is no doubt, as I said, that the gaze is always problematic between a photographer and her or his subject, and I think it’s differently thematised as such in Henson’s work than in Mann’s. Is that the source of some of this?
Just a note as well – I’d prefer to stay out of this thread if I can – I feel I’ve said all I want to. I’m happy to respond to any requests for clarifications, and will look in from time to time, but I’d like to see what comes from an attempt to ask questions to reframe a debate, without being prescriptive about how it proceeds.
RE Female Artists and taking of nude photos, there was a celebrated case about 20 years ago when Connie Petrillo was charged with indecent recording a child under the age of thirteen years, for taking naked photographs of her OWN son.
http://www.artlink.com.au/articles.cfm?id=196
Great post Kim. I’ve been watching this thing unfold online and thought some kind of central blogospheric repository would be useful. It would be good if this turned out to be it.
I’m pretty sure it was Lumby who pointed out somewhere along the way that we tend to speak of fully bearded and amply breasted ‘youth’ and childhood as though there’s nothing in between, totally avoiding the liminal bits of newly emerging sexuality. We can easily extend childhood using words like ‘dependent’ and concepts like under age, but it becomes more difficult when children start growing bits that inconveniently suggest autonomies we don’t want to know about.
What is a 13 year old girl exactly? For one thing she’s a big problem for easy compartmentalisation. Does she menstuate? Maybe. Is she fertile? Maybe. Is she a fully socialised gender? Maybe. Is she sexually naive? Maybe. Are Henson’s pics of a sexual being or not? Who knows.
Like women of a certain age we seem to prefer it when such hybrids are invisible. At Skepticlawyer Helen said Henson would have been better off using models who were 18 but looked younger, so I’d also ask at what age does a girl become an acceptable subject for the erotic gaze? Is it ok to look at a developing body if she’s an 18 year old late developer? (raises hand) Or got old but failed to develop in any significant way without anorexia? (raises hand again). Is only 17 but demonstrably worldly?
You mention the assumptions this debate makes about grown men, so I’m wondering how the boy/girl ambiguity of ‘undeveloped’ bodies plays out here. Amputees are voyeuristic fodder, and so are other ‘handicaps’ like not qualifying for a bra size that would register on the most sensitive richter scale. Or having an extra thumb. Where does the boundary lie between the sexualised subject and the curiosity?
But what is actualy wrong with a bar on using kids as nude models?
Why, when I enter the artists name in for a google search 2 days ago were the only images shown on the first page (At work so not going to look any futher) only the naked children?
I dont want nuance, parsing or comparing to days of youre, I just would like to think that a clear line could be drawn between naked children and what is considered acceptable.
If I may be indulged to expand an arguement.
150 years ago homosexuality was seen as perverse and evil. No respectable person would admit to it or to even knowing one. (with a wink and a nod sometimes)
Then a process of normalisation began. First by a number of artists (Oscar Wilde through to Noel Coward), then through theatre and the arts, then eventualy to a whole society “dont ask, dont tell” around the 50’s onwards. All this with the law still mounting prosecutions etc.
Then through the work of more mainstream actvists Homosexuality is now seen as an equal and legitimate lifestyle.
My worry is that there is a fairly well worn template to making previously taboo activities in society acceptable. For better or worse the arts community is one of the vital first areas of “raising the profile”.
Finding a sypathetic “victim of the brutal laws” is a vital part as well, wether Henson fits that mold is yet to be determined.
(None of this is meant to be anti-gay, its just the closest example I could think of which involved sex at some level. Another example could be the American deep south segregation, or even the old sodomy laws)
Lyn’s raised a good point, in that the bright line view of adolescent sexuality is borrowed from the law, which needs bright lines generally if only to make it useful. Yes, the law can do nuance, but only up to a point. After that point is reached, then it’s up to other disciplines and people.
I also think Su & catlick have a good point about how this is dividing along gender lines (to which this post is a notable exception, I might add). I may do an update to my own post on this point later, but – in brief – a couple of people at Oxford criminology argue that women (especially as mothers) have always resented this type of male gaze on their children, but have never had the power to do anything about it on their own terms (ie, related to motherhood, rather than to religion or more abstract notions of protection).
In Western countries, women now – as a group – are beginning to win the power to change the laws and reformulate public attitudes (on this issue as on many others) so that ‘child protection’ is on their terms. One academic is doing a large empirical study on this, and I’m very interested to see what falls out of her research.
I don’t know that it’s dividing along gender lines at all. I’m a woman and I’m definitely on the anti-censorship side and I don’t think I’m an exception in this.
An additional four years (maximum) jail under the Crimes Act 1900 – Section 91G
“Children not to be used for pornographic purposes…uses a child who is under the age of 14 years for pornographic purposes” as against “a child who is of or above the age of 14 years“. (Respectively 14 years and 10 years custodial maximum.)
So 14 years old plus one day, treated the same as Linda “Deepthroat” for the purposes of sentencing.
Thats one dividing line for an extra 4 years at her majesty’s pleasure. Interestingly, the common law age of doli incapax (incapable of doing wrong) absolutely, is below 10 years of age. There is a rebuttable presumption that those aged 10 to 14 are also incapable of committing crime.
So, if the 14 y/o (plus one day) photo subjects are likely to have in their possession (and almost certainly will have, I’d suggest) a copy of his/her photo taken by Bill Henson and deemed by the Bolta, Miranda Devine and M/s Johnson to be pornographic, an interesting question arises for them per Section 91H ie
Why are they not urging the police to execute search warrants on the homes of those children. The law is the law and must be enforced. Right?
Ten years max for an adult such as Henson creating the alleged p**n and five years max for the 14 year old “victim” keeping a copy?
Luckily NSW treats those over 14 in the Children’s court with another dividing line ie under 18 years of age, where they would likely never impose a custodial term at all on a 14y/o for that offence.
My point Kim, is that there are so many dimensions, in law, ie more “dividing lines” than one (for child victim or child perpetrator), such that that when the adults are confused, the kids must be gobsmacked.
0-10; 10-14; 14-18 and lets not forget sweet 16 the age of consent.
My point for the railroading brigade wanting to prosecute Bill Henson is this: to be logically consistent, in seeking to demonise an imagined art world enemy of children you must demonise many more. Much more than you bargained for, and including MSM, the Age in particular, and all bloggers with those images posted–even ultimately the so called “victims”.
Kim @11 :
Well you said that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about premature sexualisation and then you described as the norm, a kind of adolescence that was obviously free of those pressures. One of the concerns raised in the Corporate Paedophilia report was that by various mean the gradual process that you spoke of was being accelerated and preempted. That was my point. Early pregnancy for example was one of the concerns that was raised and it spells a very sudden transition from adolescence.
I really disagree with this. It was the unquestioning acceptance of authority; parental and institutional, and the automatic disbelief of children that enabled coverups. Children were often seen as leading adults astray. And I see echoes of this deference to authority in the outraged reactions we see at the moment, in the constant referencing of Henson’s standing in the art world, as if this automatically puts him beyond reproach or examination.
What am I arguing for? I am arguing for a complete reversal of priorities, where the freedom of speech of the privileged white artist becomes less, not more important than for eg the botched rape trial of a disabled child in Aurukun. I won’t hold my breath, though. I am asking for a situation where people don’t make mealy mouthed apologies for a socially conservative Prime Minister while scapegoating a Child Protection advocate – it started with the media remember with Devine and Bolt. I am asking for people to put some of the outrage they readily muster on behalf of free speech to the service of violence prevention. I am asking that if people sling around the term “moral panic” they follow it up by addressing the cause of that panic (because in this case the cause is real and widespread).
With regard to your final point: People are concerned about distribution of sexualising images in part (this was in the Corporate Paedophilia report) because images can become part of the grooming process. Grooming is not something limited to paedophiles; images can be used as part of situational abuse as well- hence the emphasis on pornography in the Little Children Are Sacred report and subsequently the NT intervention. So no, it isn’t just about paedophiles.
Ah lost all of my blockquotes. Sorry – don’t know how I stuffed that up.
Thanks to all who’ve appreciated the post. I said at 18 I’d prefer to stay out of the debate from here on in, but I just went for a walk and reflected a little more on su’s arguments at 7 and want to do a bit more clarification.
I think, on reflection, that to discuss Henson’s images in terms of child sexual abuse is actually the move that the RWDBS have made – all of them as far as I can see – because pr0n is a convenient hook for them to hang on their equation of everything and everyone they don’t like politically and culturally with “condoning child sexual abuse” – see the wild leaps of thinking I’ve documented in the post which rest on thin air basically.
I recall when the NT intervention was first proposed, it was very widely stated by those who’d looked at the literature that there was no established causal link between pr0n and child sexual abuse, and since, as su said, we’re talking about an abuse of communal or domestic or other intimate relations rather than a sexual paraphilia or pathology as such, that makes intuitive sense. That was the argument made by those who opposed the “ban pr0n” aspect of the Howard government’s intervention.
It seems to me that there’s significant displacement happening here – if Henson’s images are the problem, and if they in some vague sense “condone” or even lead to child sexual abuse, isn’t adopting this non-argument helping to obscure the actual sources of child sexual abuse? I think that if we were wanting to debate seriously that issue (and I’m sure we would all like to see such a debate occur), we’d be very well advised to keep it quite analytically distinct from the issue of the significance of Henson’s images and how they have been reinscribed into a frame where they’re likened to the images taken, collected and circulated by pedophiles. Because make no mistake, that’s the parallel that’s being drawn here.
Su, I’ve added the blockquotes in. For the two reasons I’ve stated (reluctance to participate in this debate in order to defend my opinions as such – I’m just trying to pose questions – and the fact that I think it’s unhelpful to frame Henson’s images in terms of child sexual abuse), you’ll understand if I don’t respond further to the points you’ve made. That’s no judgement of the validity of your contribution, just a result of my belief that:
(a) The links between the phenomenon of child sexual abuse and Henson’s photos are very tenuous;
(b) Debating the phenomenon of child sexual abuse on the basis of Henson’s photos is likely to so obscure the debate as to make it fruitless, if the intent is to think about ways child sexual abuse can be prevented (which is something I would wholeheartedly support – but in a different context than this one right here and right now).
I would revisit the old question sometimes asked of usually male consumers of unsuitable behaviour, (such as: the bare breasted sandwich makers/barmaids/hairdressers.) Would you feel comfortable patronising this business if that was your sister/mother/daughter performing this service? To all those people out there demanding the right to view ‘art’y pictures of naked 13 year old girls, would you feel comfortable if the subject was your sister/daughter? Clearly, for some, the answer is ‘yes’.
No causal link but the pr0n regulation was actually part of the recommendations of LCAS report because pr0n can be a grooming tool. So still problematic and not just for paedophilia but situational abuse as well.
I’m not sure I agree that the gaze is problematic or always so. But here I’d have to agree that that is my perception and the perception of those like me who wallow in the visual arts and even create ‘em some of us. Sometimes it isn’t a problem, usually it is but the problem is how to get the image you want rather than some power play. Models have a lot more power than given credit for.
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This ‘gaze’ of which you speak is much the subject of feminist lore is of course present; and is, as Camille Paglia has extensively elucidated, utterley ammoral. It sees beauty and does not consider moral questions whilst doing so. And it is identified with men for a whole bunch of reasons. Most famed artists been men. But also most perverts, most predators, most sexual killers are men.
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The attention that’s been drawn to pedophilia over the last two or so decades probably has many people overly anxious. This leads to such episodes as suspicion of men who smile at children in public. This of course is not only useless against pedophiles (whose cunning in assuming positions of trust is legend) but also erodes social connections and breeds distrust and alienation.
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In these sorts of moral panics there’s always an almost entire lack of consideration for the actual consequences of the art. Sally Manne’s work does sexualize children. She depicts her children wearing make-up and jewelry. There was an interview on the impeccably serious (hardy-har) 60 Minutes with some notorious old man who’d done huge time for such crimes. He said that letting your kids wear make-up or “anything sexual” was his red flag to a bull as it were. Therefore I’d have to conclude that Manne’s work is pornographic for pedophiles.
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But it isn’t for the rest of us. And pedophiles have their own networks that produce this stuff not to mention the routine abuse of adolescent family memebers going on all over the place to people who will remain unpunished. Prosecuting Henson doesn’t do anything to stop them. It does however make sex a little more shameful and superstitious.
Yes. Okay? Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Please understand. If you wish to perpetuate this ethos whereby the body is at once both an object of deified rarity and also the source of deepest shame then please do so.
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However understand this. I am in no way obliged to subscribe to what I regard as a joyless and twisted negative perversion of my relationship with my body because of some supposedly divine decree that sayeth hate thyself. Paul of Tarsus has no authority over me and neither do you. You wanna make yourself miserable subscribing to a code that has predestinate hypocrisy and neurosis written all over it – fine. Leave me out of it.
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Thanks.
Kim this is a very well written and well thought out post.
What gets me about this whole farce is the paradox of our society’s attitude to sexuality. It surrounds us and is literally used to sell everything from breakfast cereal (‘meet me in the cereal aisle’, ‘I’ll have what she’s having’) to cars and everything in between. But we conflate nakedness with sex and so turn a blind eye to the many sexualised images of young girls that surround us on magazine covers and on our tv screens, not to mention the clothes, bras, and make up being sold to girls as young as four. (When I refer to clothing I am talking about ’sexy girl’ clothing, clothing that is the same designs, short skirts, peek-a-boo necklines and the like, as the adult clothing, that in the adult sizes, the clothes are unambigiously designed to make the wearer look sexy. There is this continuum of clothes, young women’s wear, casual and night club clothes, teenage clothes, tweenager clothes and little girls clothes all following the same lines and designs. The cheaper the little girls clothing the more likely it is to be miniature adult clothing. As the mother of a four year old girl it bugs me when I try to get clothes for my daughter that is affordable and practical and doesn’t look appropriate for a night club). As a society this doesn’t seem to be a problem cause this stuff is everywhere. But we do have a problem with nakedness and as soon as we see pics of naked children, above about preschool age, alarm bells ring. Thus we send our youth a very paradoxical message, be ashamed or protective of your nude body, cover it up – in revealing clothing! IMHO a lot of the clothed images we see of girls of the age group of Henson’s work are much more sexualised than his images.
[But we conflate nakedness with sex and so turn a blind eye to the many sexualised images of young girls that surround us on magazine covers and on our tv screens, not to mention the clothes, bras, and make up being sold to girls as young as four. (When I refer to clothing I am talking about ’sexy girl’ clothing, clothing that is the same designs, short skirts, peek-a-boo necklines and the like, as the adult clothing, that in the adult sizes, the clothes are unambigiously designed to make the wearer look sexy.]
And yet these same parents have no qualms enrolling their kids in Dance classes where they perform routines based on music videos dressed in the same clothing you describe.
Hypocrites.
While Marge, Lisa and Maggie are out shopping, Homer and Bart Simpson, as usual, are on the sofa watching TV. An ad comes on: ‘children needed to pose nude for photos – big bucks on offer’. Two pairs of eyes light up – after all, Homer and Bart are fond of the moolah and usually don’t really care how they get their hands on a ready supply.
Homer: You sure you don’t mind getting your rocks off to pose for this photographer, boy?
Bart: Why should I, Homer? I’ll be leaving Springfield when I’m 18, so no-one out in the big bad world will have heard of me anyway…
[Homer writes down the contact number and gives it a quick ring before Marge gets back. An appointment is made for “Homer’s kid” to attend the photographer’s studio the following day at 10.00 am. Handily, the studio is close to the Simpson residence, so Bart can use his skate-board to get there and doesn’t need a lift from Homer. However, when Lisa gets back from the shops, Bart can’t resist getting one over on her, and reveals that after tomorrow he is going to be rolling in dosh]
Lisa: You better change your tee-shirt, Bart. If a photographer is going to take your picture, you have been wearing that one since the series started in 1989…
Bart: Get with the script, sis…I won’t need a tee-shirt – I won’t need anything…oo-la-la!
Lisa (distraught): No, Bart! I can’t believe you’d do anything so stupid…have you no self-respect…you’ll catch your death of cold…what if the school bullies, Jimbo and Kearney see the photos – they will beat the crap out of you for being a sissy…
Bart: They beat the crap out of me anyway, so what’s new?
[Whatever Lisa says, Bart isn’t listening – all he can see are the dollar signs. Lisa goes to bed, but tosses and turns, unable to sleep. All she can think about is her brother’s plan to appear nude in photos – a project that will even further diminish his wretched reputation. In keeping with her usual self-giving and altruistic personality, she comes to a decision as to what she will do – she will stand in for Bart by turning up at 9.00 am (saying she is ‘the Simpson kid’) and that she was unable to make the 10.00 am appointment. She doesn’t know what she will do when the photos of her are exhibited – all she is thinking about at that moment is trying to save Bart from himself. The next day, Lisa slowly makes her way to the photographers, reluctantly shuffling like a condemned felon making their last journey across the Bridge of Sighs. The photos are taken, but she is so eager to get away, the photographer hasn’t even got time to give her the money. Back home, close to 10.00 am, Bart is ready to get on his skate-board. Lisa takes him aside]
Lisa: Bart, there’s no need for you to go to the photographers…I’ve already been, and got the photos taken…
Bart: So where’s the money? It was my idea, so hand it over…
[Bart is ready to explode when he is told by Lisa she left the studio without it. However, just then, the phone rings. Homer answers it. The photographer is on the line]
Photographer: Mr Simpson…you’re not going to believe this, but when we took the photos of your daughter, we forgot to put some film in the camera! Can she come down again for some more shots?
Homer: What?! My daughter?? My beautiful cuddly little daughter!! Why you asshole…you stinking turd…
Marge: Homer! Who are you calling such horrible names? I hope you aren’t insulting my sisters, Patty and Selma, again…
Homer: No, Marge… I’m just arranging for our happy family to have a picture taken and the photographer is nothing but a rip-off merchant…
Lisa: But, dad, we’re going to a different photographer, aren’t we?
Bart: Yeah! Let’s go to one where we can all get our kit off…
Homer: Why, you…
I would revisit the old question sometimes asked of usually male consumers of unsuitable behaviour, (such as: the bare breasted sandwich makers/barmaids/hairdressers.) Would you feel comfortable patronising this business if that was your sister/mother/daughter performing this service? To all those people out there demanding the right to view ‘art’y pictures of naked 13 year old girls, would you feel comfortable if the subject was your sister/daughter? Clearly, for some, the answer is ‘yes’.
That line of argument does women not much good at all, as it just encourages men to respect women “owned” by them. It does little to encourage them to think of women as fully human.
Yep, it’s never addressed to women although we also have relationships with women and girls!
Okay, I’ve been thinking some more about this and I have an alternative way of interpreting this situation. The frame that I’ve been thinking about is that of what I would call (following some contemporary work in epistemology) ‘visual articulation’.
My starting point is the idea that we develop the way we use our senses through ‘training’ processes. Everybody does this, but different senses are developed in different ways according to use, training and milieu. As an example: you can actually take courses to become ‘a nose’: that is, to refine your sense of smell to be able to identify different fragrances.
Those who have spent a lot of time around art – whether they be artists, critics, art historians – tend to develop certain forms of visual articulation. Their eyes range across the artwork, looks at details, light, colour (there has been research on this, but I can’t find a good link). This form of visual articulation treats images as complex, looks for nuance. This is why those in ‘the arts’ find that they literally cannot see the problem with Henson’s work.
Those who have a developed awareness of child abuse as a problem – through education, profession or activism, or as victims – would tend to have different ways of being visually articulate. Their reading practices when children are involved are honed towards details, but these are markedly different kinds of details. This influences their visual articulation, and will be relatively more or less significant depending on their exposure to other contexts of visual development. This is why some critics can ONLY see the potential problems with Henson’s work.
The visual field is not neutral to these ways of seeing: it yields what is sought where there is something in the work that corresponds. This is not ‘purely subjective’ however: without any correspondence between how we see and what the work does we don’t respond at all, there is nothing in it for us.
I think discomfort, vulnerability etc are there in the art in this case, as is the adolescence of the subject. If you have a heightened awareness of visual complexity in the artistic sense, you register this in particular ways. If you have a heightened awareness of child sexual abuse, you register this in a different way. What makes it more perversely ironic is that I think both visual frameworks contain great potential for empathy, and yet they emerge here at crossed purposes.
This tension is emphasised by the form that the public discourse takes in this case: I take the way that certain voices in the media have framed this discussion as key to this.
Those who have campaigned against sexual abuse are used to this combative mode because they have faced a great deal of resistance in trying to get the issue to be taken seriously. When they meet ‘authoritative’ resistance they know what to do. The responses of artists and arts commentators to censorship is also habitual: there is a long tradition of censorship and prosecution of the arts to draw on.
Hi Kim,
I’ve written a second post on this issue following comments and debate relating to my first one. If anyone cares to read it, they can find it here.
It’s a more thorough analysis of my previous argument.
aa
It’s all about starting a war – a culture war on the usual suspects – and closing down any possible debate that tries to even slightly question the unexamined and apparently unquestionable premises which are its conditions of (im)possibility.
You’re pretty amusing, Kim. The Left Wing is always ready to shut down intelligent discussion about other topics, such as gay marriage, when people of a more traditional bent wish to make important points about possible problems with it. Mention any opposition to gay marriage and one is immediately branded as a bigot or homophobe.
And before you assume too much, no I am not actually Right Wing; I am actually somewhat to the left of centre politically, both with regards to social and economic issues, so please resist the temptation to pigeon-hole.
Perhaps you are just getting a taste of your own medicine.
“If you wish to perpetuate this ethos whereby the body is at once both an object of deified rarity and also the source of deepest shame then please do so.”
I was noticing that whilst some men choose to buy sandwiches and beer from bare breasted women, they feel more comfortable when those women are relative strangers. Especially if their mates are present.
“However understand this. I am in no way obliged to subscribe to what I regard as a joyless and twisted negative perversion of my relationship with my body because of some supposedly divine decree that sayeth hate thyself.”
It’s not your body up there.
Sorry people but I can not agree with many of you on this matter.
If anyone came up to you with pictures of naked children in the street what would your responce be?
In my view it is not acceptable for any child to be exploited even for the sake of so called art.
Where do we draw the line?
What will stop grubs showing photos of naked children in private anly to be busted and get of an a technicality of art?
Its a long bow but if we set a precedent of child porn,and this IS what it is,in this manner it will not stop.
Our children should be allowed to be children not ogled by perverted minds in the name of art.
Audrey at 39, I’d just added a link to your new post as an update to mine. Props to you for being willing to rethink and elucidate your position in dialogue with your interlocutors.
b16fan at 40, please read more carefully. I am specifically referring to the MSM blogiators and columnists and their epigones in the blogosphere as the ones who are constructing this issue in such a way that makes any debate (at least in the MSM) more or less impossible. I’m not making any claim broader than that, and thus the premise of your criticism is invalid. Nor do I think it’s either true or helpful to claim that “all left wingers” do this or that. That’s not the case, and it’s one big red herring you’ve just thrown into this thread.
To all those people out there demanding the right to view ‘art’y pictures…
“Yep, it’s never addressed to women although we also have relationships with women and girls!”
I figured “people” would include women.
It’s a red herring stolen straight from Miranda Devine’s dinner-plate
I didn’t see Henson peddling his photographs in the street did you?
OK then, all pictures of anyone under the age of 18 must be banned, because they all can obtain for some class of person, some sort of sexual gratification. That’s where we draw the line in your reasoning. When I say all I mean all. Including the ones people keep of their kids on their desks at work. You never know when a pedo’s watching do you?
Klaus – Heh!
And thanks for the comment at 38 – that’s a very perceptive way of understanding the different responses from people who are approaching these images from perspectives grounded in good faith but unfortunately too often incommensurable. I think it would be very useful in this whole discussion if people started trying to understand where others are coming from. As I said in the post, if it just becomes a “pr0n v. art” debate or a “luvvies v. society” debate it’s so polarised as to be useless for anyone not seeking to make a political point or issue a loud condemnation but to understand and act.
Thought provoking Su, but an argument of balancing rights nevertheless. And it’s not just the privileged white artist that benefits from free speech/expression. The Oz trials were about the right to political dissent, perhaps even more than they were about free speech issues. The right to be free of violence is granted in a different way of course, with sanctions against perpetrators of violence: positive inherent rights in a liberal democracy (free speech) as against the variably reactive, much more proscriptive CJ system as it operates against violence. I think that when balancing rights which are theoretically linked, one should find a causative link, and if there is one between free speech in the form of Henson’s art and freedom from sexual violence ( re: botched trial) it is nebulous at best.
In my opinion, based on experience as a practitioner in the criminal justice system defending the perpetrators, (especially in a NSW country town of note in the SMH today) I’d go back to the balancing rights argument and reframe it with a powerful causative link: Is the right to buy cheap alcohol and binge drink greater than the right to be free of violence?
My answer is no. Alcohol is a factor in almost all the cases I see involving violence. If alcohol was taxed to the same level as in Singapore, or Europe there would be a significant impact. Better still, if there was a drug that made alcoholic violent offenders violently ill on drinking alcohol ie vomiting it up, we could mitigate for non-custodial sentences putting offenders on section 9 bonds to take the drug, supervision by Probation and Parole, for the required period.
That would IMHO achieve much more in violence prevention, (and keeping recalcitrant fathers sober and out of jail for the benefit of their families) than anything else. Arguably with sexual violence, it would achieve more than (theoretically) locking up all suspected rapists.
(A common theme with violent alcoholic offenders, they tend to plead not guilty because they can’t remember the violence they committed the night before.)
Why can’t this be done? I rather suspect it’s a more a question of state revenue on alcohol than civil liberties counter-arguments.
Tying some ends together, “sexualisation of children” is one thing, but combating the dirtiest of dirty prOn should be a lesser or later priority than combating alcohol abuse. On that scale, even if Henson’s art was prOn, it would barely register in a utilitarian scheme of remedies.
[OK then, all pictures of anyone under the age of 18 must be banned, because they all can obtain for some class of person, some sort of sexual gratification. That’s where we draw the line in your reasoning. When I say all I mean all. Including the ones people keep of their kids on their desks at work. You never know when a pedo’s watching do you?]
And photos on your car keys, your computer screensaver, your family website……
Despite Kim’s best efforts to do so, I feel a little sad that su’s requests for us to address the child protection issues (as opposed to the censorship/moral panic analysis) have still gone largely ignored.
Because I think the answer to this whole “debate” lies in focusing on the real problem: child protection. Even Hetty Johnston, or especially Hetty Johnston, understands this. In the first sensible statement she has made on this issue, she has publicly called for calm and reminded everybody to just stay focussed on child protection after some nutjobs threatened the Oxley Gallery.
Sadly for the newspaper editors and columnists and RWDBs, the child protection issue is rather prosaic, doesn’t sell many papers, and worse, has nothing to do with Bill Henson’s pictures: your children are at greater risk from people known to them and trusted by them – family, friends, community leaders. They’re also statistically more likely to be middle-aged white males of above-average income and intelligence in high social-status positions. Some would be a part of the chorus of denouncers of Bill Henson, since it deflects any suspicion away from them. Even more deviously, they are much more likely to have a crucifix on their wall and a Bible on their bookshelf than a Bill Henson picture.
And whether or not Bill Henson’s pictures are publicly displayed, this will continue to be the case.
So stop pointing the finger at artists, and child protection activists, and moral panic merchants, and just for heaven’s sake keep an eye on your kids.
The rest is just noise.
Thanks Mercurious. Well said.
I meant “Mercurius”. Though “curious”, as in questioning, exploring, is a nice freudian there.
In the private sphere, I couldn’t agree more Mercurius.
In the public sphere, I couldn’t agree at all. The moral panic merchants using the child protection activists as a smokescreen; harnessing the brain dead rednecks for sound effects to demonise the literati, with the risk that hard won free speech rights are legislated away by the spineless politicus ignorati.
This debate hasn’t “divided along gender lines”. Unless Bolt and Blair are women? That’s a nice little spurious claim to make those defending free speech appear sexist, but it has no truth to it.
Su, you seem to object to the depiction of what you call a view of normal adolescence, in which children grow slowly into their own sexuality, because some people have that ripped away from them. I’m not sure that there’s any reasonable logic to this. Are you suggesting Henson’s photos depict the ideal, and therefore should be banned? Is this ideal bad? If it’s bad, how did it become normal? Would you prefer that photos depict the alternative, the theft of childhood sexuality? Do you object to the depiction of the adolescence many of us experienced out of jealousy? Is it discriminatory for a gallery to put up pictures of people’s “normal” experience in an artistic way?
It’s all well and good to want to protect children and society from the experience you allude to, but I don’t see how banning (or attacking) images you seem to think depict the norm is going to do that. I don’t see a relationship at all between the two. Surely if you agree that these images depict the complexity of adolescents’ experience of their own sexual discovery they must be good? And those who didn’t get the pleasure of this self-exploration can perhaps (if the photographer is good) get some hint of what they missed? And those who might, in the past, have stolen someone’s chance at these few years might, seeing these images, understand what they have done?
I’m also interested by your claim that most paedophiles are into boys. That seems a little strong. I think in fact that all your statistics are a little dubious. 3 in 8 children are sexually abused? I think you might be wrong about that.
So it’s ok to destroy an artist for the abstract notion of “child protection”? I could not disagree more. The purpose of prosecuting a case against a photographer is to protect a particular child from abuse. Not to prosecute a case in which all children are afforded some sort of abstract protection. Just like when you prosecute a murder case, its about a particular case of murder first and the general idea of the prevention of unlawful killing of people second.
So I would like to know in this particular case, how the prosecution, and banning, of Henson and the gallery results in “child protection”. What exactly is the connection? So does this THIS prosecution protect children exactly?
Henson is NOT emblematic of the greater issue of child protection in my view, and its incumbent on all those calling for “debate” on the general grounds of “child protection” to show how the two are linked. Because we are talking about a criminal prosecution, it’s specific. It’s nothing to do with child abuse in indigenous townships, or child abuse by family members, no matter how abhorrent though those things are (which undoubtedly they are). He’s been making this work for 20 years, so the hysteria about “child protection” – and those who are hysterically floundering around for a target – have caused Henson to suddenly become the convenient target de jour. So, calls for a debate, on the original grounds of protection of children, are in my view, a straight buy-in to the fact that the prosecution of Henson is in some way connected to this other than via a hysterical media reaction. Which it isn’t. And if you want to move the debate into those grounds, it’s up to you to show the connection, IMO.
“So does this THIS prosecution protect children exactly?”
So how does THIS prosecution protect children exactly? I meant.
‘the child protection issue is rather prosaic, doesn’t sell many papers, and worse, has nothing to do with Bill Henson’s pictures: your children are at greater risk from people known to them and trusted by them – family, friends, community leaders. They’re also statistically more likely to be middle-aged white males of above-average income and intelligence in high social-status positions.’
Mecurious – yes, but you’ve specified exactly WHY the police and child protection had to get involved. While i make no inferences on Bill Henson personally, the photographer was clearly in a position of trust and fits the demographic you;ve outlined.
That the parents approved doesn’t remove the risk. Most of the children i’ve worked with who have been sexually abused were in contact with the abuser with the full knowledge and support of their parents.
So it is justifiable and appropriate the artist, parents and child are interviewed to discuss the circumstances in which the shoot took place. To not do so would be profoundly negligent of the state, given the public display of the pictures, without making a moral or aesthetic comment on their merit as art.
[I’m also interested by your claim that most paedophiles are into boys. That seems a little strong. I think in fact that all your statistics are a little dubious. 3 in 8 children are sexually abused? I think you might be wrong about that.]
And in the majority of offences the offender is KNOWN to the victim, either being a relative or family friend, or a trusted figure, ie school teacher etc. Also, I wonder how many offenders are female ?
[I’m also interested by your claim that most paedophiles are into boys. That seems a little strong. I think in fact that all your statistics are a little dubious. 3 in 8 children are sexually abused? I think you might be wrong about that.]
And in the majority of offences the offender is KNOWN to the victim, either being a relative or family friend, or a trusted figure, ie school teacher etc. Also, I wonder how many offenders are female ?
Damn, Double post, and Sublime said what I said as well, minus my reference to female offenders.
I’m sorry, sc, if that is the case, why would such interviews not take place before the cops announced that they intended to prosecute, and not after, and in the full public glare of instant media judgement?
Let’s get this straight – the prosecution has nothing to do with “child abuse” but relates to the nature of the images themselves, which are being indicted on the same grounds that images of child pr0n are. As I also said, the rights of the subject and the question of her and her parents’ consent appear to be an afterthought, which has been raised only to fit this specific “affair” more closely into a more typical narrative. There may well be questions to ask, and legitimate questions at that, and those are questions Henson has been happy to answer previously in the public domain. I don’t accept for a moment that the police should be interviewing the subject and her parents just because of the way these images have now been recontextualised. There’s a huge invasion of privacy here, and it is actually none of the state’s business, because there’s no legitimate presumption that an offence has been committed with regard to the subject, and nor have any charges laid related to that aspect of it.
It’s not as though Bill Henson sprung up from the ground like a mushroom. Would such interviews have been required when the Art Gallery of NSW – where similar images have been on display for many years – or twenty odd years ago when he received an Australia Council grant? Why him, and why now?
I’m afraid your comment implies a presumption of suspicion against an artist, who has always done the right thing and been accountable for the representation of his subjects. You seem to be making an implication that he might be an “abuser” despite your disclaimer because you say he “fits the demographic you;ve outlined” and then go on to say that:
Again with the implication that he’s an “abuser” and with an obvious pre-judgement of the facts in the light of the frame you’ve placed them in, regardless of a very strong contrary implication inferrable from his many years of artistic practice.
I’d go back to the question raised in the post, and then added to by Fine and Adrien – why are similar questions not posed to Sally Mann? – an artist whose work arguably does sexualise children in a way that Henson’s never has – for a start by portraying clearly prepubescent children naked in poses that mimic those of models. Although, it’s not that simple with her work either!
Yet, suddenly, all eyes are on Henson and his images and this is the most urgent “child protection” issue in the land. It’s farcical. As I’ve said, if anything is calculated to distract attention and debate from the facts of actual child abuse, it’s this so-called “debate”. I’m happy to recognise the good faith of many of those expressing concern (though not of the media culture war merchants) but it would be good if people could think about this issue and not just adopt reflex positions. That’s the point of posing the questions I did in the post, which I really would invite people to take some time and consider before jumping in and commenting. The whole problem with this thing has been the hyperspeed with which judgements have been made, and that’s why whatever is taking place can hardly be called a “debate”. I’d like us to do better!
I just want to reiterate that I have no desire whatever to personalise this, or to diss anyone for having a contrary opinion to mine. But I really would like people to think about why they hold that opinion, and how it might change in response to others’ views. I’ve been trying really hard to do that, and this whole thing has made me think a lot…
KIm – from what i see there are two legal issues here (totally separate to aesthetic issues) – one is the portrayal and display of the images – the other is about the individual wellbeing of the child.
I did my tour of duty in child protection many many years ago, but if i recall, in Qld if a notification about a childs wellbeing is made to Child Safety, and there is reasonable evidence there may be issues of concern, an investigation is undertaken. Images of naked children are pretty hard to ignore, though if these were taken by a non related photogrpaher, then Child Safety’s primary focus would be be around the parents ability to provide appropriate supervision and protection to that child, which may or may not extent to insight around the use of her images.
As for the reproduction and publishing of the images, these would be outside the juristiction of dept child safety (which is primarily around familial care and protection) and over to the police.
And for exactly the reasons Mercurious raised, i would be cautious about any relationship, professional or otherwise where a large power differential existed.
So i come to this issue having worked in child protection, as a mother and as an artist.
In case anyone is making assumptions, yes I have exhibited adult nudes. I have been photographed nude, and until several years ago you could find a naked frontal picture of me in an installation/performance work on the web, (which after a few months and some concerning attention, i decided to take down.)
Sc, I agree about the power differential, and implicitly that’s one thing I’ve raised in the post with regard to the gender issue. But all sorts of relationships involving power differentials exist (in fact, arguably all relationships) and the state doesn’t and shouldn’t intervene without due cause. The issue of narrowing power differentials generally – which I support for all sorts of reasons – feminist, socialist, etc – is a separable one. I don’t believe that there are any grounds for a “child protection notification” in this instance, and no one has ever suggested before now that there would be such grounds. Prima facie, Henson would not have exhibited such photos without the consent of the subjects and their parents (and there are multiple subjects, including boys, who have been ignored here for reasons that are relevant). And as I’ve emphasised repeatedly, he has recognised that he’s also publicly accountable for the ethics of working with such subjects, and has displayed that accountability. His statements are a matter of public record, and it would be preferable if people could take some account of them, rather than making inferences about the situation which are not derived from anything anyone involved in the situation has said or done, or any concerns raised before all this blew up, but from something else – the extrapolation of behaviour that takes place in quite another context – as if Henson were taking the photos for his private purposes or to disseminate them without publicity to others.
These photos aren’t taken for anyone’s private purposes, but for the public purposes of exhibition as artworks. There may be a private purpose in the sale of the art, but that’s an issue to be resolved between the photographer and the model and her/his representatives, as it always is. I don’t see that you have any reason for any suspicions, and I again ask why such suspicions have never been raised before. It seems to me, as I said, that the two things here which have caused the “affair” to develop as it has are first the bomb throwing by Devine and her brother bloviators, and secondly the fact that the photos were online, which has broadened out the “this is not art!” thing to all sorts of just false analogies about child abuse and pedophilia.
There are, as I’ve also said repeatedly, legitimate questions about the subjects. Henson has answered them, and others have provided links to the testimony of those who are now older but posed for him when they were of a comparable age. These constitute the relevant data, not inferences from other situations that occur when people take photos which have the purpose of provoking titillation or sexual excitement for their own and others’ private purposes.
What occurred to me, sc, when I read that is what qualities if not qualifications should the investigating agent of the state possess? Should it be a copper, or a social worker? Should the agent be skilled and knowledgable in the arts as well as in child protection and the law?
But my main question is, shouldn’t there be some evidence of harm before the state is justified in intervening?
Klaus K does this new epistemology render irrelevant all that left-brain right-brain stuff? I’m genuinely interested because I think it has some power even if it’s just a metaphor. I speak as one who is leftish brained married to some-one who is strongly right-brained. My perception of a picture tends to be discursive and lineal whereas my wife’s is automatically holistic taking in the whole pattern.
But I’m sorry, I thought your comment was a complicated way of saying that it’s OK to project your preconceptions on someone else’s way of interacting with the world without making the effort to walk in their shoes. Or is that what in fact you were saying?
Now I’m going to bed.
sc, cross-posted and you’ve pretty well answered my question. My starting point on this is that Henson is producing art and is clearly a victim of the state’s intervention. It’s important that the state protects individuals from the majority unless they are doing harm. I’m with Kim here and would be surprised if there was cause for a notification.
Without going into too much detail I have been close enough to child abuse cases and was in Education when mandatory notification was debated and introduced.
Kim, i guess if you want to understand why this issue blew up, than i think unpacking the power differential explicitly is a good start. I think its is fueling much of the unspecified angst around this, more than the images themselves.
LIke it or not Henson operates in the real world of today where the state regulates and intervenes on all sorts of power differentials. Teachers are not able to work in a classroom alone with a student – and if they do they open themselves up to a Pandora’s box of drama and possible allegations.
Bosses are not allowed to intimidate staff. Its illegal and prosecutable.
I don’t think the pictures are p..n. btw. Most of them are hauntingly beautiful, but i would never allow my daughter to be photographed by henson, and as such, its fair to unpack the reason why. And its complex but i know how the web and media works and amongst the reasons is never wanting my child to become caught up in something exactly like what has happened.
The creepy comments and attention i got on that one pic of mine, and finding it reposted someplace with a sick comment was enough of an experience to recognise the potential pitfalls of losing control over my own image.
Brian if you found that pic in the staff room and knew if was taken by the art teacher of a student, how do you think it would be handled?
I just wanted to elucidate my point that although there may be some analogies with patterns of abuse, the analogy is unlikely to hold, and nor should we adopt the view that whenever an analogous situation occurs, we should think it does without attention to the contexts.
Here again, in case it was missed, is the link to what his previous subjects have had to say:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/i-never-felt-uncomfortable-bill-made-you-feel-incredibly-safe-andcalm/2008/05/25/1211653848660.html
Fair enough, sc, comments crossed. But I just don’t see that we get anywhere by asking questions about teachers posting similar images, or whatever. If we are trying to draw a parallel with Henson – those questions might be worth posing outside this context. But with regard to Henson and his subjects and the intended use of the images, it’s just not the same question and therefore the answer is different. I said right at the start of the other thread – if only because of Henson’s own level of celebrity and the amount of money that his photos command on the market – he would attempt to exercise as much control as possible about where the photos were disseminated. They just weren’t going to end up being posted on sites where they’d attract lewd comments, or basically where anyone would know about them aside from a very limited audience for art. The fact that they might now end up being more widely disseminated and read and viewed in contexts which now are sexualised is a point I made in the post, and the responsibility for that lies with those who made all this the issue it is, including (and it’s just a statement of fact, not an attack) Hetty Johnson.
So it goes.
I do take your point about increased sensitivity to power differentials, which is a good one for understanding how this is all playing out.
Anyway, I said I’d stay out of this thread as much as possible and let others argue it out, so I’d better start being more true to my word. Plus it’s past my bedtime!
Ps – last word from me – I do think the link to what his previous models have to say is a really important thing to read because it goes to what’s actually the case with regard to Henson himself – something that appears to be very hard to hold onto because the debate spirals into generalisation as soon as you say boo, and then those generalisations spiral back onto Henson and the photos’ subjects.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/i-never-felt-uncomfortable-bill-made-you-feel-incredibly-safe-andcalm/2008/05/25/1211653848660.html
night
C ya!
Maybe the difference is that Henson has his photos hung in a public gallery at $25k a pop, whereas the photos the rest of us keep of our kids are not for public consumption nor are they for sale.
[Maybe the difference is that Henson has his photos hung in a public gallery at $25k a pop, whereas the photos the rest of us keep of our kids are not for public consumption nor are they for sale.]
And what about the naked photos used by parents to embarrass them on their 16th/18th/21st Birthday which you publish in the paper announcing the happy event ? They may be old, but sex offenders do read the newspapers.
Also what about the old “Phunny Photos” published in Take 5 and similar magazines where you can win a prize ?
Do we prosecute the publishers and the parents who enter ?
sublimecowgirl, is this comment
meant to imply that the Devines of this world are trying to protect the powerless in this instance? I don’t think they are “unpacking the power differential”, they are piling onto an artist to make a point. I don’t think others who are concerned about other issues necessarily benefit themselves or their agenda by jumping onto the same bandwagon as these people, and I have been more than a little disturbed by this trend in child protection and anti-child abuse organisations (like Bravehearts) over recent years. Even the change of name for that organisation really suggests a talkback-radio-harnessing approach to the issue that is not going to help.
How many are posted on Facebook, or flickr, or image sharing sites of all kinds?
In any case, to pose the question in these terms accepts the equation that any nude photo is or is capable of having a “sexualised context” regardless of its intention or original context.
I really wanted just to make a quick comment about something in Audrey’s post –
I think this passage encapsulates two assumptions which are just wrong – first, that the “merit and value” in Henson’s images comes from its “controversial content” etc. which I think is partly untrue, and partly distorted – in the sense that the last thing he is trying to do is provoke a confrontation for its own sake – this appears to be the reflex assumption about modernist art (which Henson’s work really can’t be described as) made in all art wars. (The passage also implies that there’s a lack of good faith on the part of those who think the work has “merit and value” which could only arise if Audrey Apple’s aesthetic judgement on it were undisputed, which it is not.)
Secondly, I don’t know who Audrey is thinking of when she writes “of the left” but many “art and cultural commentators” and particularly gallery owners, critics and art collectors, who are some of the people who’ve been quoted or have intervened in this alleged debate, are anything but “of the left” – a lot would be Liberal voters. Not all collectors are Malcolm Turnbull but a lot of barristers and others who are wealthy enough to be serious art collectors (like the bloke – an SC – who was interviewed at the closed gallery opening) are Liberals. It’s an indication that the script of the culture warriors – that all this is about partisan politics (and/or the putative attacks on civilisation and children by “western liberals”) has been accepted unproblematically, and politicising these issues is a huge part of the problem that makes it impossible to discuss them sensibly.
The way in which the particulars are so quickly scooped up in the general (which actually is a false universal with regard to those particulars) and everyone adopts positions and starts reciting lines which have very little to do with the substance of the issue is exactly what prevents it being a “debate” and one of the major reasons why (and here I absolutely agree with Kim) it makes it far from ideal for this incident to be the hook for a broader debate on the aetiology and prevention of child sexual abuse, which I also agree is a debate we should be having. But not about these photos, because they have very little to do with it, and what they do have to do with it comes from their framing in a fashion that tries to make them fit the picture. As for that matter is the gesture of loud condemnation, which allows people to feel righteous about themselves and constructs friends and enemies, but does nothing for either serious debate or finding solutions. The child protection aspect of the NT intervention (again articulated to this issue by some of the denouncers cited) also was immediately politicised on almost all sides, and to the degree that these events are politically motivated or become political footballs, whatever people are doing has nothing at all to do with addressing the very serious problem of child sexual abuse, which in my opinion (and here I agree with sc) has very deep roots in this culture – many related to power and gender – which is why it is so quickly politicised of course! (or one of the reasons…)
I think that the intrusion of condoning “beheading women” as an offence ascribed to anyone who wants to question whether Henson should immediately be loudly condemned – documented in the post – demonstrates precisely why these events are a most inappropriate platform around or from which to launch a considered and well thought out debate about child abuse.
I’d also like to link to a post from Pavlov’s Cat, well worth reading, which I’ll also add to the post:
http://pavlovblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/this-is-not-argument-thinking-about.html
Not a relevant question. The question is how I would handle it if I found it in an exhibition by an internationally renowned artist who had been doing similar work for decades in a private gallery.
In my time I understand that instrumental music teachers were only allowed to teach three children at once (how do you do that?) in a room with the door open at all times.
The power differential issue is an important point. I always said that I had problems with the issue of consent, and these are still unresolved for me. I can’t imagine as a parent ever giving consent. Also the situation is now different to what it would have been when Henson was younger and just establishing himself as an artist. I would imagine that a girl’s mother, having given consent, would be present during the shoot and insist on retaining power over which images were used.
I expect there would be a formal agreement document (when we made films etc in the Department there was a standard release form that all talent signed) which had a clause addressing how the images would be used.
sc, I still have a problem about the qualifications and qualities of the agents of the state. Not all of them are as multi-talented and as experienced as you and it’s impractical to expect that they should be.
Kim, I like you in the thread. You add a lot of value.
Brian, I would emphasise the extra-individual aspects of vision – how we become viewers, how we learn to view in a context – rather than the strictly psychological. I think psychology may explain very well why particular people are drawn to particular viewing practices, but the practices themselves tend to be social, and more about the milieu than the individual brain. It’s a question of scale: in my understanding the properly human scale of vision is not individual. In a psychological (though probably not social psychology) or physiological account, I think it may be more about the individual. Obviously both understandings could feed into each other, and a lot of the research on eye movement etc is coming from psychological or cognitive research.
I’d agree with Klaus on this one. There’s a lot of literature which suggests differences in seeing is related to social and cultural patterning as well as cognitive factors, but the experimental research doesn’t seem (at least to me – happy to be corrected) to take this into account. I think there’s a broader underlying debate about the philosophy of perception here, but to go into that might be a little off topic.
SG you should read the other Henson thread; I do not favor censorship or prosecution. You have misread my cite about prevalence of abuse and everything I have said can be found on Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault website as well as other governmental sites.
One of the questions posed in this post was “what is sexualisation and why is it wrong”. You cannot ask that question in this post and then say that any reference to CSA is off limits. CSA is an integral part of that debate. If you want to restrict the debate to just these set of images then that is fine but CSA came up because of what was in the post, not because I or anyone else am trying to broaden the debate.
Yes, we don’t want to go off topic. But I was startled back in 1975 when we, in a group of 25, were given a simple visual problem to solve in our heads. At the end the lecturer asked us not what the answer was, we could all work that out, but what we saw in our minds when solving the problem. The answers varied from nothing at all to brightly hued, dramatic action sequences.
We were told that young children (both sexes), women and ‘primitive’ peoples were stronger visualisers that the rest. But the differences (the audience was mostly women) were so dramatic that I don’t think socialisation is more than half the answer.
Incidentally there were only one or two in the room who seemed to have easy facility with both pictures and words.
It still doesn’t resolve my problem with your comment, Klaus K, but I’ll look at it again tonight.
That was Kim’s first question, su, that’s true. I think Kim is wonderful and has a wonderful mind, but the exposition in the post was probably underdone as a question in itself. I think perhaps it would need to be set up more comprehensively and I think few here, with the possible exception of supercowgirl and you yourself, su, could do it justice.
Also I don’t know how you can explore why Henson’s photos have become such a flashpoint for society if you do not reference the anxiety and hypervigilence arising from an emerging understanding of the extent of CSA. If that question is not under consideration then I misunderstood. FWIW I think it is a misreading to frame this as just another shot in the culture wars directed at the arts and the ‘left’. I think it has broader significance.
I think it was at Bluemilk that I read a comment about the strict ethical regulations relating to research on children. It may be that the arts community need to consider some kind of ethics board arrangement when they work with children.
su, that’s no doubt one of the elements that has contributed to this flashpoint, and as I think a number of people have been arguing framing it in terms of art v. pr0n or society v. teh luvvies (as the post discusses) obscures the issues that could be raised. But they’re not being raised properly, and perhaps can’t be, just because that is the way those with the loudest voices and the most access to the media are framing it.
I’d return to what I was saying at 77 – as soon as issues to do with child sexual abuse become caught up in highly politicised contexts, you can forget about anything sensible or serious emerging from any subsequent debates. I’m not sure how much Hetty Johnson understands this – I can see how advocates of child protection could be very frustrated – but her actions weren’t particularly helpful in elucidating rather than obscuring the issues she wishes to highlight here I think. Because – whether intentionally or otherwise – she fueled a fire lit on other discursive terrain, and in fact contributed to that framing herself by her gratuitous and unhelpful slagging off of “arty circles” with the obligatory reference to “chardonnay sippers”.
“FWIW I think it is a misreading to frame this as just another shot in the culture wars directed at the arts and the ‘left’. I think it has broader significance.”
Clearly this is the case, but this is being framed in public discourse explicitly in those terms. Some of those who care about the broader significance are going beyond this, some are not. This started with direct and explicit attacks linking artists, academics etc to child abuse and child pornography. You are right to be concerned that the real issues are being obscured, but that obscuring was built into the structure of the public ‘debate’ from day one. Arts commentators on the back foot are doing themselves little service by taking up the terms offered, the habitual responses to ‘censorship’, but is this totally unexpected when a prominent artist who has worked for years on similar material is suddenly threatened with gaol time?
This problem is evident even in the terms used on both sides: ‘the arts community’ implies some sort of homogeneity that I don’t know if you could locate in advance. It certainly doesn’t have a central institution or set of institutions, but is dispersed across galleries, art schools, studios, universities. There are plenty of artists who aren’t even on the radar of the Paddington crowd associated with this particular gallery, and vice versa. The construction of ‘the arts’ as a community is itself problematic, and that such a community tends to emerge through the way in which this sort of media event functions: effectively as a shibboleth.
I think that goes to the construction of friends/enemies which is the inevitable result of framing the issue in such incendiary terms – where as you’re right to remind us, Klaus, someone’s freedom is literally at issue – with Henson facing a potential gaol term.
Perhaps that also explains the response from the “arts community” – this goes far beyond censorship – literally the liberty of the person is at stake, and Henson’s not protected by his high profile. That’s not to say he should be (though I think the prosecution is groundless and risible), but I’m still very interested in why exactly the Art Gallery of NSW images are apparently safe.
Sublime cowgirl referred before to agents of the state. The AGNSW is also an organ of the state. Perhaps that carries some immunity? Metaphorically, that is. But, again, I think the two exhibitions have very different contexts that haven’t been unimportant in the way this has played out.
Klaus K I’d totally agree that ‘the arts community’ is a strange term. My experience in government (the Art section and the Music section had offices on my floor and I dealt with the Queensland Arts Council for years in facilitating their schools touring program) was that there was vigorous competition between the various disciples in competing for recognition and funding.
They were quite capable of fighting dirty at times.
Indeed within a particular discipline it was often not a case of peace and understanding prevailing between rival artists and groups.
Not much has changed Brian!
When it is considered art, and not op ed’d or blogged about this is the reaction to Henson’s works
“The Newcastle Regional Art Gallery has four works by Henson, two of which feature young naked models. They have been described as similar to the seized works.
A spokeswoman for the Newcastle City Council says the photographs were purchased in the early 1990s by the gallery foundation.
Most recently, they were exhibited on a regional tour of Australia.
The council spokeswoman says the gallery has never had a complaint about the photographs.” (from ABC news report)
Yes, it’s bamboozling to me that images that have been exhibited for 30 years have suddenly become dangerous. I guess it relates to SC’s idea that power relationships are much more heavy policed than they once were.
And yes, I wish critics of Henson could think about the fact that this matter could lead to his gaoling. It’s no light thing. It came up again in ABC’s ‘Life Matters’ this morning which did a show about it. Both guest commentators stated at the outset that they didn’t want to discuss the issue in terms of freedom of speech, but only in terms of child abuse, as that is what really matters. Again, setting up a useless false dichotomy. I didn’t listen to any more, as it would be too depressing. Of course, both people said they knew nothing about Henson’s work.
I’m also uncomfortable with the efforts from some people who are suggesting the issue spilts on gender lines. Apart form the fact I can’t see much evidence of this, I don’t like to see it co-opted into some sort of ‘gender wars’ notion.
Frank Calabrese @75, as I’ve done neither of those things, I can’t comment except to say that the subjects of the photos are obviously old enough to consent to their publication.
On a personal level, even if I possessed them, I wouldn’t publish nude baby photos of my children in national publications, because I don’t have that right IMO. I didn’t have photo boards at my kids’ coming of age parties either, at their request. However, one of them wanted to do so and chose his own selection for display. As far as I can remember there were no nude photos to display, because I didn’t take any of him.
I also have to say that in all the time I’ve read the hatch, match and dispatch columns, I’ve never seen photos of nude children published in the birthday columns, so I’d say the paper imposes its own censorship.
I have no idea what is published in Take 5 or similar publications, because I’ve never read them.
In any case, as I presume that the subjects of the photos are now adults, they would be of little value to a pedophile, because they couldn’t make contact with the child subjects, if that’s what you’re driving at. Maybe the anti-nude child photo brigade should address that as well.
Whatever, the photos at the centre of the brouhaha were a commercial venture, whereas family snaps aren’t and I’d argue further that most parents don’t take nude photos of their adolescent children. If they did, it wouldn’t be regarded as art but exploitation and abuse no matter how moody the shot or whether the child “consented”, and the cops would most certainly be involved.
Klaus @86 ;I understand that, Klaus, but does the diffuse nature of artistic endeavour preclude having some kind of state based ethics board to which inquiries can be directed? It was just a thought. Relying on the personal testimony of your models that the process was not exploitative or relying on the established reputation of the artist as a guide to the integrity of their practice is not ideal for either artists or their potential models.
Mark @ 85
It strikes me that that is why the Labor party in opposition put all of their weight behind the NT intervention (wisdom with hindsight because I was appalled at the time).
I guess that is your considered observation of what actually happens but does it need to be this way? If anything should be a bipartisan issue then it is this one. And isn’t focusing on the surface detail and refusing to go beyond it in case you give the other side credence actually playing along with the rules of that game? Wouldn’t it circumvent that to build an understanding of the seriousness of concerns about images of children and adolescents into a defense of Henson.
I understand that what you are pointing out is that the public debate is not doing that and that polarized voices are very attractive to the media (Hetty Johnson is a prime example of that – the media very rarely gives prominence to any of the other child protection bodies and that is very significant) but I question whether accepting this as a fait accompli isn’t part of the problem.
That is why I have concerns about the fondness in some circles (not picking on LP here) for pointing out irrational and hysterical responses without engaging with the issue- in my mind this contributes to the polarization and allows culture warriors like Bolt and Devine to define the debate on their own terms. I would much rather see us redefining the debate, wresting it from them and not just reacting on their terms. These are just thoughts and they spring from my impression, which may be inaccurate, that some people who take a liberal stance are unwilling to discuss some issues because they do not want to be tarred with the moral panic brush.
“but does the diffuse nature of artistic endeavour preclude having some kind of state based ethics board to which inquiries can be directed?”
No, I don’t think it does. It’s an interesting idea. I think something that offered information, maybe even legal advice as well, might be worthwhile. I’m wary of the idea, because it could become the ’state as art critic’ defining ‘proper artist themes’ depending on how it was used, but I’m not going to reject it out of hand.
I must say, I admire your capacity to read this as an opportunity, su, because I can see that at an intellectual level, even if I’m struggling to feel it. I’m only just getting to that point after days of discussing this, but I’m still holding back a little because I’m genuinely worried about what’s going to happen to Bill et al at the moment. It still feels like fight or flight. That is the effect that Devine’s column, Rudd’s comments and the police action had on me, it chilled me, awoke something more reactive and reptilian. I don’t know if that was the point of the initial attack, but it had that effect on me at least.
I’d be really concerned about some sort of state based ethics board. Who would be on it? During the Howard years it would probably have been Albrechtsen etc.
Ethics boards are an established way of clarifying issues around consent and potential harm in research. Professional ethicists are involved, not pundits.
“What constitutes the “sexualisation of children” and why is it wrong?”
Just a personal anecdote in consideration of this question.
When I hit adolescence (I’m talking 12-13 years) in the ’70’s, I was a nerdy tomboy with no interest in clothes, make-up. hair etc. My mother on the other hand decided it was time to ‘feminize’ me and battled with me very hard to get me interested in these sorts of things, which I resisted on a strong instinctual level. I just knew in my pre-feminist bones that this sort of performance of femininity would potentially curtail all sorts of futures that I couldn’t even articulate at that stage.
To my Mum, she was doing the right thing. She was training me into an appropriate womanhood that would result in marriage at an appropriate age. So, one needed to learn the lessons now. To put this in context, she was a working class woman from a broken family for whom marriage to a good man would result in economic security. She really couldn’t envisage any other options. Thankfully, she changed radically over time.
My point is – was that sexualization? My Mum would have been shocked to hear it discussed in those terms, but it was all about learning how to attract men. And all my friends were being taught the same lessons.
So, are teenagers becoming more sexualized, or are we becoming more anxious about it and forgetting recent history? Or is it happening at a much earlier age? I hope this isn’t off topic, but the Henson models are the same age and the whole point of his work is about this liminal space.
Mercurius “They’re also statistically more likely to be middle-aged white males of above-average income and intelligence in high social-status positions. Some would be a part of the chorus of denouncers of Bill Henson, since it deflects any suspicion away from them. Even more deviously, they are much more likely to have a crucifix on their wall and a Bible on their bookshelf than a Bill Henson picture. ”
2 sources for info about child abuse – be it sexual or other.
http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/cpa06-07/cpa06-07.pdf
http://www.findcounseling.com/journal/child-abuse/abusers.html
Abusers:
The typical child sex offender molests an average of 117 children, most of who do not report the offence (National Institute of Mental Health, 1988).
It is estimated that approximately 71 % of child sex offenders are under 35 and knew the victim at least causally. About 80 % of these individuals fall within normal intelligence ranges; 59% gain sexual access to their victims through, seduction or enticement (Burgess & Groth, 1984).
Stress indicators such as unrealistic expectations of a child, unemployment and low self-esteem are important characteristics in perpetrators of child abuse (Health & Human Services, 1993).
http://www.yesican.org/stats.html
OK this is an older source of info but the pattern can’t have suddenly varied so much.
The number of possible links to this subject is huge so could Mercurius please point out a study which supports his assertion?
I’ve uploaded a video of Henson discussing his work here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/27/bill-henson-interviewed/
In other Henson news, Art World has pulped its forthcoming issue according to the Fin Review today, at a cost the magazine estimates at $100 000. The issue, written and laid out in April, was to have featured Henson on its cover and included the image that’s been the centre of the “debate”. And The Age has just one of many reports of cops visiting galleries and Henson photos coming off walls across Australia, despite no complaints having been made.
Comments from Premier Brumby.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/henson-images-crossed-line-brumby/2008/05/27/1211653993286.html
At least he’s a bit more moderate. He comes across as someone who probably doesn’t care much either way.
My own experiences growing up as part of the social nudist movement are in direct contradiction to you here. People who come from families who are comfortable with social nudity take the same sort of family snapshots of their nude children as other families do of their clothed children, some candid and some posed portraits, wishing to document the changes in their growing children. That other people who are less comfortable with social nudity can’t avoid thinking about sex when they see nude bodies should not be the problem of families who are quite happy for everyone to wander around the house nude as long as the temperature is comfortable.
Here’s a shot taken of me at age 14, at the nudist club to which my family belonged.
Everybody involved in that photo-shoot was naked, the photographer was another nudist club member, it was supervised by my dad, my younger sister helped arrange my hair and the gauzy cloth drape that helped to mimic poses from classical paintings, some of which showed one bared breast. Other nudists belonging to the club walked past as the shoot was in progress. There was nothing sordid about it in any way.
It is certainly possible for nude adolescents to consent to being photographed, for their parents to also consent, and for no sense of exploitation to exist. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that such incidents are always as positive and ethical as my personal experience, but going by Henson’s record of not a single complaint from a former under-age model, my impulse is to give him the benefit of the doubt.
As I’ve got older I drifted away from the social nudist movemnent, largely due to the men in my life not coming from that background and not being comfortable with it, so my own children are not as comfortable with it as I was and would be unlikely to consent to being part of such a photo shoot. But if they did want to I can see no ethical reason that they should not (separating ethics from possible legal considerations).
A possible ethical compromise regarding consent for those under the age of legal self-sovereignty might be that if the adolescent and parents consent to being photographed, that the negatives/digital card containing the images be legally sequestered until the adolescent becomes a legal adult, and then and only then could they sign a release form for the image’s publication. How does that strike people with regard to the issue of consent?
Thanks, Brian!
I’d agree that I didn’t really touch on the issues about child sex abuse or the sexualisation of children as such in the post, because my purpose was more about posing some questions to stimulate debate about Henson’s images, and commenting on how that debate has misfired. I think it would be a good thing to discuss the broader issues separately, for all the reasons people have given on this thread. Framing them in the midst of all this bullshit about art wars displaces the actual force those issues should have, as I’ve said already, I think, and lets the real structural causes well and truly off the hook.
On Klaus’ affective reactions, I’m in a similar space. I’ve worked in the past as a photographer and exhibited. My Masters was in Fine Art. I think Rudd’s comments are more significant than they might seem. Yeah, he’s a conservative socially, blah, blah, and he’s playing to the “families” vote, but more could be expected from him quite frankly. Art and artists in Australia have never been particularly welcome in Australia, and a lot of the time, recognition is what’s sought. Taking into account the good points made above about the ‘arts community’ as such, I’d still say some generalisation is possible – after a decade or more of being caught up in shitfights where anyone who’s interested in cultural work and production was stigmatised as unAustralian, destroying “civilisation”, etc, etc. it was honestly a bit of fresh air to have Kevin Rudd work against those perceptions with the Creative Australia stream of 2020. Maybe that wasn’t actually what he was doing, but that was the perception, I think. People who are working in and interested in the arts have experienced all this as a kick in the face, and I really think that emotion should be expressed and should be taken account of. The only winners out of this, in my view, are fuckwits like Kevin Donnelly.
tigtog at 100, that’s a gorgeous photo! And thanks so much for your reflections (and to Fine for hers). I alluded earlier on – in my first post – to my own experience of my body changing quite violently – the amputation of a limb is whatever else it might be, a violent bodily transformation, and how that compounded all sorts of other feelings I had experiencing puberty around the same time. Later on, I actually found nude self-photography quite useful to me personally, and also posing as a nude model, and some of the images were sold commercially, in contexts I was happy with. But at the same time when I was a 20 something subject of nude photography created for a range of purposes, I was very much aware that a sort of time-lapse effect was happening for me with all sorts of ghosts of my younger adolescent embodied selves being (in)visible to me in the shoot and in the photos. But maybe talking about that is something I’d rather do at another time.
Fine @ #98, that’s really very enlightening. My own experience of, erm, maternal direction at a similar age but in the previous decade was similar but less direct and more divided than that; I was encouraged to wear “pretty”, “girlish” clothes, but not to go after boys in them; to get good marks at school, but not to be a (boy-repelling) nerd; to understand the mechanics of sex, but not to show any personal interest in it. I was nothing like as beautiful as Henson’s models (or indeed as TT in that lovely photo), but I think the ambiguity and hesitancy and confusion radiating from those photos exactly captures my adolescent frame of mind at the time and reflects the mixed messages you get — and give — when you’re that age. If you’re a girl, anyway.
Thanks, Kim. I’m very glad I have it, looking back from my comfortably padded middle age. Not to say that I didn’t scrub up OK in my twenties and thirties, and even still now for those who don’t mind the added upholstery, but at age 14-15 I had that certain fleeting coltish grace that is the peculiar adolescent aesthetic, and which does not always have to contain an erotic component merely because the adolescent body is developing the secondary sexual characteristics of adulthood.
I can totally see why the adolescent is an enduring subject of the artist without any particular nefarious subtext being involved. Obviously, it is right to examine whether darker, predatory impulses are in play, but it shouldn’t be assumed that it is only in the realms of the sexual that adolescence has an aesthetic appeal.
A young girl with no breasts? Big deal! Is this what they call pornography?
My local Newsagent should be arrested.
It occurs to me, you know, that the logical next step is banning all of Jane Austen. Not to mention Romeo and Juliet. The Classics-lovin’, Cultural Studies-hatin’ brigade will have a collective nervous breakdown.
“Early pregnancy for example was one of the concerns that was raised and it spells a very sudden transition from adolescence.”
Hmmm, on a bit of a tangent (bringing it back at the end), growing up requires the capacity to recover or respond to various forms of mistakes. So I am still growing up as an ‘adult’.
Young women that I have met who as teenage girls had babies really young fall into the trap of thinking just because they have to deal with so-called ‘adult’ issues and problems that makes them ‘adult’. I don’t think it does. They have not had the privilege (right?) to grow up in such a fashion as to make the ‘normal’ mistakes, etc that most people make. This is a real loss of ‘innocence’ — if innocence is defined in less ‘adult’ terms (ie sexuality), and more about the capacities that actual young people do and don’t have for acting in the world– and it really is taken from them forever, much to their developmental detriment. Children get an infrastructure for existing in the world in a secure manner, so as to make enough mistakes to learn without killing themselves or doing too much damage, from their parents/parental figures.
Correcting this absence of a capacity to expeiment with or respond properly to mistakes and retrive some semblance of an ‘adult’ capacity born of the experience of ‘growing up’ is a lot of work.
Henson’s work seems to fold both sides of this problem into each other. The ‘creepy’ or sinister visual timbre of the images, which is very ‘adult’, and the resolute capacity for young people to be ‘innocent’ (ie a naiveity required to make and learn from mistakes) captured through the naked comportment of the models.
Well Donnelly has already traced the decline and fall of everything to Lady Chatterley, Dr Cat! In his ideal world, we’d return to the days of expurgated classics I suspect – with fat consultancies for the expurgators, I strongly suspect.
tigtog at 106, word!
Just on Fine’s excellent point about sexualisation 70s (and 80s) style, this was a huge site of conflict for me because I had a conservative Catholic mum who was obsessed about me “looking pretty” – and that’s a very big ask for someone recovering from cancer with one leg and no bloody hair!
Thanks for sharing your photo and story TT and this is beautifully said
“I can totally see why the adolescent is an enduring subject of the artist without any particular nefarious subtext being involved. Obviously, it is right to examine whether darker, predatory impulses are in play, but it shouldn’t be assumed that it is only in the realms of the sexual that adolescence has an aesthetic appeal.”
Because sex is all around us,selling us everything from mags, to cars, to cereal, it is hard not confuse sexual appeal with aesthetic appeal, but your story was a lovely example of the impulse of celebrating the aesthetic quality of youth, and capturing the fleeting beauty of that time.
As a classics student and a *structuralist* I violently object to “the classics” being representing by those people, in this way!!! Anyway, Classics, as in the proper Classics, which is to say the literary output of Classical Greece and Rome, is full of adolescent sexuality, sheesh! These hoary old conservatives who hark back to a “better” age obviously learnt nothing about it at school.
Also, I believe that the Olympics should be done “in the old style” i.e. completely nude (also the wrestling, judo, and boxing – to the death). How do we then reconcile 16 year old competitors then?!
Oh, the mixed messages of adolescence.
I remember well part of this was the discomfort about all the attention being paid to my body. It was almost as though it didn’t belong to me directly, but had become more instrumental, a prop to be worked upon. I know that’s why I loved horse riding, because my body felt so strong and in control then. I was able to work with and control a body much larger and more powerful than mine. An answer perhaps to why so many adolescent girls are horsey. It’s about the body, but not necessarily about sex.
Maybe part of the reason I feel positively towards Henson’s photos is because they talk about this to me and, at the same time, I don’t get a sense of exploitation from them.
And yes, let’s expurgate ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
That’s absolutely how I felt too, Fine, (although with the twist of my own bodily trauma) and I think it’s interesting that a number of us – despite no doubt different backgrounds, ages, etc. are saying more or less the same thing and that the resonance of those feelings leads to a feeling that Henson’s work does speak to us.
It’s always the same with these people y’know?
Their version of “acceptable” social modernity stops at the end of the fifties, and they think the “classics” were all Victorian!
Having seen past Henson exhibitions, I was surprised that anyone found anything sexual in the pics. Usually the pics are part of a whole process of “seeing” which includes landscapes and the like. If anything they only convey a sense of dread and uncertainty – I am not Australian and all I registered was its clear steering away from an overused “light” motif in Australian work. Now of course they are tainted by what’s happened.
Also, why is there so little debate on what exploitation of a child means. Presumably the chidren, boys and girls, who posed for the Henson pics have grown up well-adjusted. In contrast, inspite of examples like Britney and Lindsay and the Olsens, why are children allowed to have “careers” and obscene sums of money? Why aren’t as Mr. Rudd said kids allowed to be kids – why do they have to prance around in a Disney film for our kids and grow up to be maldjusted? If we are concerned, why should we not demand that pictures of below 18s be expunged from the public domain? Why do we need a child to model swimwear so we can buy it for our offspring? In short, is exploitation only a naked pic that is part of an ouevre?
Incidentally, there was also bits of the law that has been posted regarding sexual activity in children under 18. Someone needs to show this to the likes of Home & Away which routinely suggest sexual activity in underage actors in uniform (some I think are actually 15-16).
Having said that I agree, the arts defenders have also been making chumps of themselves instead of providing a sane response.
su, if I accused you (as opposed to “you”) of wanting to ban anything, my apologies, I don’t think I was trying to infer one way or the other. But I do think when you side with the Blairs and Bolts of this world – even tacictly – at a time like this you are de facto supporting a ban.
But I’m interested to see you answer some of the other questions, without reference to a ban if you will. Do these pictures disturb you because you are jealous, angry, feeling discriminated against? Should we be suspicious of depictions of “normal” adolescent sexuality because they don’t depict the brutalised sexuality which you claim so many experience?
Those stats on child abuse are, I suspect, wrong regardless of where you found them. Perhaps I shall read them (when I’m not on my way to work) and give a more cogent argument. Perhaps not… but regardless, I think anytime one is “anxious and hypersensitive” about an issue one should look carefully to see if one is part of a media or community lynch mob.
So the next volley has been fired.
A group of artists including Cate Blanchett have written an open letter to Rudd asking him to rethink his comments. Louise Adler was on the radio saying they wanted to broker a meeting between Henson and Rudd. Interesting to know what Rudd’s response will be.
Do you have a link, Fine?
Oh, Tim Blair lets the cat out of the tiny bag it was in. It was always about the culture wars. Look! Lefties on the retreat…
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/bone_of_artistic_contention/
See what I mean about the way this “debate” is played in the media…
No, just heard it on the 5pm news, on the ABC. I guess they’ll have it up soon. But they didn’t say where the open letter was to be published. They also called for Garrett to stand up for artists.
Thanks, Fine.
If you read the stuff Blair wrote I just linked to, you can see how this’ll be played for six by the culture warriors. KRudd will be accused of either supporting pr0n and siding with the dreaded luvvies, or the triumphalist lefty/arts bashing will be upped a noise level notch (if that’s possible) and Rudd will be positioned as on their side.
Silly bugger. It shouldn’t be beyond a clever politician to know when to keep his mouth shut, and to evade a question he doesn’t want to answer.
I have a feeling this week is getting crappier.
I posted my take on the issue here http://allordinary2.blogspot.com/2008/05/art-is-not-illegal.html
Good post Laura. Especially your discussion of the aesthetics of the images and why they’re not p0rn.
And yes, Kim. Rudd will be wishing he’d said something non-committal. It’ll just be a train smash.
Tigtog, beautiful photo.
Of course you’d be nude in a nudist camp. But equally you’d have been wearing school uniform if it was a school photo, bathers if it was a beach photo and a wedding dress when you married, presumably. Body image has nothing to do with it; it’s whether nude images of pubescent children being exhibited and sold, when those children can’t legally give their consent amounts to exploitation and/or abuse. That’s my understanding of it. If that’s not the case, I’ll stand corrected.
Your family snaps, nude or not weren’t taken for profit or exploitation, so they don’t really have much relevance in the debate. If they had been, it would be a different story.
And my opinion is still the same. Henson would have avoided all the uproar if he’d used older models who could consent to the photos being taken and sold.
Fine at 125, the logic of what they’re saying should be made clear – that “the left” declared that the Culture Wars were over, but now they’re back. Who brought them back? Why – the culture warriors – remember this all started with Devine, and the insta tag-teams of talkback, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt. Now Rudd is caught between a rock and a hard place, and he won’t be able to please anyone whichever way he goes. Of course, even something non-committal at this stage will be interpreted by the self-same culture warriors as a repudiation of the Yartz – and all their sins – apparently including David Hicks supporting, beheading women, hating Australia, destroying civilisation, as well as the pr0n-lovin’ and child sex abuse condonin’ charges, all elements of the Bolt/Blair bill of indictment spelled out over the last few days. Or his denunciation won’t be loud enough for their liking. Whatever. They win. The game was played by their rules from the start.
Rudd is about to learn some lessons about how the media works these days.
Thanks, Laura, for a link to a great post.
“nude images of pubescent children being exhibited and sold, when those children can’t legally give their consent amounts to exploitation and/or abuse.”
Jane, why should it be restricted to nude – any picture of a child that is being sold is strictly speaking without consent because a child is not in any position to determine the consequences of posing or modelling – does the fact of nudity make it any different? Like it or not, parents make the decisions for children – as I mentioned earlier children in an artwork are at or not at risk as much as a “child star”.
Similar photos, with the same people but not in the nudist camp, could still have ethically been taken in another location because we all had a shared culture of social nudity. The nudist camp per se is not the issue, the issue is trust regarding being nude.
But then he wouldn’t be able to explore the aesthetics of adolescent emergence from childhood, which is a valid aesthetic to explore if people could just get over automatically eroticising these young people.
The girl in question in those shots is now 16, I believe, which back when I was at school meant that one was old enough to post topless for Post and the other ladmags of the day. Should she be able to retrospectively approve of the display of those images now, presuming she is agreeable, and if not, why not?
re Pavlovs Cat’s remark about banning Jane Austen; keep eyes peeled because ABC is shorltly running latest chocolatebox beeb production, this time their version of “Emma”.
In the meantime, Long live pr0n, long live Teh left and long live S*x.
Why the obsession with nudity? As many people have observed there are far more offensive images of young children around in which the children happen to have clothes on, and few seem overly concerned.
Kim, your are right – Rudd has (hopefully) learnt a lesson about media ethics these days.
The ‘Emma’ was actually filmed in 1996 paul
Here’s a quick transcript of the second part of the Henson interview for the benefit of anyone else who was struggling to pin down what he was saying.
As and aside (or not) Brooke Sheilds – child star of Pretty baby had naked photos taken of her when she was ten with the consent of her mother.
Years later in 1983 Brooke sued the photographer to prevent the photo’s being displayed and sold, saying they caused her much embaressment, though she lost, as the pics were deemed to have been created as art, and with her mothers consent.
The pics were subsequently shown at a large art gallery, (metro museum of art?)
against her wishes Even more interestingly, another photograpaher photographed the pictures, exhibited and sold them for higher price than the original photographer. His defense was that teh controvery made them a social phenomenon worthy of exploration, thus wasn’t a copyright violation.
Thoughts anyone?
I don’t have any problems with the images, SG. I was responding to question 1) in the post, which I mistook to be an invitation to discuss the broader issue of sexualisation. I am most impressed at your remote sensing abilities.
Seconded.
Great post, PC too.
Also, if you haven’t read Liz Conor’s take yet, do so. http://lizconorcomment.blogspot.com/2008/05/bill-hensen-and-explicit-beauty-of.html
Points I believe need making/reinforcing would include:
1) at 13 I was getting drunk at parties and ‘asking girls out’.
2) the abuse of the word ’society’ by the culture warriors. Having reread some Durkheim lately I was struck by how much he emphasised the importance of people’s actions and subjectivity in making society. Of course, once the positivists got hold of him it’s all about excising social facts from any direct agency … and so it goes.
3) there’s another one about the connections between a failure to acknowledge the performativity of accusations of moral depravity and wider epistemological commitments that I haven’t quite worked exactly. Something about the politics of hermeneutic absolutism and the enduring cultural legacy of the Two Cultures in the Anglo/Aussie Public Sphere.
‘I am most impressed at your remote sensing abilities.’ – not sure what you mean su?
Laura, that’s a fact?
The promo has botoxed it then.
Just when I had let out a big cheer that the ABC was finally getting back to some pom stuff on Sunday Nights.
Although ‘96 is not that long ago and I enjoyed the book so will still look forward to it. If it’s no good I’ll go online and download a game for a laugh.
Whaddya reckon?
That was a response to SG @ 117, SC. He is doing some intercontinental intuiting of prevalence figures.
oh – i always get mixed up between SG and SC – its a dyslexic thing!
b16fan-
Yes and if you criticize the policies of Israel there will be (mostly Rightist) person branding you an anti-semite, if you opposed the invasion of iraq you’re a terrorist sympathizer etc etc.
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Funnily enough the opposition to gay marriage is usually based on the same thing as this attack on Henson: the assumption by subscribers to a legalistic application of Judeo-Christian ethics that the morality therein has a God-given monopoly on public space. A lot of the commentary on both gay marriage and Henson’s work has no reasoned argument – it’s just “of course it’s bloody wrong!”
>
“Why is it wrong?”
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“Because it is.”
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I’m disinclined to say some is homophobic simply for expressing opposition to gay marriage. Yet I don’t see much by reasonable discourse alog these lines. I’ve seen nothing reasonable in this particular furphy. Henson’s work is not pornographic and yet these clean livin’ dirty minds insist there is because they can see some skin. Considering that many of these same people are conspicuously quiet when some appalling scandal involving a rock spider in a white collar I cannot bring myself to even so much as respectfully disagree. They are simply nasty.
To Paul Walter: By all means, watch the Emma, I think it’s really not bad at all. I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts about it. Kate Beckinsale makes a pretty good Emma. The other three adaptations in this particular Austen season were all filmed in 2007. I’m less keen on them. The Northanger Abbey one is OK. All four are from ITV which is why the ABC has packaged them together even though they were made ten years apart.
When these four plus the BBC’s new Sense and Sensibility, their old Pride and Prejudice, and a new film called ‘Miss Austen Regrets’ were shown in a Sunday night ‘Complete Jane Austen’ season on PBS in the USA this year, ratings for that timeslot went up by 60%.
The Art of Bill Henson is on ABC TV1 at 10pm and 7.00pm on Sunday on ABC2.
[The Art of Bill Henson is on ABC TV1 at 10pm and 7.00pm on Sunday on ABC2.]
And watch the Libs label Aunty peddlers of Kiddie Pr0n
sublimecowgirl, my apologies for calling you supercowgirl further up the thread. Misfiring synapses and yet another senior moment, I’m afraid!
Concerning the problem you pose at 135 I think we should retain power over how images of ourselves are used and displayed. Hence I think the law should be changed.
There would need to be some limitations, however. You couldn’t have film actors subsequently asking for their images to be removed from a film. So I don’t know whether this would present insuperable drafting problems.
Maybe it could just apply to still images, or even just to still images of children, as in Brooke Shield’s case.
I really like this suggestion, tigtog – there’s a future in the Office of Parliamentary Counsel (thems that draft the laws) for you, I say!
This would be an entirely reasonable compromise. Unfortunately, s 91H was not drafted with reason in mind, and Henson’s decision to find (so I understand) a legal workaround by sourcing more recent models in Eastern Europe will work against him at trial.
I also hope that magazine that just pulped an entire issue has litigation insurance. It’s common in the US, but I don’t think it’s ever really taken off here.
Also apologies for those trying to get to our site for legal commentary. We’ve had, ahem, technical difficulties.
I haven’t seen a beat-up like this since Arthur Rylah tried to cover-up the naughty bits on a replica of the Statue of David. (Well, he is a 15 year-old kid, so it’s just gotta be pedofilia, right?)
What a complete shemozzle. Every Wowser and Pedofinder General in the length and breadth of the country has come out of the woodwork, and they’re all baying for blood
And Rudd just can’t help joining-in the chorus.
Christ help us all. It’s pathetic.
“It is certainly possible for nude adolescents to consent to being photographed, for their parents to also consent, and for no sense of exploitation to exist. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that such incidents are always as positive and ethical as my personal experience,”
Tigtog that is certainly a beautiful head shot. But I was wondering, given that you had such a positive experience of the photo shoot, and of social nudity, that you felt it was positive and ethical, why you did not put up the whole picture which shows your body as well? Im not being provacative. Im curious as to why, in a post which argues for the possibility of adolescent consent, and of positive experience, why you did not feel comfortable putting up the whole picture, as it were? Why did you stop at the shoulders? What considerations stopped you from putting up the whole picture?
[What considerations stopped you from putting up the whole picture?]
I think posting a full picture would’ve caused workplace filters to block this site is my guess.
Art or not art, the point is and always will be that this girl/child was 13y.o.
Any parent or such that lets anyone, artist or not use their child in such a manner clearly needs to rethink their responsibilities.
Henson is out of line for using her as a model, and so are the parents – it’s just basic child exploitation – haven’t we learnt anything as a society. What sort of example/message to we send to the world.
Im not interested in whether it was porn or art, who cares if it’s done by an adult! That’s the key point in all of this, it’s got nothing to do with redneck, right wing, left wing, trendy lefty, or arty farty et al.
Here’s tigtog’s comment so that we can remind ourselves. casey, my interpretation is that tt put up the whole picture. That’s what the composition tells me, but of course I could be wrong.
Re Fine’s Comment on Cate Blanchett & Others supporting Bill Henson, here is the link to the News Ltd Story.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23770099-948,00.html
The TV program on Henson’s work was excellent. He’s a better artist than I thought.
Cate Blanchett fights for Henson on behalf of the Creative Stream of the Australia 2020 Summit.
The ABC’s take is here.
Casey @ 149, that particular image was the whole pic – it was just a head & shoulders shot, framed in a velvet oval. That’s the one that I’ve got hanging handily on the wall.
The other shots are in a box with all my old school photos etc amongst all the rest of the clutter in the roofspace over the garage – I had a look but it wasn’t at the front so I couldn’t find the images to see whether or not I would be comfortable posting them online or not. I think I would for most of them (they’re really quite demure, even the ones that do show a nipple or two), but Frank’s point about triggering workplace filters is also a valid one.
Edited to add: there’s also the distinction between being ethically comfortable with my experience of having had these photos taken, and the issue of whether by posting any of the images that showed more skin I could be opening up the photographer or my parents to possible charges with respect to these photos, ancient history though they are.
skepticlawyer @ 147:
Put in a good word for me, eh?
Thanks for the response – I haven’t had much luck in getting any other discussion of the suggestion.
On the question casey asked at 149, I don’t think tigtog has to account or justify whether she wants to post images of herself on the intertubes! Like Brian, I assumed before reading tigtog’s clarification, that that was the image. I’m sure, casey, that you can see the distinction here – tigtog is voluntarily disclosing and posting an image of herself because it’s relevant in this debate and in this context. If she’d chosen to disseminate it otherwise, that would have been a different decision.
Going back to what I said about naked photos of myself in circulation. I posed for a magazine that was marketed to shoe fetishists. Partly I was a starving student in San Francisco at the time and I needed the money, and I was all of 23 years old, but I also thought that there might be a bit of an image created that would call into question the feelings of shoe fetishists – in that the focus of such images is normally of a calf and a high heel shoe. And I wanted to do a whole body image which showed a naked woman with one leg and one high heeled shoe about to totter over (try it and see!) – the other shoe was discarded but in shot. That actually played to amputee fetishism as well. Anyway, my intent in all this was to say “I control the representation of my naked body but I know in advance what contexts it will be viewed in”. I knew at the time I wouldn’t succeed in circumscribing or controlling how the image/s was/were viewed, but I wanted to subvert the possible views and make it clear that I was doing so. Whether or not I succeeded, I don’t know, but I adopted the view that while I would try to assert what rights I had, such rights could never exhaust or circumscribe the possible readings of the image. On one hand, I was thinking about myself, on another I wanted to make some bucks, and on another (I get to have three hands to make up for only one foot), I wanted to do art.
I had already taken into account that there would be both an excess of meaning in the images, and that that that excess might surprise/confront/disturb me. As it has.
And I wasn’t unaware that some people might use the images to excite themselves.
But I wanted them to bloody well think as well as wank.
Draw your own motto from all this, and I’m protecting myself from identification with those images by a number of feints which protect my right to speak as a subject on these intertubes without being (necessarily) marked by their traces. Traces which I can trace. You can’t. They’re mine. Take Larvatus Prodeo seriously for what it literally says. I want to be a bit like Hegel. Always waiting for you at the other end of the bridge with a sly smile, impossible to evade but impossible for you to grasp. Or maybe a bit like an angel. To be sure, I’m fucked up but aren’t we all? In our being? I don’t want to be your Kim but Kims. It’s for me to put the shards together in one piece. Of course, I can never achieve this. But I feel a debt – and a responsibility – to my adolescent self. If she was ever that. Self, I mean.
It’s these sorts of things that – I think – pass through the minds of artists. They don’t necessarily pass through the minds of subjects. That’s why legal and ethical protocols are appropriate and necessary.
I think we’re all of us kidding ourselves to a degree if we think that we can control or surveill how others perceive us. Women. I know that in this instance, consent is at issue, but consent in this narrative is perhaps not as straightforward as it might appear.
I said before, and I’ll say again, I was working through ghostly Kims in my nude posing. Kims that never got cancer, walked around the shop with two legs, were never bald and stick thin through chemo. Kims that preserved her/their innocence, whatever that might mean. Kims that owned their sexuality, but refused a sexualisation. But those ghosts are for me to lay to rest. They’re mine, and I’ll assert my ownership of them, because I want them to sleep. But I honestly don’t know that I was less ethical or able to consent to the representations others imposed on me when I was a fragile amputee teenager. I had to take that into my own hands. And that’s not easy. But let’s not pretend any of these questions are simple. They’re not. Not at all.
I’ll say this – Bill Henson’s images – whatever his intention – touch me to the ground of my being. They make me cry. I want them to make me cry. All this – this whole “debate” – makes me cry. I don’t want it to.
Consent. What is that? Anyway? Can a girl ever consent? Can a woman ever consent? Serious questions. I don’t tire from asking them.
And I always want to stay on the front foot. That’s not a choice. I have only one foot. But I want to resist the way this “debate” has played out. In the name of a scared little girl. Who was me. And still is me. Because I have to make peace with her ghost.
In comparison to all possible Kims in this story, Bill Henson’s subjects can rest assured that the dissemination of their images is far more circumscribed and controlled than those that I willingly sent out into the wild weird world. His artistic celebrity actually acts as a guarentee here. Until Miranda came along. One day in May.
None of this is easy, tigtog, for the simple reason that once you soften the law’s bright lines (beautifully enumerated by Peter aways up the thread), you then have to build a whole slew of procedural safeguards into the amended regime. Your idea of a release goes some way to resolving that, but there’s still a larger issue of policing the activities consented to when the children are underage.
One of the depressing aspects of my old job was seeing the extent to which whole families would have extremely rubbery (and just plain weird) boundaries when it came to sexuality. There were parents who thought having their 14 year old daughter act in a pr*n flick was a good idea, and it was pretty clear from the exhibits that the 14 year old in question was hyper-sexualised and ‘up for it’. Things like this can be multiplied. For some reason, adults who have sex in front of their children (or the child of one of them, more typically) is really common!
*are really common.
Clearly the grammar fairy has abandoned me for today…
She, like all faeries, SL, never dances on attendance to us as we might wish, but dances as she likes!
“His artistic celebrity actually acts as a guarentee here.”
Well put. Today’s pitiless, relentless global media/internet panopticon means anyone who raises their head above the parapet can get pinged by thousands and thousands of professional and amateur moral monitors for even the suggestion of thinking about reprehensible behaviour. Whether they’re Britney Spears or Bill Henson. And guess who’s job of work produced the most damaged individuals.
So anyone who does go over the top on a regular or professional basis in this here 21st century should have made themselves as bulletproof as possible. Emotionally, legally and morally.
Incidentally, Bill Henson in person is an extremely polite, rather shy and very gentlemanly bloke.
The reason people pose for him like they do, for over three decades now, is that they trust him. And no one who has ever appeared in his snaps has ever told anyone they regret trusting him.
Betcha can’t say that about most of the prominent people having a go at Bill now.
Thanks Tigtog. I was just interested in you thoughts on it. there was no ill intent nor demand to justify anything you may choose or not choose to do. Cheers.
Certainly, and the safety of children from harm or alarm must come first, from both an ethical and a legal standpoint. Bright legal lines are problematic though, being too often a convenient cut-off from examining contextual ethics of complex situations, and yet we allow the examination of contextual ethics in some situations and not in others – in cases of suspected murder, the questions of mens rea with regard to motive, premeditation, intent are all examined in depth to determine mitigating factors for culpability. If we are going to just say “naked children – gaol the perv” why not just say “dead body – lynch the killer”?
I join you, in the here and now, in finding this culturally repellent. Anthropologically, however, that has been the case for most of human history and remains the case in many parts of the world where families live in single-room dwellings. Most cultural norms do include modesty rules though, so while the kids know that their parents are having sex, it’s “under the doona”. Even in cultures where they wear hardly any clothes there is usually a sense of privacy about sex, such as conventions that the others present in a single-room dwelling turn away. Of course, porn-type sexual displays to children are a different matter entirely, and would I suspect be thought disturbing by most cultures around the planet.
Again, for the “railroad Henson” brigade, consistency is required for any photographic subjects who are still children or ‘young persons’.(ie under 18)
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/caypapa1998442/s43.html
So, there is no necessity under the act for proof of pornography, SUSPICION is enough.
Where are these children? Why isn’t DOCs searching for them? How come Miranda Devine et al are not screaming for these children to be taken into care, SUSPICION is enough–Right?
No worries, Casey. I’m finding that as this Henson case develops, where apparently police are talking to a woman not much younger than me about photos that were taken of her in 1985, and that she personally sold to a gallery for display only a few years ago, that I’m becoming more and more concerned about what current legal standards mean for photographers and consenting parents involved in any photo-shoots similar to mine, which I maintain was ethically entirely above-board.
I think it’s hugely important to distinguish between looking and touching. Child sexual abuse involves acts of physical, mental and emotional exploitation. Just looking (absent stalker-type intimidation) is none of that. Will all pervs progress to actual acts of paedo/hebe-philia? I highly doubt it – many if not most simply don’t have the social skills to enable them to gain private access to children.
I’m still examining my thoughts in this area though.
remote sensing, su? you’ve lost me there
I’ve thinking about this case and a question that is being thrown around at the workplace is ‘if someone wanted to photograph your children like this would you agree?’ ( As though as proposals were entirely commonplace and highly likey!) While as a mother (what a laden description that is!) I probably wouldn’t be entirely comfortable with the idea, why should my parental sensibilities be in the last word in questions about art? As a parent, like any parent, I want to the best for my children and to protect them from the evils of the world. I can see how if this proposal was put to you by a professional photographer with clear ideas about what he is trying to achieve with the images (ideas that have nothing to do with kiddie p**n), and who is trustworthy and has a good reputation, it might be worth considering.
But I what I am trying to say is that ‘what people would do as parents’ is not necessarily the correct litmus test as to the appropriateness of a response. As parents we have an overwhelming response to protect our children and this colours our view of the world (and this fact is used very effectively by right wing commentators to generate the emotional response that they want to achieve). Lest I be misunderstood, you don’t have to be a parent to wish to protect all children from peds and pervs and the like, this is something that all of society should and does take responsibility for through mechanisms such as child protection laws. So just because a parent makes a decision for/about their children that I wouldn’t necessarily make, doesn’t make them a bad parent. That argument “Would you let your child…” is a furphy because why should my over protective instincts and middle class sensibility be the arbiter of good taste and appropriateness in the art world which I know little to nothing about?
Well said Kim at 157. Heartfelt & insightful.
As an ever-morphing being trapped in a shell of agitating atoms w/ aspects that chatter constantly on the merry-go-round trying to find Union & purpose as early-life learned behaviors creep up & wrestle w/ instinct & then are squeezed thru certain experience filters in order to become expression of observation, and energy release, and fits of howls into the night thanks to the pain of trapped existence, combined w/ gratitude & excitement for the sense of BEING…and knowing how some so called unified forms can want to observe ALL, taste ALL, express ALL in the panic of short-time perception & even relaxation of long-time journey…and even empathizing w/ such…
but ever aware of other sentient beings w/ cruel smiles & steely eyes who bounce around in increased agitation thanks to moral certitude built on guilt & trauma-ridden ground…and as one constantly trying to be fearless & ignore their threats and metaphorical spears…
but having no liking for asylums and long, boring stretches in confinement caves…and intrusive culture warriors w/ badges & tasers…and therefore keeping primarily to the path alongside the highway more than i’d like whilst constantly talking loudly & opinionating about the bumps & holes & neglect & lack of imagination of the path & road builders…
& being ONE of MANY who enjoys an impetuous race onto the grass w/ middle finger raised as stiffly as a flag…& whilst there searching for an alternative path & learning to describe it…I (i) tend to try and tolerate most, various activities, & even those entities who go BUMP like Bumper Cars in the day & on into the night – provided they don’t cause undue suffering for others that doesn’t lead to growth & a sense of freedom…
& I try to draw a line by way of contemporary discussion and the Wisdom of the Elders all depending on time & need & curiosity of course…& occasionally redraw the past constructed line in my head based on realisation of other variables as the picture is scrutinised, the hypocrisy of some definers is realised & TRUTH once again falls in a heap on the manufactured roadside/Highway of an opportunistic media & manipulating politicians.
Something like that. It’s better than sitting in a cave chewing entrails, thinking as little as possible, whilst stuffing a bruised secondary character for an upcoming Christmas & snorting to the image of another easily-identifiable male repeatedly plunging a spear into another species as entertainment & wondering about why the Earth seems flat & noises make me jump and if supernatural beings can creep up from behind and be slain by Messiahs of the imagination that might bring me bread and wine and pay TV if i pray for it. Isn’t it? Depends where you live & your circumstances I guess…brrr…
Taking of Pelham 123 & The Warriors coming to ruin your public transport experience & showing in a cave near you…soon. Henson’s pictures will seem far less creepy after that experience. But I bet the censors who eat in fine restaurants & keep their identities top secret will say “what me worry” & stamp them “suitable for kiddies if parents are out on the patio & the volume is turned down”. Same people who would probably make them X-rated if they showed anybody but hetro body making love…or yoof doing what they REALLY do…or if the heroes on the trains were corporate hating, anti-War cool dudes.
Going by the ABC show last night & this fruitful, insightful thread, I reckon Henson has more integrity than Britney…and it has a much to do w/ the making of the pudding. And the tasting. And the Makers. And their purpose.
Compared to the 7th Cavalry & their pumping jock radio stations & lingering pain bombs I reckon Mr. Henson is fairly tame & probably less lethal…but butterflies from pictures can transform into leeches & vampire-creating viruses if not given freedom to fly in the arena of public discussion…or if filtered mainly thru the lens of distortion experts & moral panic manufacturers w/ empires & ultimate control & reduced taxation on their hive-desiring minds.
Cop this lot from today’s Age. From an article by Steve Biddulph.
“Pedophiles, like some artists, tend to be narcissistic, immature individuals who are endlessly self-justifying”.
Note the not-very-subtle link between artists and pedophiles. There’s plainly only a very small leap to jump from one category to the other. No wonder artists are feeling paranoid!
My prediction is that the police won’t find anything to charge Henson with. Then the wailing will start that we need legislative change to ensure that p0rn loving artists don’t get their mitts on our kids.
Meanwhile, as with any ‘moral panic’ it won’t do one iota to solve the problem it’s ostensibly about. None of this will help kids suffering from abuse.
Agreed Fine, Not only will this particular moral panic not help kids suffering from abuse it will further muddy the waters as it confuses legitimate artistic expression (yes, involving nudity) with illegitimate activities of an entirely different sort, making it harder for well meaning people to know what’s appropriate in this climate
Got nothing against Steve Biddulph, author of ‘Raising Boys’ but the Age in publishing his views is allowing that ‘parental sensibilities’ point of rule to control public discoure. As I was attempting to allude above, this perspective has its limitations.
Rayedish, Biddulph also has it in for the parents as well. He writes that it’s tragic whne parents don’t protect their kids, implying that the parents involved here have done exactly that.
“observe ALL, taste ALL, express ALL”
nah, ALL is not the best word in this case. Change it to WIDELY. I couldn’t empathise w/ ALL.
There’s heaps of stuff that artists like to express & taste…but it’s not ALL. Some things are beyond the pale.
I must admit, Henson puts a great deal of thought & effort into those pictures. Not to my taste…I’d prefer more landscape pics…but that’s just me.
I wonder if the blogs scrutinised the lives of some of these Moral Guardians & too often sucked up to DEFINERS…& even the gatekeepers, journos & moguls who let them run rampant…if they would turn out to be HYPOCRITES & DISTRACTION experts & allies of politicians w/ bloody knives held behind their backs…and come across as far less appealing to the “I’m too tired to think deeply & repeat anything more than the HATE-filled blaaah blaah that comes out of the mouths of ad-soaked radio jocks & QLD dancing queens” masses…?
Tony Blair & Gordon Brown’s Britain sure had alot of these types. And they’re a blott on the landscape of America…or should we say PUSS-FILLED PIMPLE.
“observe ALL, taste ALL, express ALL”
nah, ALL is not the best word in this case. Change it to WIDELY. I couldn’t empathise w/ ALL.
There’s heaps of stuff that artists like to express & taste…but it’s not ALL. Some things are beyond the pale.
I must admit, Henson puts a great deal of thought & effort into those pictures. Not to my taste…I’d prefer more landscape pics…but that’s just me.
I wonder if the blogs scrutinised the lives of some of these Moral Guardians & too often sucked up to DEFINERS…& even the gatekeepers, journos & moguls who let them run rampant…if they would turn out to be HYPOCRITES & DISTRACTION experts & allies of politicians w/ bloody knives held behind their backs…and come across as far less appealing to the “I’m too tired to think deeply & repeat anything more than the HATE-filled blaaah blaah that comes out of the mouths of ad-soaked radio jocks & QLD dancing queens” masses…?
Tony Blair & Gordon Brown’s Britain sure had alot of these types. And they’re a blott on the landscape of America…or should we say PUSS-FILLED PIMPLE?
Oops the fact that I haven’t read the article shows doesn’t it!
‘Rayedish, Biddulph also has it in for the parents as well. He writes that it’s tragic when parents don’t protect their kids, implying that the parents involved here have done exactly that.’
Parents, we are such a football to be kicked by whomever wants to make a point. Parents “would YOU let your children to do this” “ohh how could they let that happen” If parents have an opinion different to the person with the pointing finger, the implication is clear they are BAD parents.
I’ve currently got someone over at Hoyden claiming to be part of an anti-paedophile coalition that works with the UN, and his assertion is that in many jurisdictions that “being 13 and stark naked is a sexual pose” as a matter of de jure law. He approves of this entirely.
Again, I loathe this conflation of nudity with sex. Nudity is good, nudity is healthy, nudity is about far more than merely sex.
It seems that a lot of people are imagining that Henson finds his subjects by just approaching any old family with a beautiful adolescent child and asking to snap their kids. From what his former models report, they were all the kids of fellow artists and thus understood quite a bit about the process of creating art from growing up around it, and most importantly thus were kids for whom seeing people modelling for artists in all sorts of poses and costumes (or not) was a normal part of their life experience.
To a child from such a background requests to pose for another artist’s project must be fairly commonplace. Such requests won’t always involve nudity, of course, but if they are used to seeing artists work from live nudes generally then nude posing is hardly going to seem all that weird or in any way threatening to either the children or the parents. Why should it, when nude life studies are basic, a core component of the curriculum in fact, to the process of acquiring artistic technique?
Artworks based on the nude human form will have been a familiar feature of the lives of such families, probably present in most of the homes of their family friends, and that’s why they would not see it as unusual or particularly troubling to consent to their child being part of these particular artworks based on the nude human form.
Bob Brown and Malcolm Turnbull have joined forces in defence of Bill Henson.
Oh no! Malcolm Turnbull’s come out strongly in support of Henson and said he doesn’t think police should go around raiding art galleries. Good on him. But does that mean I’m going to have to like Turnbull?
It’s an interesting twist to the politics of the saga. Senior Liberal politician is more ‘liberal’ than Labor on this matter. How will the shock jocks play this one?
Tigtog, While this ‘As though as proposals were entirely commonplace and highly likey!’ was sarcasm, I did wonder where Henson found his models. If his models are the children of fellow artists then this ties in with your point above about single room dwellings, what’s icky in one sub-culture is entirely normal in the next.
Fine, the realpolitik of statements on this matter by Rudd, Jenny Macklin, Morris Iemma, etc., is that (a) Federal Labor is looking over its shoulder at Stephen Fielding in the Senate and (b) Iemma is looking over his shoulder at the Christian Democrats in the NSW Upper House.
The realpolitik of Turnbull’s statement is that he has a narrow margin to defend in an electorate in which the non-Coalition vote is being stoked over time by people who are primarily motivated by post-material concerns, and in which there are not a few artists.
I guess that’s about right, Paul Norton.
But it might also make Rudd braver, because the Liberals can’t paint him as a p0rn-loving monster, if one of their own is as well.
Peter Kemp at #164
You are confusing child abuse ‘notifications’ with ’substantiations’, and at the extreme level, ‘Care and Protection Orders’.
No one has EVER suggested that a care and protection order be brought into this – that’s an extreme response of the state in situations where families are unable to provide care and protecion to their children in an ongoing capacity.
THey are not enacted lightly.
Notifications (mandatory in health and education) are a screening tools by the state to investigate possible issues. In some cases a notification can be substantiated, without any further action i.e.: father is overhead to call kid a f’n loser – i’m gonna kill you one day’. Report is made to Child Protection, it is progressed to a formal Notification, investigation occurs, father agrees this happened, but it was in the context of the son smashing his collection of Picasso’s. It is deemed after speaking with the child and the father, and any other relevant parties that this is a one off situation and child is at no risk of being harmed by father, even though verbal abuse did occur and may be officially Substantiated as having occured.
The outcome of this investigation is a Substantiated Notification of Abuse, but one in which No Further Action will occur.
Ask yourself: if the same statement was overheard and reported, the state did nothing, and the child was later found murdered, did the state fail in its duty to care and protect children?
I strongly suggest you take a look at this link, citing Macklin and Pliberseck this week, before you suggest the state is doing nothing to pursue the real abusers.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10512652Also , i put it to you again, that it is entirely justifiable that a Report be made to the State around possible care and protection issues around the child in the HEnson photograph, to ensure she was an continues to be afforded proper care and protection. Given the wide distribution of her photograph via the Invitation, I would imagine that not to investigate to establish the context in which the photogrpahy occured would be the greater breach. Be completely clear that this is very different to substantiating abuse, and an entire world away from a State initiated Care and Protection Order.
No one who sexually exploits children ever believes they are doing wrong. They talk about desire and love and now about art. If a man in his middle years is so obsessed by puberty that he must spend his life taking doubtful pfotos of naked children then perhaps he needs to look at why he has not been able to progress past his own childhood. What he should not be permitted to do is hide behind his “artistic integrity” in order to profit from people who are too young and often too disadvataged to have given their informed consent.
The naked young heroin addicts he photographed in a gallery in Europe were certainly in no state to weigh up the moral dilemmas inherent in allowing themselves to be depicted in that way. Bill Henson exploits children for profit. Naked children. Sometimes naked drug addicted children. Can someone please tell me what makes that more socially acceptable than a man who publishes pictures of children the same ages, in the same states of undress in a magazine? Or on the internet?
His defenders call his detractors phillistines. So what? I am pleased that my intellect is not immense enough to allow me to see a situation where child abuse is not only acceptable but admirable.
tig tog, many years ago my ex-wife & I went to nude beaches in Sydney…& nude gyms and saunas in Austria, so I can relate…no, or very little, talk about sex…no stiff ones around…just people eating healthy food, chatting merrily, getting fit & enjoying nature. I’m shy these days…but that has more to do w/ my perception of my looks due to weight (a different story but related some previous & upcoming comments)…& the weird look in peoples eyes & the ignorance that erupts from their gobs as they emulate the Inquisitors.
Lot of prudes in our World today…& confession seekers w/ blackmail & profits on their mind…& holier than thou inquisitors w/ anxiety disorders…& hate, lust and envy in their withered hearts and thruout their personality…comes w/ religious-based repression & oppression often for the sake of politics and the all-mighty dollar. And piss-weak media ownership laws. And horizontal & vertical integration due to slack regulation.
There seems to be a race to see who can out Taliban each other.
But the sexualisation of children goes on everyday in the media by way of ads and music vids…just to keep the pockets filled of the same moguls who sell papers & run TV channels that point the finger at artists and educators in order to distract the madding crowd from peeking thru their windows.
These hypocrites & opportunists have plenty of INFLUENCE & will set their wolves on anyone who proves to be too bothersome or looks like a prime candidate for profit-making ATTENTION. They even create FAUX/fake situations & events in order to hook in the viewer/reader…
These immoral slime bags are really just singularities that suck in energy & provide little but fear and angst & puff pastry in the process…but for some reason individuals are transfixed & can’t stop watching the show from just inside the Event Horizon as the EATER feeds and belches…& sometimes pulls them or their unsuspecting families & friends in…CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP…IT…THEY…have insatiable hunger.
Until the black holes are closed…or transformed…or the bulk of the population moves beyond the event horizon to watch alternative performances & bathe in more enriching LIGHT, it’s hard to see how things will change.
People who abuse children don’t need Henson’s pics as a motivation…I don’t see them hung in supermarkets but I often witness parents whacking the crap out of ill-fed, snotty-nosed (poor things), unwashed, head ripped into by razor or buzz cut saw, screaming at the plastic toys their sense of being unloved, born as a gift to Peter Costello from the taxpayer children. Every time I go into those “avert your gaze for convenience reasons like Downer” security camera-riddled places offering limited & branded products I see another victim of abuse & neglect. But you can’t tell the parents. Or Libertarians who vote for THE INQUISITION until it comes knocking at their door. If I’d acted like that as a teacher way back when…I’d be tarred & feathered and then run out of town.
As for Pedophiles…they seem to breed in environments of fear-mongering & finger-pointing, where the privileged rampage at the expense of the exploited, and trauma is left in the dark, and children are manufactured as “Hoons” and terrorists for political & monetary gain…and asylums brainwash the damaged, and pontiffs put on rose-coloured glasses, and prostitution is kept seedy and used for media exhibitions and to wash & dry top class clients & owners’ money…and healthy sexual experiences between consenting adults are defined as porn and inappropriate, and lazy & greedy parents and guardians offer their kids to be eaten like lamb chops under the spotlight of the Corporate SELL tent.
Lovely picture tigtog.
Fear not, thanx to the courage of the likes of you & Kim and others the LIGHT will shine again soon. The Inquisition performance always comes to an end…for awhile…once the majority stop buying tickets…or it moves offshore…or races back to its cellar…& even black holes can be transformed into something useful…or shrunk…i’m sure of it.
Moderated just a minute ago ?
While i’m waiting those without kids may find it interesting to hear the following anecdotes:
1. Brisbane had a problem a couple of years back of men photographing children at southbank without parents consent. I personally found a man squatting down taking long range pictures of my OWN kids who were in the water, and i approached him to see what was going on. Turned out this guy was a student of the art college and was doing an assignment. He was oblivious to any issues of consent, but i explained to him if he was going to do that he needed to ask me first. He seemed genuinely surprised at this, and unaware their had been any issue at the venue.
2 Two weeks ago at seaworld my kid went snoreklling with the sharks.
As an excited mum i tried to take a pic of my kid and his friend wearing their wetsuits and flippers downstairs in the education group room. As i snapped them, a staff member jumped in fromnt of my camera and did a silly face, blocking the picture.
He pulled me aside kindly and said as there were other kids in the room under 18 and it was defined as an ‘enclosed space’ he couldnt allow me to take pics without the explicit permission of their parents.
So Fine, do you mean that the Liberals have developed a new policy of internal consistency?
Quite so, tigtog. This is central to both the ethical debate about Henson’s work, and the legal question of whether the photos show the adolescents “in a sexual context” purely by dint of their being undressed. Am I “in a sexual context” when stepping out of the shower, asleep without pyjamas or other nightwear, or stripped down in my flat on a sweltering summer day in Brisbane? Was I “in a sexual context” when I had stripped in the change rooms before and after my junior football matches and school swimming sessions as a child and adolescent? Were my friends and I “in a sexual context” when we swam naked at Black Rocks beach in Bundjalung National Park on New Years Day 2001? Examples could be multiplied.
Liberated at 182 now sc.
A long one from me coming up, with apologies, also I haven’t read anything much since 176, but gotta go.
[I decided to delete the comment. Brian]
Indeed.
Were the Beatles culpable for the Manson “family’s” murder of Sharon Tate because they wrote and recorded “Helter Skelter”?
Are the Blue Oyster Cult culpable for suicides committed by disturbed youth after hearing “Don’t Fear the Reaper”?
To Julie Leaver and anyone else who thinks artists and art galleries regard themselves as having special freedoms and being above normal standards, this is almost the exact opposite of the truth.
A real artist’s work takes the whole image-making / image-looking situation and makes it something not to be taken lightly, shrugged off, or done in a way that avoids any party’s personal responsibility.
When you go into a gallery, there’s nothing to do but look. You have to be aware of what your looking entails. This is not like advertising imagery, which is not intended to receive your full critical scrutiny, and it’s not like porn, which invites the viewer to relinquish personal responsibility and control.
Paul Norton…depends on whether or not they were part of a propaganda & brainwashing campaign meant to illicit that reaction. I doubt the Beatles & Blue Oyster Cult were thinking along those lines. Unlike the financiers of Jud Süß (1940), Robert und Bertram (1939), Die Rothschilds (1940) & The Eternal Jew (1940) made during the reign of the NAZIS….& a whole bunch of irresponsible Hollywood films from 2000 onwards.
Pul NOrton – don’t make the mistake of lumping all artists together and that the label of ‘art’ excuses everything – thats precisely the defence Skepticlawyer and the Eye warn on. Its as un-nuanced as those who are ascreaming for Henson’s head and blanketly calling it p..n.
YOur thoughts on the following would be interesting:
Rwanda: Prosecution Urges Life Prison for Ex-Rwandan Top Singer
Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
26 May 2008
The prosecutor requested Monday life in prison against the famous Rwandan singer, Simon Bikindi, accused before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to have, through his works, incited the 1994 genocide, reports Hirondelle Agency.
The first artist indicted before the UN Court, Bikindi faces six counts of genocide and crimes against humanity.
“Mr. Bikindi deserves a sentence of imprisonment for the remainder of his life,” stated William Egbe, the prosecuting attorney in his closing arguments of the trial which opened in September, 2006.
“His songs incited the genocide”, added the Cameroonian attorney, denouncing the links of the musician with the infamous Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which broadcast the messages of hate.
RTLM very often played Bikindi’s music, who was one of the founding members of the hate radio.
Mr Egbe referred to as aggravating circumstances the social position of the defendant, the suffering of the victims and the violence as well as the humiliating nature of the alleged crimes adding:” There are no extenuating circumstances in the present case”.
The lead defence counsel, Andrea O’ Shea pointed to the “contradictions” in the prosecution’s testimonies and invited the judges to “return Bikindi to his music”.
The British lawyer praised the very the high-quality of the defence witnesses, stressing that some of them were ethnic Tutsis, who Bikindi helped to save their lives.
The defendant spoke last to claim his innocence.
“I have no doubt that the judges realized that they have, in front of them, an innocent person”, he declared before the Chamber.
At the heart of this trial are three songs in Rwandan interpreted in divergent ways by the prosecution and the defence.
The prosecution alleged that they are calls to unite Hutus in order to get rid of Tutsis, while Bikindi affirms to sing only about peace and democracy in his accused works.
During the trial, each party called its Rwandan expert to support its interpretation of the songs, whose texts are sometimes complex.
Bikindi is also accused of having taken part in the massacres of Tutsis in the prefecture of Gisenyi, northern Rwanda, from where he reigns.
He was arrested in The Netherlands in July 2001.
The Chamber is presided by the Argentine Judge Ines Weinberg de Roca.
ABC LINK ON THE STORY :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/27/2256329.htmPlaying devil’s advocate here: If all art is a no-go zone for legal prosecution or moral responsibility, than all those who incite racial or gay violence need to do is sing their calls for death, or make a painting expressing their views.
See how it gets tricky?
Not really, sublime cowgirl. Anything that straightforward and unreflective doesn’t fit any definition of art, it’s propaganda.
Moderated again for my comment about the Rwandan singer arrested in the Netherlands on trial for inciting genocide?
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805270140.htmlmoderated twice in the last few minutes?
Laura. You avoided answering the question I posed. In what way is it morally defensible that underaged drug addicted street children were offered remuneration in return for posing naked in Bill Henson’s art? Were they fully informed of what uses these images would be put to? Or how widely dispersed these images would become? And did they comprehend what ramifications having exposed themselves in this way might have upon them both now and in the future? Were they under the influence of drugs when the images were recorded? And if so how can they have given informed consent to anything?
Art audiences have been feting Bill Henson for decades without asking themselves these questions and now that outsiders are asking those questions you are all squirming away from us saying we don’t understand that the difference is in the process. We understand your argument. We just don’t agree with it.
I am not saying that Bill Henson’s art is responsible for making anyone else abuse children or fantasise about abusing children. I am saying that Bill Henson is personally responsible for expoiting children, many of whom were already severely disadvantaged, drug affected and probably with a history of abuse which left them in no position to judge the propriety of the things which were asked of them.
As to the children in the Paddington exhibition we have heard nothing about them, their backgrounds or their families. Either this means the media is showing unusual restraint and actually attempting to protect their identities (doubtful proposition) or there is no investigation into them and their welfare (appalling proposition).
Get over the “Ooh Aah! He’s so daring” syndrome and start accepting your own (the art audience’s- not yours personally) complicity in the abuse and exploitation of children. Those models are not symbols of your freedom to consume whatever you want. They are young people who will live with the decsions they made and the decisions that were made for them.And some of them may live well with them. And some may not. But none of you seem to have seen fit to even enquire.
What Nasking and Laura said. The artist’s intentions have to be considered.
Julie, do you have some evidence that his models were homeless drug addicts? Genuine question.
Sorry – am being caught in the spaminator – what of this singer Paul? link
http://allafrica.com/stories/200805270140.htmlAlso, i’m keen to hear people’s thoughts on the issues i’ve raised @ 182 and whether you disagree that the state has an obligation to respond to a Report in these circumstances?
Tigtog @155, presumably the images belong to you now and IMO it’s your right to do whatever you feel comfortable doing with them. You’re an adult, you can make these decisions. But whether the law sees it that way is another thing.
Which is what the furore is about as far as I can tell; whether the child in the images was exploited and/or abused by having them taken, regardless of whether her parents and she had given their consent.
I think sublimecowgirl’s comment @184 shows what a sensitive issue photographing children has become. I hope it doesn’t result in a ban on family photos which are a huge part of our family histories.
I always loved looking at our family photos as a kid and now, particularly as both my parents are dead. The best thing was knowing what my parents, grandparents and, luckily for me, one set of great-grandparents looked like before I was born and before my father’s nose had been broken four times. He and my uncle were definitely residents of nose city. Thank god, my mother’s nose was petite. Of course, knowing what I looked like as a young child is fun, too.
Alongside my keyboard is a photo of him and two of his siblings, taken at the end of the war. He would have been around 25, three years older than my oldest son who is the dead spit of my father, in nature as well as looks.
I am thankful that I have this record of my family to be passed down and hopefully treasured in the future as it has been in the past.
Sorry, way off topic.
sc, I tend to agree that a report is reasonable and the state has an obligation to respond, and to examine the situation if it’s reported. I don’t think anybody really objects to inquiries into the well-being of the models, do they?
What I have a problem with is that artwork is being removed from galleries, presumably in advance of those inquiries, and with the police issuing statements that they intend to lay charges. These things are performative in ways that are not usually associated with child protection processes.
sublimecowgirl, if there was a reasonable suspicion of intentional incitement, the state would have an obligation to respond in such cases. Such cases aren’t necessarily tricky if there is a reasonably clearcut call to violence, abuse, discrimination, etc., in the original art. But such cases are quite different from a situation in which the artist, with presumably innocent intent, produces something which an “ordinary right-thinking person” would not take as an incitement of any kind, but which may be “discursively recreated” as such by a certain kind of reader/viewer/listener.
paul did you read my post – incitement has no bearing on child protection investigation, you are conflating this with police/criminal issues – possibly related to, but separate to child protection concerns.
Sorry sg, I was responding to a later post. My mistake.
well my mistake too …the issues are quite complex though, don’t ya think?
point i’m making here with the Rwandan singer, is that merely lumping all artists together is not helpful in this siutation, and is only inflaming culture war stuff.
I do seem to be the only artist commenting on this issue who has both photographed nudes, posed nude, have pubescent children of my own, and has a past working in child protection though.
Sublimecowgirl re
Firstly I’m not suggesting they should, I’m suggesting that the “railroad Henson” brigade, if consistent, should be proposing it.
I’ve got the carriage of 3 Care matters right now, and I can tell you they’re not necessarily “extreme” responses of the state re families and inability to provide ongoing “care and protection”. They are about selecting lower socio-economic people and conducting proceedings, legally, by hearsay and allegations which don’t have to be proven. [That's why it will never happen IMHO to the middle class/relatively rich parents of Henson's subjects--unless of course the witch hunt succeeds] They are about a lot of other things including for example (in NSW) taking away babies at birth BEFORE the mother has a chance to bond with the child and breast feed it, an egregious breach of human rights IMHO if ever there was one, but that’s another story, (and not my carriage of the matter.)
The “Care and Protection” regime of the Children & Young Persons (Care & Protection) Act 1998 -assesses risk, it does not have to have facts, it does not have to necessarily substantiate (prove) allegations of abuse/neglect. Miranda Devine, Hetty Johnson could call the Director General of DOCs (in practice the local DOCs office) and trigger this:
Be completely clear that IF this is a question of “abuse” if it’s a question of “pnOngraphy”, if it’s a question of “care and protection” of children and ‘young persons’ it’s well and truly in the realm of Care and Protection Orders.
By saying that a “report” is necessary on “care and protection” issues, to address the “context in which the photography occurred”: you are also talking exactly about a logical progression to care and protection orders, which need no legal proof in the sense of criminal/civil standards of proof, let alone the burden of proof on the prosecution/applicant.
(In care matters the Evidence Act is, in specified areas, NOT applicable.)
Interesting positioning by Turnbull. I wonder what his motives are?
SG, I don’t call myself an artist, though I once tried to be. But I have done life drawing on and off for two decades, and I have modelled, though it was some time ago. No children, though not for lack of trying, and am a bit disappointed you seem to think that a childless person will approach this a priori differently.
Klaus. Bill Henson himself claimed this is 1983. The models were used for a series in which young junkies were posed nude in a number of different prestigious European galleries. He claimed to have met them on the street.
Some of his works are currently on show at the Newcastle Regional Gallery.I have seen them and was quite uncomfortable with some of the imagery. These are not poses of innocence and freedom. They are very staged, moodily lit pieces. Granted they are beautifully composed but with a type of carnality rather than sensuality which is disturbing when placed in its context of the apparent or actual age of the models.
What I want art audiences to do is accept responsibility for their part in exploiting children in the name of some abstract concept of intellectual freedom.
There is a huge class divide here because if these photos cost $25 instead of $20,000 there would be no question in anyone’s mind that these children were being ill used for profit.
Just like the Bindi Irwin syndrome. If her father had run a fish shop and died no one would have thought it ok to put her behind the counter 12 hours a day. But because she could earn millions and do it on TV it is acceptable.It is in fact to be lauded.
So is it ok to exploit children (sexually or otherwise) as long as there is a big enough profit in it?
Presumably in the case of street kids (Gary Sauer had a post about those earlier images, I believe)there was no parental involvement either. It raises further ethical questions.
Peter, Care and Protection orders are a fairly last resort ,and there are a lot of issues that need to be explored before it gets that far.
What you are confirming to everyone in the above however, that according to relevent state laws, the state legitimately does have a compulsion to investigate the care and protection issues around this girl and her family, if issues are raised by anyone, including Devine, Hetty Johnson, and that evidence exists that something of possible concern could have occured (such as widely circulated invitations of naked 13 yo girls in whatever context – internet, text book or gallery).
As to the effectiveness of the process of investigation, the competency of the child protection and detectives involved (and the role of the media in this – and i think the continued publication of the specific pics to make a point about censorship while it is known that an investigation into her welfare is being undertaken is irresponsible at best,), thats the next step and raises another bunch of issues, as Brian rightly points out and i make no excuses for the screw ups and stupidity that occur in these processes. However, you are right to illustrate the States statutory obligation to become involved, and the ignorance of those who claiming this is an outrage without knowing the facts.
Julie, please do provide a link or other citation, for preference one that gives the ages of the models involved (I’m mildly skeptical, because i don’t remember seeing such pictures in the NGV’s Henson retrospective)
and then please explain exactly why it should be against the law to take pictures of nude people in art galleries, whether they are drug users or not.
You probably shouldn’t go see any shows by Gillian Wearing http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/velez/velez8-5-3.asp or Richard Billingham http://www.yale.edu/opa/v35.n16/story12.jpg or Lincoln Clarkes http://www.pcnw.org/gallery/past/200304_lclarkes.jpg , all of whom have invited substance-affected subjects to be photographed, and found some beauty in them, instead of hysterically demonising them or denying them the right to participate in how the world sees them.
Laura – ‘and am a bit disappointed you seem to think that a childless person will approach this a priori differently’.
Is that what i said? I do include my parental status to demonstrate that i do have the daily reality of having responsibility for a pubescent child.
http://suburban-gothic.blogspot.com/2006/10/burn-baby-burn-is-series-of-digital.htmlA link which includes some of my prudish photography btw, this one once exhibited at Soapbox gallery in 2002
So you have responsibility for a child, what does that imply about how you believe you see this issue differently to me? If it is only that you wouldn’t let your child model nude, OK. Any other implications? If you spell it out I will understand you
Laura. Were these other photographers using child models? If so I would probably not enjoy their work much.
I do not demonise substance users. I have been one myself in a previous chapter of my life. More recently I worked with young homeless people in Kings Cross and Cabramatta. I sat with them in gutters.I listened to their stories. I gave them clean fits. I bandaged their cuts and gave them coffee and cuddles.I took them to medical appointments and gave them a place to shower and clean underwear before they went.I fought for their right to live in the community with dignity and acceptance. Don’t you dare accuse me of dehumanising drug users.
I demonise those who take advantage of people who are less powerful than they. Be that the power of money; the power of seniority or the power of noteriety. Or the power of cultural chauvinism.
Julie, no citation? It’s you who’s making accusations without much apparent foundation.
SCG, And here’s one *I* prepared earlier.
The model was 18. http://bp3.blogger.com/_sgiG5VhO5y8/Rup23hXlVsI/AAAAAAAAABM/Wj4772xKynQ/s1600-h/model.jpg
Laura – have you worked in child protection sometime too? Do you take issue with that part of my comment at #209? Why so hostile?
I’m not detecting a lot of hostility from Laura, only a certain amount of understandable skepticism about claiming the status of parent in relation to this debate, and what that is supposed to mean. Also, she hasn’t mentioned experience in child protection.
cute pic L
I will have a think and reply to your comment on parent perspectives later – i’ve got to go now and pick up kids from school and sort some stuff (heh).
Laura. You are a little hostile.
Try http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/henson/ed_resource.html. A lengthy but worthwhile little document.
Your links were somewhat mystifying as they were all images of fully clothed people who had apparently qualified for the aged pension – although in fairness there was one girl at an ATM who may have been under twenty.
Relevance? I suspect I am just too culturally inferior to comprehend.
As a non-parent myself I have wondered whether I would be thinking any differently about these issues if I was a parent – to put it crudely, whether my current position is erring in the direction of the bloodlessly intellective, and whether, if I were to become a parent, my opinions and, perhaps more importantly, my instinctive responses would shift along the spectrum towards the protectively affective end.
This is just speaking for myself about my own speculations based on my own, highly imperfect, knowledge of myself, and should not be taken as a statement about what other people’s responses could or should be.
Spiros wrote:
As I stated further up this long thread, one motive could be the desire to defend his narrow margin in Wentworth by out-postmaterialising Labor in an electorate where the Labor and Green vote has been growing on the basis of postmaterial concerns, and where quite a few artists live including those who run and exhibit at the gallery which was raided.
Yes, I thought it might be electorate-specific politics, though Turnbull also owns work by the artist, apparently. It does mean the opposition will find it more difficult to score points off of Rudd over this, I think, unless their game is to wait until he publicly changes his mind and then accuse him of inconsistency. Had I been advising Rudd, I would certainly have pushed him in the direction of ‘cautious concern’.
Julie, whereas Laura’s purported hostility is open to debate, your nasty little jabs at ‘intellectuals’ are certainly hostile and will win you little positive attention around these parts. In fact, and given your lack of visibility on LP in general, it means you come across as a troll. Now, if you are serious about the issue, perhaps you could refrain from littering your comments with anti-intellectual asides and return to making substantial points?
Klaus. Sorry. I didn’t realise that opinions from new contributors were discouraged in this forum. Should I have asked permission from a long time user before expressing myself?
You see I mistakenly thought that my recent transfer from isolated rural alternative-type living arrangements and subsequent aquisition of some modern technology had finally enabled me to participate in a broad contemporary social discourse with diverse peoples from diverse backgrounds.
If I am not erudite enough for your tastes I will happily withdraw to somewhere more accepting.
And I feel quite free to poke jabs at intellectuals. A First in Philosophy taught me to question all assumptions and assertions. Especially my own. You should try that sometime.
And don’t tell me that calling someone a troll is not just a LITTLE hostile.
Julie, I read both the PDFs on the National Gallery of Victoria student resource page you linked to, and the only reference to ‘junkies’ came in a throwaway allusion to work by (female) artists Nan Goldin and the late Carol Jerrems. I agree they were interesting, informative documents, but they don’t provide any substance for your claims in this comment http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/26/questions-on-the-bill-henson-sexualisation-of-children-debate/#comment-472175
so it seems to me you probably made them up.
My links were replies to your claim that ‘drug addicted’ (your words) subjects can’t weigh up any ‘moral dilemmas’ involved in allowing themselves to be photographed.
I do agree it was a bit of a red herring, though, since unlike you I’m not convinced that any and every photograph of a teenage person without clothes on is automatically filthy, filthy porn.
The series in question Untitled 1982/1983 is featured in a 2004 post at Junk for Code. When I reread it I noticed in comments a claim that though depicted as junkies, the models were middle class kids.
I’ve just deleted my long comment at 189, so every number after that moves down one. Although it responded to an earlier comment of tigtog’s, which had largely been ignored, mine was totally ignored.
This isn’t a dummy spit. I plan to edit it and post separately. If I succeed it should be up by the morning.
I’d like to tackle it then, Brian. I did read it but found it a bit much to digest in the context of the comments thread. Having it posted separately would give your insights some better space, and it’s time we had a new thread, I think!
P.S. I read it just before some twerp starting hurling legalese about “defammation” at me over at my joint, so I was kinda a little distracted, and after that I just wanted to play with Doctor Who.
su, re the “junkies in the museum” photos:
I read something along those lines a few days ago too, Su, that the junkie theme was just play-acting.
Uh-huh. ‘Cause middle-class kids are never junkies.
Sublimecowgirl re:
Final Care & Protection Orders are the last orders. Long before that, ECPO (emergency care & protection orders) are in many instances, the first stage. Issues are not deeply explored at this stage. DOCs digs up most of the evidence, usually by a barrage of affidavits, COPS records (ie incident reports on the Police computer system), Police ‘brief’ statements of past alleged offences, other hearsay evidence from unknown people, Court Clinicians reports (post assessment orders) AFTER the ECPO. All orders are generally made on an assessment of risk, not necessarily fact.
And what I’m saying is that where such complaints are made to DOCs in the case of Henson’s photo subjects, DOCs should ignore those representations, if ever made, on the basis that (1) it’s not prOn, or in such a context; (2) if otherwise, every parent or relative or friend who took a photo of naked children is liable. A principal I would borrow from oft quoted tort case law, ie Cardozo (USA) and “potential liability… for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class.
In the case of Henson, I’m trying to illustrate that the state has no business, at any level, of becoming involved, but if it does go further with DOCs involvement, farce will be heaped upon farce.
There are photos of babies, and old folks, but somehow photos of young soon to be adult children is not right. Anyone with any sense of dignity would know this. How the photographer can do this to young folks is bad. They are not adults and are in the process of growing. Not nice and glad someone has spoken out about these photos.
Once they are released back to the owner though, they will be circulated and will rise in price that is the only thing. They should be destroyed, or kept under lock and key should further charges be laid. Where are the young people today?
Laura. Please stop assuming that you know what I am thinking or what my opinions are. I do not think all photos of naked children are “filthy filthy porn.” I am not even sure Henson’s work is porn. I just think it is skating very close to some pretty scary lines and seems to be doing so without any critique
I do think that Bill Henson’s obsession with naked pubescent forms deserves a little more public scrutiny. I believe his ethics are a little too opaque and his defenders a little too keen to assert that no artist ought to be subjected to questioning from those outside the circle. That those outside the art world simply lack the knowledge to interpret art in any meaningful way. How elitist!
It’s akin to saying “People fought for the freedom of speech in this country so shut your mouth and stop criticising aspects of it”
You were the one who said that all art is about questioning. And yet when I question aspects of this particular artist’s work you attack me with supercilious and dismissive insults.
Why is it so important to you that no one asks these questions? Is it because you feel culpable – knowing you never asked them yourself?
Still waiting for your evidence for your claims Julie.
Yeah DD, I was going to make that point, but what the heck, you did it for me.
tigtog, when I decided to take it down I was out playing taxi to Mark. I was anxious to get it down before you commented so we could get a clean go, so things worked out OK. I’ll try to make it clearer.
To follow up your point about how Henson sources his young subjects and the report that he has lately been going to Eastern Europe, it occurred to me that maybe he and all his artist friends are just getting old, so naturally the supply is drying up.
I wonder whether the net result of all this is whether he will move overseas. Can’t say I’d blame him.
National Gallery pics now under investigation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/28/2258586.htm?section=justin
A link to a photographer’s website in Slovakia.
He mentions the teenage junkies from the 1980’s , doesn’t really confirm their addicted status but his description of Henson’s work includes recognising a very intense sexual element.
If readers don’t want to see any photos please don’t click on the link.
http://photo.box.sk/about.php3?id=159
“Interesting positioning by Turnbull. I wonder what his motives are?”
Since Mal owns a couple of pictures, by Henson, it saves him from….
a) having to fess up later
b) a police raid
c) agreeing with his leader
d) a chance of market decline in his art investment
Laura* 143. Thanks for explic, re Auntie. BTW have you seen this photo of Tig Tog proffered early. Am debating internally, in my heart of hearts, whether it would be worth my while chasing down the said post (Casey seems quite excited about it!) for my own deeper predilection.
What do you reckon?
( Way to go, Tig Tog, yo!).
Thanks Murph for the link. These are more like the images I remember from the ngv and some idea of the ambiguity of the work is very much in evidence there.
These children did not find their own way to many of these poses. You can clearly see the hand of a craftsman in the complex composition, lighting and costume.He is not exposing children’s naturally developing sexuality to the audience for their interpretation. He is manipulating their bodies and imposing HIS interpretation of that evolving sexuality upon the audience.
And it his interpretation of their sexuality that I find muddy at best. There is a predatory aura about many of the images.
As to whether or not the 1980’s subjects were drug addicts, it was certainly intimated that they were. That this gave the works their verisimilitude. The confusion over this issue certainly gives rise to many questions about the value of the artist’s assertions about his own work and about its context and conceptual framework.
He does source his subjects overseas: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23757690-5006784,00.html
But I can’t find anything on using ‘actual junkies’, rather than people pretending to be junkies.
Ms Leaver -
Surely you’d wish to rephrase this. It is a gift to your opponents, Madam. But anyway I’ll try to address what you’ve said.
>
It’s important to note that Henson’s work is not exclusively of naked ‘children’. It is also important to note that the images are not of sexual acts. There is much commentary to the effect that many find his pictures disturbing, that there is no innocence here. But this is the precise point. We equate ignorance of sex with innocence. Why? What is it about sex that makes us ‘guilty’?
>
When I first found Henson’s work I was a teenager. The work evoked in me not some arousal but the landscape of my pain. I am continually amazed that people can see no difference between this work and pornography. It is not pornography. Pornography does not inconvenience the ‘gaze’ at it were. This does. What happens here? Why are these catlike humans shrouded in darkness? It is right to use the word ‘carnal’ but also let us use the word carniverous. Predatory. And it is not us the viewer who is predatory but often the subjects lurking like pleistocene cats. In his work you will find wounds, blood, slime and decay in contrast to the pristine flesh. These are images that disturb and the equation: adolescence + disturbing stuff = exploitation in the view of you and others, results.
>
But where is the nefarious exploitation? You cite European junkies and say Henson is exploiting them. I’d suggest you read Christiane F. to understand true exploitation not by artists but by town plannners who design anti-natural quasi-prisons of public housing and respectable family men who lurk about the Bahnhof Zoo seeking certain nasty business arrangements to be concluded nearby in the Mercedes.
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No doubt these phenomena disturb likewise but Henson is not creating them nor is he promoting them. He is doing something entirely other. His images evoke this subterreanean zones of emergent sexuality and adolescent hostility to be sure but thus far not a single one of his former models has said anything other than good things about him.
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Yet this is all ignored. Disturbed by imagery that has been a credit to Australian art these decades past (yet somehow just discovered) the reaction is to fall to the floor in one of Betty Parris’s fits and, renouncing all reason, scream hysterica – ’tis pornography! when it is nothing of the kind.
>
And yet (and I’m not remarking upon you personally) when some paragon of organized religion is discoveed to’ve been practising or providing safe harbour to actual abuse many of these howlers are silent or even on the side of the transgessors.
>
The evidence demonstrates a clear correllation between puritanical anti-sex repression and the success of sex criminals of various kinds. I once had a Korean girlfriend who said: in Korea, sex is big problem. No-one talks about it. I’ve met Koreans in their mid 20s who’re all but ignorant of it, smirking like 10 year olds whenever the subject is raised. Yet this innocence yields widespread rape. The rape of young women and girls by people they know is so widespread as to be a constant riff in Korea’s burgeoning counter-culture. And the reaction of the mainstream is analogous to this episode. They blame the artists and do nothing to reform their own ways. The best armour a person has aganist some who seeks to subject them to their unpleasant sexual designs is knowledge.
>
When I hear that a nude portait of a pubescent, executed in a mannerist style sans any suggestion of a sexual act, is pornographic I know what that means. It means that she’s dirty. That she should somehow be ashamed of herself. But in actuality she is beautiful and the shame, as David Bowie has written, is on the other side.
On Malcolm Turnball – Given that the man is related (by marriage) to Robert Hughes whose views on this debacle would be predictably pro-Henson, given that Hughes has endorsed Turnball as a future PM, I don’t find it surprising that he thinks this way. However I was wondering whether he’d remain silent or, even worse, root for the wowsers. That he didn’t is testiment to good character. He takes a great risk doing this as the social conservatives in his own party and amongst his constituents will probably take vengeance sometime in the future.
The UK is seeking to close the CGI loophole. This is very bad law indeed: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7422595.stm
skepticlawyer, another artist saying ‘apparently he goes overseas’ is a pretty low standard of evidence wouldn’t you say?
And since when is exhibiting a photograph of a foreigner illegal in this country anyhow?
This is getting really, really farcical. I suppose it’s sort of educational to see how an Angry Penguins-style obscenity crusade plays out. Such a pity it had to scapegoat someone with serious talent and integrity.
I’m going to stop discussing this issue since it is utterly utterly pointless. Not that anyone is expected to care, but if I say so, I won’t be tempted back. Your comments were worth reading Adrien.
This thread has become very long, so I’m posting a continuation of it here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/28/questions-on-the-bill-henson-sexualisation-of-children-debate-continued/