Image by Bill Henson from Strung Cans.
Those who’ve been following the Bill Henson controversy might recall that the June/July 2008 issue of Art World was pulped because it featured some of the images at the centre of the media storm on its cover and inside its pages. It’s now out - with a different cover - and it includes an interview conducted by Edmund Capon, Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, with Henson. Because I think a lot of what he says about the process of creating the photographs touches on many of the points discussed here regarding the whole brouhaha, I’ve reproduced some excerpts of the interview which seemed pertinent to me over the fold.
EC: Adolescence is a continuing dialogue for you, isn’t it? That sense of being on the cusp of things.
BH: Yes, although I think there’s more distance in the new photographs.
EC: How many photographs would you normally take in order to get one image?
BH: Well, for one frame I might shoot something like 100 pictures.
…
EC: When I look at your figure portraits [of the young girl] there’s always this question: has something just happened, or is it about to happen? Everything seems to be on a knife-edge. It’s a beautiful image. Look at those arms and hands… they remind me of a pieta.
BH: There’s an incredible amount of intensity in the face, don’t you think?
EC: So, again, would you have made a whole series of photographs to get this one?
BH: Yes, I worked and worked and worked around it. Danced and danced and danced around it…
EC: Was there a lot of movement in the subject?
BH: Yes, but it was very slow. You apply yourself to the maximum of your ability, but nature is always a step ahead of you. So the model might turn slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, and then her finger hits the light just like that… What I do is create the situation in which that might happen.
…
EC: So is it silent when you’re working with a model?
BH: Apart from me giving directions, yes. I give thousands of very precise instructions. So my instructions turn into something else from one second to the next. When I say “look left” - well, there are as many ways of looking left as there are people on the planet. So whatever your intentions, the possibilities are always vast, and that’s what interests me. Turn, turn, turn… slower, slower, Zombie slow, Zombie slow… The models seem to get into a trance. And the slower the movements are, the more interesting they become. And artificial. What’s great about that whole strangeness - and being photographed is a very bizarre situation anyway - is that it’s allowed to expand until they seem to be amazed at actually being in their body.
EC: Slowness is also a way of seeing. You don’t see things in rapid movement. We can see things evolve when we move slowly, which is why a lot of video artists slow everything down. The thing about an image like this [the portrait of the girl[ is that it has an extraordinarily beguiling, sensuous texture, but what’s captivating is less its material presence than its spiritual presence.
BH: It’s a psychological space that opens up. It’s a space in which it doesn’t actually matter what kind of object is in it - you fall into it, along with your imagination. And that’s the whole thing: to create a space and a distance.
NSFW, contains strong Edmund Capon.
At this rate, by the time LP stops running Henson threads, it’ll be a moot issue as by then his models will not only be past the age of consent but fast approaching menopause.
Nabakov - are you suggesting the discussion is no longer relevant? If so, on what grounds would you assert that? Perhaps I have read your post differently to your intent…
In any event, very much looking forward to picking up the new issue of Art World.
Nabs appears to think that we should cease to discuss anything that isn’t in the headlines anymore? Sorry, but I disagree.
Miranda Devine is still talking about it:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/miranda-devine/picture-this-society-draws-the-line/2008/06/13/1213321612249.html
I doubt if Chris Goddard from Monash and the other signatories will thank Miranda for coopting their concern into her agenda. There is no reason why a conversation between them and the Julian Burnsides et al. can’t be productive and respectful of valid concerns on both sides. A few more panel discussions like the one the other night would be a good thing.
Did you go along, su? It’d be interesting to hear from someone who did.
No I’m a long way from there. There was a short segment on the ABC (Stateline or Lateline? Maybe Stateline) which showed a fair bit of talking past each others’ concerns. I’m still finding it very hard to condemn Johnston and she did say in that short segment, broadly paraphrasing, that as long as there was some sort of ethical oversight then she would find Henson’s work acceptable, but still be personally creeped out by the images. That sounds like a slight moderation of her stance, which is all to the good, IMO
Ms Devine’s rhetoric precludes any notion of constructive dialogue. The same hysterical hyperbole designed to cause maximum effect. The same questions of consent. The same blindness to the fact that no-one actually involved is making a fuss.
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There is nothing in this world more dangerous than a tiny mind, a loud mouth and absolute self-righteousness joined together.
Maybe so, su. I think she was proposing some sort of board that would rule on who could be called an “artist” and issue ethical guidelines. If I recall correctly.
Sorry, I don’t get that, Adrien. Are you saying that Devine’s influence means that there can’t be a dialogue between child protection experts and others concerned with artistic freedom? Or are you saying that the concern of the former is to be dismissed out of hand simply because Devine agrees with them?
Neither really Su. I’m being somewhat a little over fiery when it comes to this issue. But at the bottom of it is my observation that many on the “of course it’s disgusting and pornagraphic” side of the debate will not acknowledge the total lack of complaints from Henson’s former models or parents of same, nor will they ask themselves whether they really see pornography or whether they themselves have an issue with it. There’s just an assumption of moral correctitude which automatically places myself and other amongst the ranks of consumers of child pornography.
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Given that I found this work in the context of adolescence whilst recovering from a Catholic boarding school’s attempts to make me feel like my body was a source of shame it peeves me somewhat. People have a perfect right to find fault with the work but they cannot automatically claim the moral high ground. I feel Ms Devine et al do this.
Christos Tsiolkas’ piece in the A2 section of The Age today strikes me as one of the most intelligent – if indirect – responses to the Henson controversy. The article beautifully demonstrates adolescent approaches to danger and sexuality that have have been left out of public discussion of the debate. Like others commenting on other posts, I remember having visceral moments of recognition when I first encountered his work, while at around the age his models are.
In the print edition, the article is illustrated with this landscape – the juxtaposition with the article suggesting brilliantly, I think, the relationship between figure and landscape in Henson’s work, which has been generally forgotten in the debate.
Nick, I read the article and viewed the picture. Completely amazing. I loved them both.
Thanks!
It’s a great article by Christos and I’m sure it’s meant to be a subtle riposte in the Henson debate. I really agree abou the importance of risk taking behaviour and that adolescence is a move toward adulthood, as well as a move away from childhood.
*sigh* I suppose it is pointless to mention that no one, least of all child development experts, suggest that risk taking behaviour is not an important part of growing up. Tsiolkas writes beautifully of an adolescence of exploration and experimentation where the apprehension of danger remained just that, an apprehension not an actuality. In that narrative of adolescence, nothing coalesces from the darkness to wreak lasting harm. It is the kind of growing towards we all wish for ourselves, for everyone. But there are tens of thousands of other stories where danger, not the kind that we all have to negotiate, but extreme and sometimes mortal danger, did not stay in the realm of possiblity and people who point out the difficulty of adolescent ‘consent’ do so, not from a desire to make childhood completely without risk, but because they know what an inadequate thing the consent of an adolescent is when faced with people who will do them harm. The resentencing of the men and youths who raped a child, a child deemed by prosecutor and judge to have consented, should stand as a reminder of how notions of consent can be seriously abused.
Condescending “sighs” notwithstanding Su, I’m not sure I agree. For one, I haven’t seen a large number of child development experts contributing to the public discussion on Henson, though I’d be appreciative if you could point me to those who have, as I’d be interested in their viewpoints (Steve Biddulph comes to mind, though his response didn’t strike me as the most thoughtful).
But in statements like Rudd’s “let’s just let kids be kids”, I do hear a call that we should cosset our children, protect them from danger at all costs, even where that approach to challenging and boundary-threatening situations is important to emotional development (they were to me at least). I may be misinterpreting these statements, and please point out if I am, but Tsiolkas’ piece strikes me as an important rejoinder to that attitude.
Many of the signatories to the letter are child development specialists (Chris Goddard, Prof Briggs etc), Nick, and you are reading a lot into Rudd’s statement as he was referring to one particular situation, not every risk behaviour. I agree that Tsiolkas did write an important rebuttal of the “childhood innocence” theme in Rudd’s statements but again, that is not a view of childhood/ adolescence shared by everyone who sees an issue with consent. I wasn’t meaning to be condescending I am just frustrated that, again, the issue of consent is being framed as the concerns of people who have an unrealistic and idealistic vision of the perfect childhood. I assure you that people like Prof Briggs et al do not have that vision.
Su, I was unaware of any reference to a “perfect childhood” in the article or any subsequent post in this thread. I have seen you mention this theme in other threads relating to Bill Henson.
In any event, I don’t see how a youth emerging relatively unscathed and with fond memories of their youth has, in fact, had a “perfect childhood”. I can most assuredly inform you that, whilst I love to remember the escapades of my own youth, I hardly had a “perfect childhood”.
But, frankly, I don’t think the subtext you are seeing in this article is even there. Perhaps I am wrong and you can point out where those things are? I am always open to another’s views and maybe I have missed something very obvious.
“Nabs appears to think that we should cease to discuss anything that isn’t in the headlines anymore?”
Nah, I saw the opportunity for a cheap one liner and was congenitally unable to resist it.
I remain where I have always stood on this issue. Until someone can display objective and provable harm arising from Henson’s work, then he like anyone else has the right to do whatever he wants. And I will defend to their death anyone’s right to agree to me.
Ah, Rudd - he can comment on one matter under police investigation - Bill Henson - but not on another - Belinda Neale.
Does this mean - a) he’s learnt his lesson
b)He hasn’t been cornered by morning television on Neale?
“Until someone can display objective and provable harm arising from Henson’s work, then he like anyone else has the right to do whatever he wants. And I will defend to their death anyone’s right to agree to me.”
(legal opinion)
I know enough Oz law to understand that neither child nor parent can consent to images being published during a police investigation, etc. That is the law there, & there was a precedent, not that one was ever needed.
So, the UNCRC & CEDAW completely out the window. The intrenational vocab is simply not there, it is like being in the jungle talking to FARC or talking to BSA people shelling Sarajevo. I’m at a loss re: the Oz mindset.
And now it is like a re-run of old UN missions, we had decades of struggle to get prison guards union, and teahers unions out of the child protection business, and it looks as if Tamara and her group have an artists union doing te same gig.
Is there any reason why UN min standards shouldn’t apply to Oz, have I missed something along the way?
Gregory Carlin
The police investigation in this case started after the images had been created, hung in an art gallery and published on that gallery’s web-site. So your sufficient knowledge of Oz law doesn’t apply to the case - there was no police investigation in train until well after the orignal photographs had been taken.
Furthermore, the investigation was not into any allegation of abusive conduct on Henson’s part - beyond the alleged abuse of taking the photos in the first place - but into whether they constituted ‘child pornography’ under definitions given in Federal and NSW law. Again, your sufficient knowledge of Oz law does not apply to this case.
The rest of your comment appears to be hyperbole, concluding with a non sequitur. Who’s this ‘Tamara’ and why is she relevant?
Gregory Carlin has posted in a few blogs about this issue. He always writes as though has has some inside information, but is actually talking out of his arse.
Tamara Winikoff is the Director of NAVA and they’re setting up some sort of process for artists to ensure they know about the law applying to these issues. Which is not a bad isea.
How’s Tazia going, Gregory? *plonk*