Bill Henson image from Ego Magazine.
As was probably predictable, the media circus has moved on from the controversy over Bill Henson’s photographs. But at LP we try to keep focusing on stories the media is quick to forget, so this post updates our previous courage on the Henson furore. Because the discussion has died down, it may be that people are able now to engage in analysis which is more considered and less immediately coloured by the dividing lines inscribed by the “debate” in the media.
That’s certainly the case with this piece in Eureka Street from Andrew Hamilton, Jesuit Priest, ethicist, editor and educator, who has, for my money, written the most acute and concise summation of the ethical issues involved I’ve seen. Writing in the Higher Ed, Newcastle academic Kelli Fuery focuses in on what she sees as the central questions:
Art, specifically contemporary art, has often been at the centre of contentious cultural debate when it comes to categorising, containing and policing aesthetics, taste and acceptability. So why does the photography of Henson reignite this debate? What is at stake here is the anointment of the artist and the function of art within culture and society.
We know at LP that not all our commentators share our view on the Henson affair, and respect that, but for those who do, if you haven’t seen the link to the online open letter written by Alison Croggon, you can sign it here should you wish.
Miranda Devine, who started the whole thing off, now suggests – risibly – that the withdrawal of Australian forces from Iraq was designed to placate those who didn’t like Kevin Rudd’s take on Henson’s images. Yep, Miranda, that’s how defence logistics work.
I understand the latest issue of Art World, which was pulped because it featured some of Henson’s work on its cover and to illustrate a story, has now been published, and contains an interview with Bill Henson where he discusses (among other things) his relationship with the subjects of his photos. I haven’t bought it yet, but there’s an older interview online at Ego Magazine, where he again talks about his choice of teenage subjects:
The reason I like working with teenagers is because they represent a kind of breach between the dimensions that people cross through. The classical root of the word “adolescence” means to grow towards something. I am fascinated with that interval, that sort of highly ambiguous and uncertain period where you have an exponential growth of experience and knowledge, but also a kind of tenuous grasp on the certainties of adult life.
This post supercedes comments left on this one, where discussion is now closed. You can talk about any aspect of the Henson controversy here that you like, but I’d encourage people to reflect on its broader significance, now that the dust has settled (for the moment anyway). I think a lot of the previous discussion had begun to get a bit repetitive and circular.
Update: It looks as if there won’t be any charges laid against Henson in any jurisdiction.
Update #2: Alison Croggon has written another post on the Henson controversy, link rich, and those who’d like to see Hetty Johnson and David Marr in the same room talking about it can do so at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art on Thursday at 6pm.
What I can’t understand is, the thing hasn’t even been to court, yet large numbers keep calling Hensons work “pr0n”. It’s like calling Haneef a terrorist on Andrews say so, without even a look at the evidence or a day in open court for rational evaluation.
If it’s not pr0n, the only remaining category is art, hence the age of a model becomes irrelevant, as with Da Vinci, etc.
Meanwhile elsewhere, millions die as the 4 Riders of the Apocolypse run rampant.
blah!
THe National Gallery won’t be charged over their collection of Henson photos.
["The AFP has concluded an assessment of images ... at a Canberra art gallery storage facility," an AFP spokesman said.
"On the basis of that assessment, no breaches of ACT law relating to child pornography has been established." ]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23816320-5005361,00.html
It is worth recalling I think that the scandalous relationship between art, pornography and naked, ambiguously erotic pubescent girls has a 20thc history (and of course a much longer one still), most notably focussed on the canonical French artist Balthus. His work, some of which makes Henson’s images looks very very tame, is quite freely available —check it out on Wikipedia. There certainly have been issues of censorship over Balthus’s images in the past but zilch over the past 20 or 30 years as far as I know. (It would be interesting to see what would happen if an Australian gallery were to present a big Balthus retrospective now like the MOMA did (without incident) in 1984.)
The difference between Henson and Balthus is, of course, that Henson’s models are figured as current minors who need to be protected and who can’t, by virtue of their age, give consent to being photographed naked, or naked in these kinds of poses. To that kind of thinking the art/pornography distinction is irrelevant. So it doesn’t matter that it can be quite easily shown that those who think that that distinction is slippery, uncertain or in the mind of the beholder are mistaken.
There’s good academic work on how child protection (like family values) is increasingly used for purposes of social control and repression. This is another example of it. Its a move that seems to be deeply embedded in anglophone neo-liberalism.
But in the end I think this affair (which will probably go nowhere since Henson hasn’t offended against the legislation as far as I can see) belongs to Australia’s long and sad history of censorship and wowserism, like, go figure, it being the only country in the world (circal 1950) to ban Christina Stead’s innocent novel Letty Fox for its description of a young girl’s sexuality.
What’s up with our ABC?
News that Henson won’t be charged carries the headline “Henson avoids charges over National Gallery photos”. Talk about giving someone a bad name.
Hetty Johnson throws in her two bob’s worth here.
Well i’m going to speak to the elephant in the room.
In view of the likely hood that Henson will not face any charges over his art, (announced today) I hope this week’s shock over the scores of men in Australia, including teachers, police, an artist and a film maker arrested for accessing (uncontroversially) child porn drives home the point that the police and child protection services work in a very fraught environment.
They don’t take possible abuse or exploitation of children lightly.
I’m pleased Henson appears not to have crossed any legal boundaries, but the prevalence of an audience of men eager to consume problematic images of children confirms my (personal) opinion i would never allow my child to be photographed in that context.
I would wager my house on the probability that most of the men caught in this sting have accessed Hensons work on the net, and gleefully added the images to their abhorant collections.
“Well i’m going to speak to the elephant in the room.”
I’d say it’s more of a rhino that just charged into the room and gored everyone without knowing what the discussion was about, but anyway…
“I would wager my house on the probability that most of the men caught in this sting have accessed Hensons work on the net, and gleefully added the images to their abhorant collections.”
I’ll see your house and raise you my shed.
I would have thought you’d go your Band’s venue, though, i guess that’s already been taken.
Yeah, it’s not really worth wagering now.
So no charges are going to be laid against Henson. His photographs are harmless. It was all a distasteful media beat up jumped on by the disgusting Hetty J, Karl Stepanovich, our PM, (who is vaguely trying to wriggle out of it and re-establish his civil liberties qualifications again on Channel 9), Morris Iemma (whose reputation for truthfulness and avoidance of spin and jumping on populist bandwagons is very well known in NSW. Not.)
The very least all these people can do is publicly apologise to Bill Henson and admit they have wickedly traduced his good name. Bet they won’t, though.
Hope he sues the whole damn lot of them for defamation. I would.
Okay, so the Federal Police have decided the Henson images in the National Gallery don’t breach the child pornography laws. Can’t the Hetty Johnstons of the world undestand this, instead of vilifying artists? I have to fly off to work, but suffice to say that article of hers makes me furious. How dare she make a judgement that his photos are solely produced for commecial gain. When this finishes, like Paul Burns, I hope Henson sues the arse off everyone involved in this farce.
And of course we know child pornography is rife, but Henson’s work isn’t child pornography. There may well be some of Henson’s images on their hard drives. And there may well be some Anne Geddes images as well. I’d be very happy for her stuff to be banned for aesthetic resons alone.
meant – not jumping on populist bandwagons. (I think.)
Paul Burns wrote:
Appalling isn’t it. Stephen Colbert (US funny faux conservative) makes a lot of laughs out of the conservative impulse to “think with the gut” and Rudd’s half-back-down to the chief censor this morning was far more revolting than any Henson picture.
In other news, Australia still has a Chief Censor?
ABC headline, hat tip to Zoot:
“Henson avoids charges over National Gallery photos”.
Real world translation:
“NSW police decide not to make bigger tools of themselves”.
Will NSW authorities compensate Henson and his gallery for the commercial costs of the down-time on his exhibition?
SC
P*eder*sts do many legal things. We can’t stop all of them.
SC’s point is a serious one, however. The son of an acquaintance of mine was a schoolboy rower. Pictures of his crew were discovered on a website in company with stock, commercial pictures of pouting catamites.
The rowing pictures were no different to those to be found in any Public School Annual Magazine. Yet the context in which they were shown was threatening and upsetting to their unwitting subjects and to their families.
I guess the internet is the most powerful megaphone ever invented to amplify the furtive murmurings of obsessionals.
Hatty’s arguments is obscene: Because Henson’s images are of a naked child it therefore follows that he is focusing on sexual themes. She then quotes Henson’s interview where he says that he is interested in this transitional stage of human development and therefore concludes he is interested only in the sexual aspect. Hence pervert. I instead understood him as interested in all aspects of transition from childhood to adulthood such mental, physiological, emotional not just the sexual and in that sense he has done what artists have always done ie. use the human body as a metaphor.
‘I guess the internet is the most powerful megaphone ever invented to amplify the furtive murmurings of obsessionals.’
You talkin about Hetty Johnson or the p*eder*sts?
Thanks for the anecdote Katz..
My central awkwardness has never been around the art as p-orn (and i challenge y’all cto backcheck all my posts on this – i just did) but rather the contxt of creation of the pics, the audience for the images and the ongoing wellbeing of the children.
Yes, the internet has changed things.
My ambivalence remains.
SC @ 6
From today’s Australian :
Doesn’t sound much like Henson’s work to me.
I take Katz’s point at 14 however.
Kim, thanks for posting the link to the Andrew Hamilton article at Eureka Street. I agree, a really nuanced discussion of the issues at stake. And thanks for continuing to pursue the thread of this issue here, as well.
Nick – whats your point?
SC: Keelty’s description of the nature of the images seized doesn’t support your suggestion that these men were accessing Henson’s work.
No doubt it’s possible that they downloaded his photographs – there were apparently in the realm of 100,000 seized – but in the context of genuinely horrific and abusive images, Henson’s work seems pretty mild, to say the least. Keelty’s description puts into relief what sort of issues of abuse the police would be tackling if they weren’t spending their time doing the circuit of the state galleries.
Your comment seems to imply that his works should be seen in the same arena as this truly abusive material. As Katz’s anecdote illustrates, all sorts of images can be construed as sexual by the viewer, but this doesn’t mean that we should tar their creator by association.
See this post for a link to an article on the actual web behaviour of people accessing child abuse material which is based on what police who’ve investigated it say:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/06/06/child-abuse-material/
The picture painted is a lot different from what we usually imagine based on media reports, and I would suggest as well implies that Hetty Johnson really doesn’t understand how this phenomenon works.
Word. I think there’d be a very good case for suing Miranda Devine et al. It wouldn’t be very difficult to establish that Henson’s reputation has been damaged.
This needs clarifying: the National Gallery images are the ones examined by the Australian Federal Police in Canberra from the National Gallery collection.
Those images have nothing to do with the images seized from the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Paddington by the NSW Police (other than prompting the AFP to rock up to the ANG to examine the collection). There has yet to be an official determination on the images that were to be exhibited in Paddington.
I’ll be surprised if the NSW Censor finds differently from the Chief Censor though.
tigtog, it’s being reported that the DPP won’t be proceeding in NSW:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/henson-photo-not-porn-says-censor/2008/06/05/1212259014096.html
I think it is unfortunate that Hetty Johnson, who has a record of positive involvement in public life, has taken a laudable principle and pursued it in an unbalanced and single-minded way to the point of putting herself at odds with so many people who ought to be her natural allies on the basic issue of child abuse. Her involvement in this affair reminds me unpleasantly of the generally laudable Fred Hollows’ ill-considered intervention in the debate on HIV-AIDS.
Thanks, Mark. I hadn’t caught up with that. It’s about what I expected though. Still, it is only the NSW Classification board that has ruled on images distributed in the media. So far no official Censor’s ruling on the images from the Paddington gallery, unlike the official Censor’s ruling on the images from the National Gallery. I doubt it will be any different from the ruling in Canberra.
tigtog, I think there’s a little bit of confusion here. As I understand it, the censors only come into play with regard to material that’s posted online, and that’s a federal responsibility. I may be wrong, and lack the time to go back and read all the articles right now, but I think the images originally posted on the Roslyn Oxley9 website have been rated “PG”.
Nick ” Keelty’s description of the nature of the images seized doesn’t support your suggestion that these men were accessing Henson’s work.”
So these men ONLY view hard core stuff is that what you are saying?
Nick “No doubt it’s possible that they downloaded his photographs – there were apparently in the realm of 100,000 seized – but in the context of genuinely horrific and abusive images, Henson’s work seems pretty mild, to say the least. ”
Obviously.
Nick “Keelty’s description puts into relief what sort of issues of abuse the police would be tackling if they weren’t spending their time doing the circuit of the state galleries.”
This is not an either/or debate.
Nick “Your comment seems to imply that his works should be seen in the same arena as this truly abusive material.”
If that is your understanding you misread my comment.
Nick “As Katz’s anecdote illustrates, all sorts of images can be construed as sexual by the viewer, but this doesn’t mean that we should tar their creator by association.”
Care to point out where i tar Henson?
I’ve raised this here before, but you son’t seem to be familiar with ‘Spiritual America’, the naked pics of a 10 year old Brooke Shields taken with her mums permission by Garry Gross, and appropriated by Richard Prince now on display at major galleries in the USA, AND available on Ebay?
Despite Shields later objection to the images, the Court overturned an earlier injunction on the grounds that children cannot break a contract signed by a parent or guardian.
Thats where (just some of) my ambivalence lays.
sc, have you read the New Matilda article?
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/06/06/child-abuse-material/
It reports on evidence from police and researchers on web viewing of images of children in sexual contexts, as opposed to speculation about what goes on.
From Crikey:
Johnston (who didn’t return Crikey’s call before deadline) accepted donations from adult industry companies Club X, Adultshop and Gallery totalling more than $4,000 for her Senate campaign in the 2004 election.
Keep ‘em innocent up to the age of sixteen, but then you can go for it!
Eep.
sc, a counter to Brooke Shields would be Jodie Foster, who played a prostitute when she was 12. She was the original model for a famous image selling suntan lotion. This was of little girl having her pants pulled down by a dog, to reveal a bare bum. Impossible to do now. She speaks about how much she loved acting as a child and how safe and comfortable she was always made to feel.
Obviously, both of these responses are completely valid. My point is that in our vigilance against abusive situations we’re in danger of banishing images of children and adolsecents from the public realm. Under what circumstances is it valid to make an image of a child or an adolesecent?
Tigtog suggested on another thread that those images could be sequestered until the kids are old enough to give consent. I think this has great appeal ethically. But the problem, which I pointed out, was that then there would be no films or television produced with children in them, due to the financial uncertainty. This seems to me the logical conclusion of theese sorts of arguments which make the production of images so fraught as to make it almost impossible.
You would never give permission for your children to appear in such photographs. Fair enough. The parents of the children in Henson’s photos made a different decision. Also fair enough.
Mark, the article you linked to specifically referred to the NSW Classification Board ruling on images of Henson’s photos with black bars etc, and as to images from the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, so far only the one image that was on the invitation. If they’ve ruled on the rest of the images either from the gallery website or from the seized photos in the exhibition, then I can’t find it.
The multiple bodies that can issue rulings in this case combined with the multiple investigations do make it all rather confusing.
I thought the photos had been returned to the gallery and the exhibition was going to proceed as originally envisaged, tigtog?
Tigtog, my reading of that link is that that the NSW Police are advising the DPP that there is no case to answer for. It then refers to the Classification Board and their separate ruling. But it is complex and I may have read it wrongly.
Mark – yup and commented on your other thread.
Fine – my opinions have been influenced by my experiences with the very same men mentioned on that thread – both professionally and personally.
Hetty’s rhetoric is painful.
It’s a ‘healthy debate’, and intent ‘is always going to be a matter of opinion’.
But since they ‘of course, believe’ Henson did the work to ‘to satisfy his own purpose’ of achieving ‘economic gain and notoriety’…
(noticable lack of any evidence at this point to support their ‘opinion’)
…next stop ‘makes it a case of sexual commercial exploitation’.
(sorry Hetty but if you want to be taken seriously, you might also want to get your words around the right way – that would be ‘commercial sexual exploitation)
The photos have not yet been returned in the latest news that I am reading, although it appears that police have indicated that they will be returned in light of the advice they have received from the DPP (that no prosecution would succeed).
As to what the Classification Board has been looking at:
They classified that image, which was the photo on the gallery’s invitation to the exhibition, as PG, which strikes me as entirely appropriate. They can’t classify the actual photos in the gallery though – outside their ambit.
tigtog,
This article claims
“The works were expected to be returned to the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, police said.
No charges will be laid against the gallery.”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23819320-2,00.html
SC@29
With respect, to some extent it is an either/or issue – the various police forces will have spent a small fortune attending to this controversy, and I would argue that those resources could have been put to much better use. You’re right that it’s not an either/or debate, but the point I was making was with regard to police resources, which are, obviously, finite.
On re-reading your earlier comment, I agree that you didn’t set out to tar Henson – my apologies that my comment suggested that you had. But then, I’m not sure what the implications are of the images potentially having been downloaded by consumers of child pornography (or ‘child abuse material’, following the NM article). Again, I’d refer to Katz’s anecdote: the way in which images are ‘consumed’ has a complicated relationship to their circumstances of production, and there’s no straightforward reason why people’s taking sexual pleasure – however depraved – from images out of context should influence our attitude to their producer – is there?
I agree with you that the issue is an ambivalent one, and very complex. Given that the legal case is a non-starter, we’re left with ethical and critical questions. I think the Andrew Hamilton article addresses these very well.
(And no, I’m not familiar with the ‘Spiritual America’ photographs you mention, and thus can’t comment in relation to them. But obviously it’s another jurisdiction and the legal issues surrounding consent will be different.)
Here’s the latest latest news. The police are now saying the photos will be returned to the gallery.
Now I wait for the calls to change the legislation so those porn loving artists can’t sneakily corrupt our children.
Wonder how much coverage this’ll get in the MSM…
Hetty Johnston’s strange bedfellows in Crikey.
Hetty politically funded by the porn industry.
(taking a punt this article is available to non-subscribers)
or to the source….
Porn helped fund Hetty Johnston’s Senate bid
Fine: In some ways, the idea that people should discuss whether the legislation is adequate seems fair enough to me (though perhaps not in the terms that you put it!). There’s clearly an important ethical discussion to be had around these issues (and being had, however imperfectly, at the moment). It might arise from that discussion that the law surrounding these issues should be amended, at least for purposes of clarification. It seems to me that no-one has been well-served by the law in this case – not campaigners for the rights of children (rational, hysterical or otherwise), nor Bill Henson, nor any of the galleries involved.
But I’m not a lawyer, so far be it from me to suggest how things might be improved. Still, worth considering, perhaps, though whether the issues are too subtle for the ‘blunt instrument’ of the law to deal with.
And I have to admit, in the current climate of outrage and vilification, I wouldn’t be optimistic about the results.
After being one of the few media outlets to blur the face of the model in Henson’s work from the outset, today ABC News includes the photo with her face clearly visible. Do they suddenly think that because the pictures have been cleared by prosecutors and classification authorities that her privacy rights don’t apply?
Hetty needs to fall on her sword RIGHT NOW. I’m in total shock that anyone purporting to represent victims of child sexual abuse could possibly take money from the pron industry.
Those wondering what I’m on about might want to do some reading about the child sexual assault, hyper-sexualisation and the connection to pron. Estimates suggest anywhere up to 90% of pron ‘actresses’ were victims as youngsters. This means that pron is basically a continuation of the abuse.
Hetty has permanently damaged herself and other child sexual abuse advocates. WHAT AN IDIOT!!!
Alex , agreed.
That does surprise me about Johnson. I understand the argument about the p..n industy being seen to distinguish itself from CSA, but this kinda brings up some of the same objections i have to the Saudi’s funding poor old Griffith’s Islamic study centre.
The old question of whether the ends justifies the means.
If you are interested in this debate and you live in Sydney, you may be interested in attending a public forum which has been organised by Watch on Censorship and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA).
Art Censorship: The Bigger Picture is on next Thursday 12 June from 6pm to 8pm at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
The forum will feature a panel of speakers from diverse perspectives including Hetty Johnston, Clive Hamilton, Julian Burnside, Ian Howard and a representative from the gallery sector (TBA). The evening will be MC’d by Margaret Pomeranz and the discussion chaired by David Marr. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers.
This is a free event sponsored by Frankel Lawyers. All welcome.
More info on the NAVA website: http://www.visualarts.net.au.
http://www.rootsandleaves.com/Emmabelle/EsteeMartin/Kevin Rudd.jpg
Tig tog, that is a marvellous photograph of a sulphur crested cockatoo as header for your posts. Excellent taste indeed!
To an earlier comment about suing Devine. Media Watch and others have mentioned the role the Shockjocks also played in this.
I despise Devine, who to me is just a pathological liar, meglomaniac and troublemaker. Like the shockjocks.
The press and media need to straightened out every time they do cheap beatups for ratingsd or circulation and as diversionary practice in relation to real world issues.
And a lot of really dirty-minded people out there need to get their minds above their navels for five seconds.
Hetty is a grade 1 Hypocrite with this comment.
[She says she can not understand why anyone would have a problem with her decision to accept the money because she says there is no link between adult pornography and child abuse.
"I wouldn't associate myself with anybody who I believed was a threat to children," Ms Johnston said.
]
http://www.abcscience.net.au/news/stories/2005/03/30/1333989.htm
She has completely lost any credability she had as an advocate for Child Sexual Abuse with this episode.
Hetty on the charges not bein laid.
[But high-profile anti-child abuse campagner Hetty Johnston, from the Bravehearts group, says it is a dark day.
"This is a big green light for the commercial sexual exploitation of our children," she said.
"There was money exchanged so that this child could pose nude as a model to take these photos. Those photos are then sold. That is commercial sexual exploitation.
"That we can't prosecute that in this country is an absolute disgrace."]
http://www.abcscience.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/06/2267360.htm
How does she know that money was exchanged? My understanding is that hte models receive a gallery standard print for their work.
I don’t know if there is a link between child pornography and adult pornography. Does anyone have any research on this?
There is a big difference between a painting – and a photograph. A photograph is of real people, paintings come from the artist’s mind. The fact that Bill Hensen’s painting have been found OK, is a sign of the times. They are not nice photos and in time to come the subjects in these photos could have a change of mind, and being under age at the time of the snaps, sue the photographer well and truly. Hope they do.
Camille, you realise what you just said? You might want to re-read your statement.
Painters use models too or didn’t you realise that…
And since the photographs were found to be ‘OK’, what’s the basis for suing? By your logic, any child could sue any photographer for any photo, once they come of age.
Nick (avatar-less)
Yes, painters do use models. Are the models underage? The argument here is the photographs are not nice and the children are underage, and in time may be embarrassed by them, and the fact that these photos have been used for public display too! I personally think the whole saga is awful, and don’t wonder there is a public outcry! The usual family photographs are not of that nature. There have been incidents where film has been sent in for processing and the authorities notified of some of the photos. I just don’t think we want that stuff around.
Yes, of course the models are underage – when they’re paintings of underage models. Or do you imagine painters paint 18 year olds to look like 12 year olds?
Your argument was that there’s a big difference between a painting and a photograph. Since it’s not that difficult to paint a photo-realistic portrait (it’s been done a few million times or more) – what’s the big difference?
In other news, I see on Lateline pr0n industry spokespeople have been backing Hetty to the hilt tonight.
I heard twice, once on radio and then on TV, that when the pictures are returned to the gallery viewing will be by appointment only.
Stupid bedfellows.
‘If I was to take similar photos and display them in any of our *********.com retail stores, albeit only to adults, coming through the door, they would definately be considered child-pr0n, and here in Western Australia I’d be jailed for that.’
Who’s not going to be aware there’s a difference between an art gallery open to the public of all ages, and a s0x shop. He says albeit like he’s already considered that what he’s saying is a nonsense.
Intent and public benefit – Hetty’s points of legal debate/interpretation – thrown right out the window.
At the rate she’s going, Hetty Johnston is the single person who could actually swing mainstream public opinion around back to front on this issue.
And still (I think) no word from on her on the ‘real’ child abuse photos.
camille:
Great argument. Let’s ban ‘Funniest Home Videos’ on that basis. (On second thoughts, let’s ban it on aesthetic grounds).
(I didn’t mean to leave ‘real’ apostrophised by the way…was going to say something else)
[Stupid bedfellows.
‘If I was to take similar photos and display them in any of our *********.com retail stores, albeit only to adults, coming through the door, they would definately be considered child-pr0n, and here in Western Australia I’d be jailed for that.’]
And here is the lateline story with that stupid comment.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2267859.htm
[At the rate she’s going, Hetty Johnston is the single person who could actually swing mainstream public opinion around back to front on this issue.]
Agreed, she is the Maude Flanders of Australia.
And here is Hetty’s full comments on the Henson Desicion.
She is delusional !
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2008/6/6/2267661.htm
I suppose my only question on this would be, was the message so important that such a delicate taboo had to be violated?
If so, what exactly was the message? It seems the only discussion to come out of this display is whether he’s a pervert or an artist.
From the smage
Laughing stock indeed, for her input and Rudd’s et al. Not for the outcome.
Chris Morris’ Brass Eye “Paedogeddon” special part 1/3 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7jVnrfoZD8 – the most complained about show in the history of British television.
Chris Morris’s Paedogeddon has been to the forefront of my mind as I witnessed this whole thing. (Cake – about an allegedly new street drug – is worth a look too). Surely no one has more effectively skewered how the media opportunistically beats up moral panic.
At the end of this, I just feel incredibly sad. Henson is of course within his rights to sue, since his reputation and integrity has been irretrievably sullied, but if he is wise he won’t. There is, of course, the precedent of what happened to Oscar Wilde; an example of how a prurient society destroyed an artist. Wilde, one of the greatest writers and most subtle minds of his time, wrote nothing of note after he came out of jail. And the pro-life, anti-gay (and anti-Harry Poetter) Christians, as well as our Hetty, are making very hostile threats to use this case as a lever, presumably to agitate the change the law. I fear that this is by no means over.
I have a strange feeling this is far from over. Given Ken07’s “I will let the law decide but my views remain unchanged” I think he knows he has muck on his face. The reason why it will not go away is because Hetty just will not stop.
I have had grave doubts about Hetty Johnston for years now and the Bill Henson affair has certainly confirm many of them. There are a growing number of sexual abuser survivors who are speaking out now asking what the hell this woman is on.
Please forgive me, slight OT rant…
Also, not every developmental psychologist agrees with her views. She seems to parade this bizzare notion that young people are absolutely sexually latent until coming of proper age. Well, I do not remember my teenage years like that, and I would have thought for healthy sexual development we should be talking about young people’s sexuality openly in all its gory difficulties instead of sweeping it under the carpet. That is something completely aside from child protection. Acknowledging sexualitiy in the young does not imply avaiability for adult use! This is just demented thinking! I think there is a very clear distinction here.
By way of example, a close friend of mine who is gay told me that he “knew” he was gay at about six years old. Now he did not have the language to express it, he also knew it was taboo (this was a kid growing up in the 70s). And when he hit puberty it was just so aweful for him as a result of those feelings being amplified by hormones etc. No support for him, nothing. Now, I do not quite know what to make of that but, judging on things I have read my friend’s experience are by no means unusual. I would think it awful if our society took a Victorian era approach to this and pretended it did not exist.
Our society needs a safe but brutally honest way of being able to discuss sexuality issues facing the young in saftey.
returning from OT land slightly…
I am also uncomfortable that a victim support organisation doubles as a political lobby group whose agenda seems to be getting broader.I certainly hope that funds that are supposed to be directed to victim support are going that way instead of towards campaigning, now that she is campaigning outside her orginal charter.
It is an interesting observation that she has had very little to say about Centruion. I think the police should let her view the evidence they are collecting and then she might actually see the diference. The AFP person who was interviewed seemed to know the difference but I have low expectations of the police.
Thinking about development and transition. It has been said before by many people but Henson photographs deing with the transition out of childhood real exemplify just how uncomfortable everyone really is with sexuality in the young. Now way that I can see that he even is putting sexuality under the microscope. He is just letting the body be itself and let it tell its own stories–in the dark and shadow lands.
This will not end nicely.
There are lots of different agendas tied up in this. I think your notion of letting the body tell it’s own stories is half right. Like all good art, the pictures ask us about our own story and that is where the Hetty space begins.
I’m still quietly boggling about the fact that this entire thing is a result of three official complaints.
The temporal contiguity of the Henson affair and the nation-wide child porn arrests creates an interesting contrast and comparison. A couple of observations:
1. Hetty Johnson is still popping up in the media re Henson,saying things such as, “If the law is so pathetic it can’t protect our children, it needs to change.” I haven’t heard her say anything yet about the massive crackdown on Internet child porn – has anyone heard a peep out of her on this matter?
2. The fact that Queensland police felt the AFP may have jumped the gun and given some suspects a chance to destroy evidence makes me worry that Henson-induced pressure to appear to be doing legitimate child protection work affected operational decisions – I hope that wasn’t the case.
[1. Hetty Johnson is still popping up in the media re Henson,saying things such as, “If the law is so pathetic it can’t protect our children, it needs to change.” I haven’t heard her say anything yet about the massive crackdown on Internet child porn - has anyone heard a peep out of her on this matter?]
Yep, she’s been strangely silent on the matter – I wonder if it’s because those already caught in the net being teachers and police officers, do not fit preferred profile of the average kiddie perv merchant ?
Alison, your passion for art and free expression comes through clearly. Indeed, an uncertain pain comes through as well.
May I have a shot at taking away your sadness, to replace it with a few thoughts to move forward? Won’t say this will cheer you up, but as attempt to raise a possibility from the line of your thinking, here goes..
It will be about how confusion from this place can bear upon the things you are concerned about.
This comment is to take a moment here to attempt to deal with the art, in brief and in supposition. I’m no connoisseur of Henson’s work – and I doubt many commenters on this issue are, so it’s given really as observation for what it’s worth, and to add an imaginative scenario that might at least be of interest.
How about this? Let’s say there’s, what, 18 months of investor interest in Henson’s work after this mass swamping of media, within an ‘art world’ as you may hold dear. This includes interest of a cautionary nature to further investment value. That is, ‘Henson’ has now been elevated within the art/investor dynamic which places the work in hot new realms. Let’s hold that possibility a moment.
Next up we have the question of Henson’s artwork itself. Where has the work moved to? What more has the artist said?
Let’s be aware here that modern printing oozes into the frame a luscious silky gorgeousness which can take photography as a medium into rich new levels of visual power. I’ve seen results from one of only two professional machines in Australia which blow you away, and these would be far from top range available. Depths and subtleties of inmagery available are, simply, breathtaking.
Of course, Henson has captured qualities of light and subtlety which at times stands the work alone. This comment is not to deny that.
It is fair, however, while probably being contentious in some ways, to say also that the ‘moment’ Henson is capturing is not something he alone can do or is remarkably able to do: the nether world between the child and the adult. We know what he has said he wants to achieve. Take the clothes off an adolescent, put them in front of a camera, and I’d suggest those goals can be readily achieved.
Again, this is not to take away from what Henson has achieved artistically – but what it is to say is that once the investor/art flourish has passed, if he were to put out the same imnagery yet again, with them going nowhere else, saying nothing more, ‘he’ll’ be ripped down in shreds. Can you hear the cry: “Enough!”
Indeed, Alison, it’s not over yet. One of the dangers I would suggest, while you are so beautifully taken with your concerns, is that if this possible scenario as outlined here comes to pass, then the matters involved will be terribly confused because of this particular work which has already said as much as it can (according to what the creator wants of it).
Can we fairly expect there to be a flourish about Henson’s work for a while? After that, what then? More of the same, but for the value of technologies? In two, three, five years’ time… more naked adolescents, vulnerable between child- and adulthood? (And what does this do for the society you imagine, when art is supposed to enlighten, after years of going nowhere else with it?)
I may be very wrong here. Henson may well go on to deliver something more. But these latest works haven’t done so, after so many years, and there’s nothing from the work to say he ever will. Will the realisation of this “going nowhere”, finally, be confused with censorship or some other affront? Would such realisation of limitation be confused with a reputation sullied? Would such affront be confused as the “destruction of an artist”?
Hey! Didn’t women get pregnant at 13 & 14 in Shakespeare novels?…and during LIFE’s shortcuts when we didn’t have much time? Well, we’re beyond that PACE now. So, let’s give the younguns TIME to EXPLORE. Like an ALIEN EMPIRE would say to us if it arrived w/ hundreds of years at its disposal.
Don’t know about YOU. But those younguns don’t seem affeared of anything but that which leaves them ALONE & COLD.
I saw LIGHTS land at AIRPORTS. From a afar…on hills…& close as a WORKER.
If someone took a photo…would I seem NAKED? EXPLOITED? Afraid? Naive? Vulnerable? Old enuff?
Do YOU…feel that way.
Are YOU CALLING? At the Baghdad Cafe…? Or in Texasland?
Wide screen…now on TV…who wins…& loses…and buys buys, distracts, distracts… in the GAME?
TIME…
Well no cause he didn’t write any. However from one of his plays:
Romeo and Juliet
ACT I, Sc 2
Bit naff rhyming ‘made’ with ‘made there Bill but well said enough.
Amazing. Now that the NSW DPP has decided Henson has no case to answer Peter Garrett gets a sudden attaqck of moral courage and says that the courts are no place to decide questions of art. Piss weak, as usual.
Meaning: I insist that this is pornographic even tho’ it isn’t. This debate has highlighted the strengths and weakness of the arguments of religious social conservatives and those who oppose them. Throughout this debate the argument has always been: it’s pornography, of course it’s pornography. Because I say it is.
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It occurred to me that these people weren’t just tarring Henson, they were tarring me! I’ve been a fan of Hensons for than two decades. That means, according to this argument, that I’ve been a consumer of child pornography. Every time I check out his books or visit his shows that’s what I’m doing.
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But the funny thing is that my reception of this stuff is completely different from my reaction to pornography artistic and otherwise. There are sculptures in the NGV that are pornographic most definitely. These are of the late-19th early 20th century variety of neo-classical marbles. Y’know the Spring Sprite meets Pan featuring some very lovely bodies posed just so, lovely faces in an ecstatic 3-D freezeframe. Henson’s stuff just isn’t doing that.
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But they say it is. They don’t have to provide reasons all they have to do is keep saying it again and again and again to an hysterical fever pitch: Please God! Won’t somebody think of the fucking children.
I think Hetty is moving south for a while to clean up all that ‘art filth’ in eastern Sydney. Hetty’s only word about the p*rn bust so far was about the Queensland suicide teacher.
One thing that has stuck me about this affair, and I am viewing it as an ex-pat Australian, so I do not have access to all the media speak, is that the newspapers at least have represented it as ‘art luvvies’ versus mainstream Australian values, and the consequent argument being that arty farties are out of touch…I am sure everone here can fill the gaps in that one.
What has been very interesting from reading the discussion about this is that nothing could be further from the truth. There are plenty of ‘mainstream Australians’ equally uncomfortable about the persecution of Bill Henson and even more concerned with the nude=porn argument that has been peddled by certain quarters of Australian society and regurgitated with gusto by the media.
There are some serious issues about how this has to be debated. It is not good enough for the arts community to simply say that this demonstrates how little many Australians understand art. This might be true in part. I actually believe it is true, but the argument smacks of the sort of elitism that becomes cannon-fodder for talk-back radio, tabloid newspapers and even more centrist journalists. There are plenty of other ways the issue can be debated intelligently. This forum and many others demonstrate just how many intelligent views can be put forward on both sides of it.
I get some of the editions of Sky News Australia where I live. I saw a live interview with the person who bought the Henson photograph in protest. The unfortunate thing was that the gentleman interview was then asked to critique the photograph for its artist merit. What was clear from that point was that this gentleman was an art buyer not an art critic or historian. Irrespective of anything he said the newsreader who interviewed him repeatedly said that “we have received many emails from many concerned parents about these photographs” and then went on to tacitly imply that his views were out of step. Then the broadcast went straight to operation Centurion, so implicitly equivocating these two very separate issues.
In light of this I think that it is a shame that someone who understands the cultural and artistic issues and who can articulate them in a sound bite sort of way has not come forward to express them in the mainstream media. The closest thing I heard was the NSW law society comments. They raised the serious cultural and legal concerns for many Australian families if nudity is deemed pornographic.
Lastly, I think it is time the police fessed up and explained to those in the community who do not know just how far away the art of Henson et al. actually is from images of child exploitation. This is the thing I have found most striking. I have had the misfortune of knowing a few paedophiles, including the one who abused me, and I can tell you from what I have seen, art books are not high on their agenda of gratification.
Adrian and Dan – I’ve never run the pornography line, nor have several others here who expressed ambivalence around the issues around the HEnson pics.
I’ve repeatedly said my (primary) issues were around the individual circumstances of the child/ren photographed, and the appropriateness of the state to investigate to ensure her wellbeing. I happen to think thats the mark of an advanced society.
Re: Centurian – Many of the men who’ve been caught were in socially respectable positions with access to children. I think a reasonable person would have to concede that given the prevalance of grooming and exploitation practices, we are right to be careful about any context where a minor is placed in a vulnerable situation. I would have appreciated more from the arts community acknowledging the importance of ensuring this is the case for those kids.
Yes subline cowgirl I think the arts community needed to make more of the issue of care. I am not sure I know what the point of balance is in this. I am pleased to see that some of Henson’s past models have come out in support.
There are some who behave exploitatively and groom children, but if we take away every risk that could be posed for children, very quickly there will not be much left that they can do safely. I think that is the wrong route to go down. This has already happened to a large extent as anyone who grew up before 1990s would attest to given children’s freedom to roam being curtailed for example.
I think lots can be gained by empowering children to know that they have no fear in saying if someone does something that makes them feel uncomfortable. A lot has been gained in this direction over the years. Kids have full right to say if someone is hurting them or making them feel uncomfortable without guilt or reproach, and I belive it is a lesson that must be learnt as early as possible. Is is a part of any human being’s empowerment; the adult extension of which is captured in the slogan “no means no”. There is of course a tension here, because kids are forever implored to obey and respect adults.
Getting back to the arts community, I was quite comfortable with the content of the open letter to Kevin Rudd, I thought they gave some good acknowledgement to society’s concerns about sexual exploitation. I also thought the tone of the letter was appropriately sobering. They could have said a lot more too, I suppose.
We are in the midst of a moral panic at the moment and to me at least, that is something very different from ‘heightened awareness’ or ‘issues of concern’. History has shown that decisions made in response to the collective knee-jerk inside times of moral panic are rarely good ones. Hopefully the time will come when there will be less shrieking from the likes of Hetty Johnston, and collectively, the community can get with addressing the issue of child abuse (and not just the sexual variety).
And now that the art vs pron debate has been argued out ad nauseum. And now that art is once again art, and now that Hetty Johnson has been condemned to the realms of hysteria and moral panic, and now that what has happened has been labelled moral panic rather than the raising of an a subterranean anxiety surrounding the sexuality of children and now that the fear of those who would exploit the vulnerability of children has been placed solidly in hysterical camp of Miranda and co, and now that everyone has killed the monster, whatever that monster was for them, I want to raise one aspect of the debate which I have not seen explored in any detail, unless someone can point me to some writing on this anywhere.
I was listening to the philosophers zone on ABC radio on Saturday. Saunders was interviewing Associate Professor Chris Cordner who supported Henson’s work, but did raise as an aside, the limited nature of the adolescence Henson portrays:
“Always slender models, always lit in a romantic kind of way – and that this suggests limitedness to the capacity of Hensens images to depict beauty in adolescence”
In other words what kind of adolescent bodies are we seeing through the lens of Bill Henson:
http://www.egothemag.com/archives/2005/08/bill_henson.htm
or this
http://www.egothemag.com/archives/2005/08/bill_henson.htm
I would say for all the talk (myself included) about how bill henson’s shots return one to the liminal spaces of adolescence, and how that made us feel the fragility of that threshold, I would ask how many of us actually really looked like Henson’s models when feeling that fragility. I would argue not many. Because Henson’s models, still only girls, chosen specifically for their body type, and are posed and lit to be seen as impossibly beautiful. Girls have traditionally been interpolated by all sorts of impossible standards of beauty as they begin to consider their own looks in adolescence. Tall slender long limbed beauties are Henson’s idea of adolescence. Not unlike magazine models who portray similar standards by which teenagers are reminded of their lack. In other words another male gaze reproducing an idealised and specifically, a very limited idea of the embodiment of the beauty in adolescence. Where are all the other markers of the discomfort of the threshold, the budding breasts are there, the chiselled faces moving out of babyhood, but where is the evidence of the other hormonal changes which accompany the curve of the new breast? Where are the pimples, the sudden weight gain, the hair spurts? But hairless these girls remain. Slim they remain. Muscles clearly visible beneath the white skin. And this skin is always white. Isnt it just another romance seen throug the male gaze?
Sorry here is the other link
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/deepend/features/gallery/gallery2005/img/artworks/henson_big.jpg
casey – to be fair to Henson, some of his early work featured adolescent males.
Actually, I don’t like Henson’s work, though I’m not quite ready to dissect my reasons in public. But whatever reservations I may have are quite remote from the general arena of child pornography. In my opinion, the claims that have been laid against Henson are seriously misguided. The events of the last fortnight seem to me to be as near to the vindictive spirit of the Salem witch-trials as any I have witnessed in my lifetime.
I’ve seen facets of Henson’s work over some 25 years. I’ve read about Henson, and I’ve seen Henson in interview. Even though my dislike of his work is strong enough that I’m predisposed to think negatively of him, to me Henson as an individual comes across as someone who is entirely genuine. Maybe he’s a gifted actor, perhaps he’s entirely self-deluded, but I am unable to convince myself that he is anything other than what he claims to be.
casey, I think you may be reading too much into a limited cross-section of henson’s work. If you were, for instance, discussing David Hamilton’s work, I’d unhesitatingly agree with you. But not in this context. In addition, I don’t think its necessarily incumbent on artist to portray stratified representative samples of the population at large (though that’s exactly what the photographer August Sander attempted when he sought to smash the Nazi myth of an Aryan Germany).
More to the point, it is likely that Henson is employing archtypes – ones that our society readily recognises – as a vehicle to explore the psychological transformations that we undergo as our bodies go through the transitions from childhood to adolescence, and then from maturity to old age.
There are some serious debates to be had regarding the commercial sexualization of pre-teens. But I find it strange that those who have led the attack on Henson in the name of protecting children – and let’s stop pretending that teenagers are ‘children’ who are not already highly sexualized – have chosen as their target an artist who is presenting material to a minority audience, rather than confronting those powerful interests who use mass media to manipulate pre-teen sensibilities to their financial benefit.
So what about Vaughan Johnson? There walks a real nutter.
wbb, you mean the fellow who wishes to institute obligatory sepuki for alleged kiddy fiddlers?
I agree, total nutter. A blight on parliamentary democracy, at least on this matter, with little prospect for redemption in other respects.
And really isn’t this the problem? So many self-righteous commentators with such dogmatic views on a complex and nuanced territory?
The madness did not end with the Howard govt’s defeat.
casey, you’ve made some very good points which I’ll be thinking about further.
Casey, you do indeed make some valuable points…the representation of young people by way of skinny models has concermed me over the years.
Plenty of homeless & abused kids are much weightier.
My wife informs me that young students still bully each other over weight & girls feel depressed about the stereotypical representations of young women in magazines, TV shows etc.
It seems to feed into an integrated corporate system that helps foster the anxiety, feeds the fear, promotes the bullying & then profits by way of mags, diet books, ads in shows/films, so called weight-loss packaged foods, gyms, BIG PHARMA products, cosmetics to hide the SHAME (sigh), self-help books including those related to anorexia, news items & current affairs’ BS that shouts out about OBESITY ad-nauseum (tho I’m pleased to see govt. ads & school efforts to promote natural foods, less takeaway/fast food)…the list goes on & on.
It’s a BUSINESS. Filled w/ shareholders who stir the pot. Henson should try not to feed it.
Some of my Gay friends are similarily obsessed w/ weight. They often comment on my weight when I first see them…or show concern. We joke…or I give the “no nonsense” eye & then we move on. They’re lovely individuals, generally, but the obsession undermines the conversation sometimes. Strangely, plenty of the older ladies in my wife’s family are doing same. It’s like the first topic of discussion. And often they haven’t lost more than a couple of kilos for all their effort. It’s SO boring. And irritating.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
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Re: Shakespeare: “Well no cause he didn’t write any.”
Adrien, that’s up for debate. Still, too many facades & myths out there for my likings.
I should learn not to drink & reduce…:) By that time my brain had shrunk to the size of a peanut & rolled out my left ear. Fortunately I was able to retrieve it & submerge it in water & nutrients until it returned to normal size…give or take a few cells. Most likely the latter.
Interestingly, was talking about both Francis Bacon & Christopher Marlowe to my wife the other day.
Nonsense! If the myths and facades to which you refer are of the ‘Shakespeare was actually the Earl of Oxford’ variety it doesn’t matter. The ouevre attributable to Shakespeare contains plays and poems – no novels. Hardly surprising the novel was, well, novel at the time and I can’t think of English language novellist before Defoe. Of course the view that the novel appeared in the 17th century is debatable.
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William Shakespeare wrote those plays. The Oxfordians et al have been discredited time and again. For some reason they still manage to gain new recruits.
I didn’t. I still dug ‘em when I was that age.
They are not only girls where does that come from?
I don’t think that’s true at all. In the context of fashion photography it seems absurd to target him for that. But its called Art; artists are not under any obligation to fulfil some political agenda viz the Equality of Beauty or some such. Artists do make beautiful things, people don’t go to galleries to view lumpenbeige banalities.
SLCG -
I’d agree with that. I wasn’t talking about you btw. However…
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Dan -
I think the whole community could do with a booster course in care. Once again there was never the slightest bit of evidence that Henson had done anything bad to anyone. Why is the ‘arts community’ to be targeted because of this hysteria? Again and again the evidence links extreme sexual repression usually associated with the very institutions of ‘morality’ that stir these pots. However let’s go after the artists.
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It’s not about protecting children; it’s Oliver fucking Cromwell again. I am so sick of people who wish to spread their internal misery around like it’s some manadatory virtue. To Paul of Tarsus and his fellow-travellers go and get some fucking therapy!
Interestingly, it seems the pictures police were most concerns about were not the ones splashed around by the media, but the ones The Gallery kept out the back – the young males with full genitalia showing for ’selective viewing only’
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23822630-2,00.html(This means the classification board didn't rate the ones considered most problematic).
I'm not sure if this means the gallery was 'socially responsible' and kept this images away from indiscriminate gaze, or whether this makes it sound more like a sex shop where the best stuff is kept in the 'back room' to 'trusted customers' only.
Adrian, i'm not sure there was ever any evidence that Micheal Jackson had done anything bad to anyone, though i think it was right to scrutinise his ongoing contact with adolescents and ensure their wellbeing. I know its a different situation, but i'm not sure the state was wrong to ask questions of Jackson, even if it sparked by media hysteria.
Please correct my crap grammar as required.
Update: Alison Croggon has written another post on the Henson controversy, link rich, and those who’d like to see Hetty Johnson and David Marr in the same room talking about it can do so at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art on Thursday at 6pm.
Thanks Feral Abacus for your considered response. I always look forward to reading what you have to say. Of course Henson does not limit his subject to the adolescent female. But it was this aspect of his work that caused the brouhaha. Some of the links obviously show adolescent boys and I suggest that the same could be said of the depiction of male adolescence as beautiful fine limbed, hairless whites skinned boys.
Which is why I also found this article interesting yesterday:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/fashion/too-fat-for-paris/2008/06/05/1212863500645.html
It is certainly a rigid and limited vision of adolescence that Henson adheres to, either female or male. And one which conforms to dominant cultural models of male and female beauty today. So what boundaries are really being pushed here? Not too many I would suggest.
Now obviously the rigid aesthetics of the adolescents Bill Henson has posing for him can also be seen on catwalks of Europe. So what archetypes? And if archetypes, then why not, as Professor Cordner also mentioned, rubenesque models then? Why thin ethereal white paris catwalk model types?
PS: I saw the Sander exhibit in Sydney. And I certainly agree that his determination to reveal the heterogeneity of the German people beautifully underminded Nazi propaganda concerning the idealisation of the aryan German archetype. It was dangerous work. This is precisely how explorations of bodies can work politically as well as aesthetically. Something, I would suggest, that is missing in Henson’s work precisely because of his choice of idealised adolescent bodies which conform to current cultural standards of beauty.
Pardon.
Underminded = undermined.
Small hangover.
Actually there was. Jackson socialized specifically with kids, he shared his bed with them, he showed ‘em pornography. Very dodgy and yes the State had the obligation to investigate and prosecute. He had very good counsel.
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I think the Henson thing is different because there’s an assumption that displaying adolescent nudes is pornographic exploitation. There was a complete absence of any allegation of wrongdoing by anyone save for people who felt uncomfortable confronted by his work. In a free society one cannot invoke the censor on the grounds that one is offended or discomfited. Don’t like it?; don’t look – simple. My problem with this affair has been that people have simply made irresponsible allegations about someone because they have a problem. The police were obliged to investigate, however in my opinion they went too far.
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I’m not sure that a lot of this hysteria is being generated by persons trying to protect adolescents or children. Sex in the Judeo-Christian moral system is a problem. when I was an adolescent I got signals from adults all the time that there was something dirty about me. Henson’s work was part of my arsenal against such nefarious ignorance.
Now obviously the rigid aesthetics of the adolescents Bill Henson has posing for him can also be seen on catwalks of Europe. So what archetypes? And if archetypes, then why not, as Professor Cordner also mentioned, rubenesque models then? Why thin ethereal white paris catwalk model types?
I’d suggest that the fashion industry’s aesthetics are probably based on the archetype of early adolescence upon which Henson draws. I don’t believe that this is some kind of constructed dominant model. The idealization of adolescent beauty – male and female – is thousands of years old. In fashion, and I’d agree that this is problematic, this is related to the fact that essentially models are sales agents for the textile industry. Something Tina Turner said about David Bowie’s suave ‘coathanger’ body comes to mind.
The word rigid doesn’t come to mind when I see the work but anyway. You seem to be suggesting that Henson should be making some kind of agitprop for Resistance by those “who are oppressed by the figures of beauty”. That he has an obligation for example to present non-Caucasians or stocky bodies or some such. He is not, and artists generally do not, produce some kind of idealistic template conforming to socially inclusive notions of a desirable democratic aesthetic. One of life’s cruelty’s is that we aren’t all beautiful, brilliant, healthy and strong. Henson didn’t make it that way, neither did society. It’s just how it is.
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The Rubenesque figures that people often refer to in contradicting the ‘human coathanger’ aesthetic should be seen in the context of early modern Europe. That is a Europe newly enriched by early capitalism and imperial plunder. People got fat then. In the 17th Netherlands the authorities actually passed a law against obesity! Given that Rubens and other painters had wealthy patrons whom they were obliged to flatter, given that the Dutch school took pains to present ‘realism’ (Rubens was Flemish and of the Baroque) it’s unsurprising that much of the art of the 17th century depicts persons of wide girth.
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I’m all for pluarlistic and multifarious concepts of beauty. And I do think the fashion industry is promoting literally impossible standards of beauty. However the idealism of adolescence is not therefore bad or wrong. The answer as always is, if you see an absence of something, do something about it. Pick up a camera.
Kim Thanks for the link.
I know Alison disapprovied of Michael Leunig’s piece, but i thought his perspective was facinating and his analogy of the arts establishment and institutions with old church establishment and institutions was deeply insightful.
From Leunig in the Age :
http://www.theage.com.au/news/michael-leunig/art-from-the-heart/2008/06/05/1212259005269.html"The art photographer Bill Henson is in trouble with the law for taking pictures of naked young people who are below the age of consent. Making such images seems to be his enduring preoccupation and I don't understand how a mature man would want to do such a thing or even how he could, but I am equally perplexed by the huge endorsement and honour bestowed upon him by the art establishment for producing this work. Henson is no outsider. Vincent he is not. But there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in my philosophy and heaven only knows what these "more things" might be. Some say his work is creepy pornography that culturally legitimises and fosters pedophilia, others hold the considered view that it's abusive and exploitative, while others defend it unreservedly in chorus, seeing any forceful questions or challenge about its essence as a sure sign of ignorance, repression and mindless resistance to change.But the world changes in many ways and is asking difficult new questions about ethics, psychological abuse, human rights and the misuse of human identity by photographers and media, as well as invasion and theft by camera. And the art priests are being challenged.
On the one hand, people are asked to be open to art and listen to their hearts but on the other are insulted and ridiculed for the consequences of doing so and daring to meet the artist's aggression head-on.
Artists must never shrink from a confrontation with society or the state, and at this time and circumstance in our history, art followers need not get too pious and prissy about policemen raiding art galleries in order to conduct their inquiries, so long as they do it according to protocol. Surely it's a lively art happening in itself, and perhaps the art ghetto needs more such worldly grit and spark and less chardonnay chiaroscuro. Sometimes artists shock the population with painful truths and difficult beauties, but sometimes it's the other way around and artists too need to be confronted with uncomfortable realities and the shock of the new.
Adrian – you just called the work Micheal Jackson had P..N!!!!
Do you realise it was actually Germaine Greer’s The Boy – the portrayal of male adolescents in art and photography ?
I’ve referred to it previously here. I’ve read it. I think i may actually include Hensons work, but i’m not certain on that.
You’ve just crushed your own argument by calling this type of art, porn.
No I haven’t because, well, no I haven’t.
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I wasn’t aware that Michael Jackson had a copy of Greer’s attempts to co-opt Paglia. I was referring more to magazines like Hustler. I think everyone from Larry Flynt on down will agree that that is porn. The Boy is a polemic about aesthetics.
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Like the Leunig bit. Andrew Bolt’ll have kittens. They’re on the same side! Oh no!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4091990.stm
Micheal Jackson was cleared of all charges against him and as such is an innocent man who did nothing wrong. Isn’t he?
Interesting the parallels with the way that high profile stars such as Elizabeth Taylor rushed to support his innocence, merely on character, and Macauly Calkin was trotted out to say “he never touched me’ to prove Micheals innocence.
While not denying that reputation counts for ’something’, the logic that if an artist/singer/teacher doesn’t exploit one person/model/student, that they could never cross the line with another, is one of the more farcical aspects of this whole affair.
I can’t believe how often apparently educated commentators on this topic have made this assumption, that more likely goes to demonstrates how hard it is for victim’s to be believed in the face of a person of ‘good’ character.
Look i’m not saying hensons a pornographer, nor am i saying Micheal Jackson is a peadophile.
I’m just saying that this is an area that we need to tread on very very carefully.
Ironically, in the wash up of the Micheal jackson affair, it was the mother of the adolescent who ended up being scrutinized most closely and came off looking the worst for her apparently poor judgement of allowing her children to have contact with Jackson, a man for whom questions had been raised in the past.
But surely she made a balanced and considered judgement? Jackson was, after all, a friend of Elizabeth Taylor and his books about naked adolescents, merely art.
It would be a good move for NAVA or a body like that to run some workshops about the law pertaining to child protection and labour, as well as the ethics of such, if they’re not doing so already. Apart from anything else, there’s probably some artists feeling very confused and nervous about such issues.
I have no problem with people critiquing Henson’s art because that was never an issue. He shouldn’t need to be politically exemplary to be defended. And I’d agree that his vision of the adolescent body is limited. There’s only certain sorts of bodies he’s interested in. Is that a problem for his art? I think so. But it’s not a problem for this debate.
I think there’s a problem with such an extensive investigation being launched on the back of three complaints. What’s to prevent a lobby group to now go around making vexatious reports about every piece of art they disapprove of? There’s been a lot of talk about where lines should be drawn. Let’s reverse this. Where do we draw the line about what art is investigated because someone has made a complaint?
There’s no monsters been slain here. The issues and the problems, regardless of one’s opinion,are still the same. No-one’s won. But I applaud NAVA putting on the evening at the MCA.
I was meta commenting about the argument here – referring to the monsters (fears) in peoples heads and hearts as they argued with such vigour and fury during the week on this blog, and alluding to the neat dividing lines which seemed to be formed neatly by some. Pro Henson art (liberal) or anti Henson prono (conservative/reactionary) or in the middle I cant make up my mind about anything (gutless wonder makeup your mind) but I like Henson/but the unformed children. It was irony.
And personally, and this is just me, I do think a critique of Henson’s art is a valid inclusion in all of this debate – for while I am convinced that policemen do not belong in art galleries, as one of the pollies so eloquently said, I would not be quite so inclined to argue so passionately in defence of the rights of the male gaze to cast adolescence in its unrealistic catwalk apparitions, even if it happened to be at the Oxley9. In defence of artistic freedom here, with Henson and his skinny teenagers in mind, I’d maybe argue adequately, limpidly, maybe languidly. I’d have a biscuit and a cup of tea for sure, but I would certainly not argue passionately for the reinscription of parisian chic plastered across ominous Australian skies. But thats just me. Its only a personal opinion.
And I do believe the amazing alacrity with which the DDP decided not to lay charges should sound a warning to the groups who would wish to try this stunt again.
The difference here is that no one was alleging they were a victim, as was the case with Michael Jackson. It’s a very important distinction.
That’s a moot point
But tell me why do we collectively have a lingering feeling of unease about Jackson?
Because he never made a record to equal Thriller?
Honestly, sc, I just don’t see how the two sets of circumstances are analogous let alone comparable from a logical point of view.
At no time did anyone claim to have been a “victim” of Henson. Never.
There may have been enormous amounts of speculation regarding possible deleterious implications for models/subjects, but not an iota of evidence that any of the people immediately concerned understood the situation in this fashion.
Jackson is alleged to have slept naked with people under the age of consent unrelated to him etc. I don’t see any parallel whatsoever with people posing for photographs in a studio. None.
You can only construct such a parallel by imposing a frame of “possible child abuse” on the relationship between Henson and his subjects. That may not be your intention, but logically, if that’s not what you’re doing, there is no basis to discuss Henson and Jackson together. Sorry, but there is none.
It’s certainly not a moot point. It goes to the heart of the matter. The media would have worked very hard to find someone who’s say they’d be damaged by Henson and couldn’t find anyone.
You keep saying you don’t think Henson is a pornographer sc. But you seem to be casting around to find something he’s done wrong.
Crossed with Fine, who put it more succinctly than me.
sc, I don’t doubt the genuineness of your concern about these matters one iota, but I don’t see how you can run these arguments unless you’re claiming that what Henson does is somehow abusive. Perhaps you need to clarify that.
I’d also note that anyone who finds Henson’s images offensive is not damaged by them. The whole point of free speech in any domain is a recognition that others have the right to expression even if it causes offence.
Points taken,
Enough from me now, I’m actually boring myself with this now
While it does certainly push buttons for me – i was in a relationship with a 22 when i was 14 – we can continue this over some wine sometime if its necessary.
Over and out!
sc
Well, we have a list of things to discuss when we catch up for a wine, sc, which means we should do so soon!
I’m also a little tired of this topic, I must confess.
cool!
Btw – everyone happy now i’ve ‘fessed up to my own adolescent sexuality?
Adrien…I’m aware they are plays. I admitted to my innebriated state the other night and was in the process of recovery. Didn’t realise I said “novels”. Trees for the forest…:) You could’ve explained it clearer rather than being so PEDANTIC. I’ve read The Rise of the Novel, so don’t assume I’m not aware of the origins & progenitors etc. I understand your concerns over the debate regarding the ownership/origins of Shakespeare’s plays…but some of us haven’t gone into the depth of investigation of the issue as you seemed to have. There are more diplomatic ways to put it if you want to get your message across. And that’s coming from a self-confessed stumbler & P/T heavy footer…:) Nothing personal.
Shame the rest of the comment got lost in the selectivity process.
make that “inebriated”. Won’t this work well w/ the Four Corners episode?…:)
casey- thanks for your reply and link @ [95].
I’d agree that some of the models in the photos you linked to earlier are decidedly thin. It also seems that some of the images have been manipulated to exagerate this – look at the elongated limbs in the photo of the couple in EGO magazine.
But, unlike the fashion world, Henson doesn’t seem to be promoting these body types as an ideal that teenagers & young adults should admire or aspire to. Given the cadaverous colouration and the gothic overtones of some of these images, one could even plausibly interpret them in quite the opposite manner.
Your point on the political & aesthetic ramifications of explorations of bodies is a very good one, but I also think that artists need the freedom to choose whether or not they engage in those sorts of investigations. Its a subject that some artists may not feel called to pursue. Further, I’d hope that our appreciation of artworks is not dictated by how closely they conform to some set of social directives that emerge through the sort of mass media consensus that we’ve recently seen.
And yes, Sander’s work was indeed dangerous. He was persecuted by the authorities, much of his work was siezed or destroyed, and his son died in prison.
I too am wearying of this topic in the terms in which it has been framed (pardon the pun) as a result of Hetty Johnson et al going to the cops. At some point, when some of the heat has gone out of the issue, there would be value in a measured discussion about the ethics of the photographs in question, uncontaminated by the argument about the legalities which the DPP has settled for now. In other words, people who agree that Henson should have the legal right to produce and display such images can nonetheless honestly differ about whether it was ethically prudent, responsible and right for him to have done so. I appreciate that not a few contributors to discussion here and elsewhere have tried to address this issue from various standpoints.
Based on having seen the photographs, and on what has been reported about the circumstances of the 13 year old girl involved and her mother, and their relationship with Henson, I have formed the view that the production of these images was and is ethically as well as legally defensible, but acknowledge that there are very fine ethical lines at risk of being crossed and that decent people can honestly differ about where those lines lie.
Paul, I had in mind a post on consent/competence/freedom following on from my earlier post, but it’s rained and I’m time-challenged. If you want to have a go, feel free!
I don’t see how anyone commenting here can have anything worthwhile to say about the modelling part of this affair, since none of us or our children have ever modelled for Bill Henson or seen him working. Negative theories about the propriety of Henson’s use of models are quite without foundation.
As Fine pointed out, the simple fact is no models have complained, despite lots of begging and pleading from the press for aggrieved former models to come forward.
Likewise I think it is quite useless to discuss the rights and wrongs of modelling and using models in a general sense, because only particular instances have any substance, and they vary so widely.
In my opinion, the pictures we have seen reproductions of look quite extraordinarily beautiful, and I can’t imagine being unhappy with them, as a model or the parent of one.
A last comment: I think it’s incredibly awful, disgraceful, that the child should have been told her picture was revolting.
“Because he never made a record to equal Thriller?”
Well, not subsequent to it at least.
Off the Wall is better IMHO, if only because it doesn’t contain The Girl is Mine.
“A last comment: I think it’s incredibly awful, disgraceful, that the child should have been told her picture was revolting.”
Now THAT’s an excellent point I hadn’t heard made yet. Rudd owes an apology.
I was waiting for someone to tell me i had gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.
… except The Ballad Of Reading Gaol, perhaps?
I am going to second Laura on this one, absolutely disgraceful.
Apparently there is a letter being penned to Kev07 asking for government clarification about the issue of consent. The letter is being written by some child welfare groups. Just as an aside, psychologists are not unified on having a problem with Henson’s photography, only the ones being given column inches in the newspapers.
I can understand where they are coming from to a point, but there is an underlying assumption that Bill Henson’s photographer of the model in question is exploitative simply because the photograph is a nude. I always thought there was a distinction between exploitative and non-exploitative nudity.
Assuming this distinction stands, (a serious question) where does non-exploitative begin? Also, if a photograph is being used for commercial purposes, one could argue that is intrinsically exploitative. Since I guess the advertising industry probably wants to continue using images of children, how could they justify it given the intrinsic exploitative-ness of such an image?
Nasking
Indeed. Sorry I thought you were advocating something fantastical, didn’t realise it was a slip. Apologies. Can be quite blunt at times.
SLCG -
It’s because of th’nadequacies of the English joostice system lassie. In Sco’land we have verdict: Not Proven. Which Jackson woulda surely got in Edinbruh.