I was interested to read of the loud condemnations by Morris Iemma and Kevin Rudd of the cover of the latest issue of Art Monthly Australia. The cover features detail from a print of Polixeni Papapetrou’s Olympia as Lewis Carroll’s Beatrice Hatch before White Cliffs. In this artwork, the artist’s then six year old daughter, Olympia Nelson, is portrayed naked. My first thought was to wonder whether either Iemma or Rudd had actually seen the magazine in question, and that’s still unclear to me. My second thought was to wonder whether one of the media themes of the day - embodied in this piece by Nicholas Pickard in Crikey - had any merit. Pickard argued that the magazine’s editor, Maurice O’Riordan, was a “total fool” who was playing into “Hetty Johnson’s hands”. The two subtexts appear to be that the Bill Henson controversy had faded away, leaving artists to go about their business as normal (or something), and that O’Riordan was courting more controversy in order to increase sales of his mag, heedless of the dangers of raking up the cinders of the fire the Bill Henson controversy started.
But, unlike a lot of people who might have an opinion about this new controversy/furore/”debate”, I thought I might go and buy a copy of the magazine in order to form my own view. So I did.
I actually don’t want to discuss the cover or the artwork featured on it. The child who’s the subject of her mother’s photo and her father, art critic and academic Robert Nelson have spoken for themselves.
I’m more interested in the debate over the representation of children and its social contexts, which indeed is the context for the magazine’s choice of cover artwork, as it features not just the editorial from editor O’Riordan but also three interesting and serious articles about the Henson controversy by Denise Ferris & Martyn Jolly, Adam Geczy and Donald Brook. Contra Pickard, it seems to me entirely appropriate that a magazine such as Art Monthly would seek to publish reflections on the Henson stoush, even if it doesn’t accord with the ideas about political strategy of some members of the “art community”, who might prefer that the whole issue just go away. I think it’s entirely wrong to say, as Pickard does, that O’Riordan has taken the image out of its context, for the reasons O’Riordan himself gave in his editorial which can be read online.
I was struck by the force of a number of the arguments made in the various articles, particularly in the contribution by Ferris & Jolly:
Any attempt to resist an over-regulation of photography driven by such social unease is immediately met with the ultimate foreclosing reply: child protection.
They go on to ask, and here it’s worth noting that none of Henson’s subjects have ever expressed anything but comfort with their experience, and as I said, Olympia Nelson has spoken for herself:
But how might actual children suffer as a result of Bill Henson’s photographs?
I’ll leave that question hanging there, though I agree with the authors that there has been no satisfactory answer to it.
They go on to discuss the sort of world we’d be living in if the voices of unequivocal condemnation have their way. I’m going to quote this passage at some length:
…these harmful helpers also wantonly mishandle exactly what adults are entrusted with - the social and cultural future of our young. Their self-indulgent words and uncorroborated fantasies of harmful art will have significant long-term effects on the world our children will inherit.
Their world would draw a visual veil over our children until the age of eighteen. The marvellous extended process of a child becoming an adult would take place in the dark. The transition period when children are most vulnerable to exploitation (from someone they know and trust in 85% of cases) would take place largely unseen and unspoken about. The complexities, doubts, fears, and dreams of puberty would be left to the tabloids, the television and the advertisers to articulate with their banal sexual dichotomies and overheated social scenarios. The psychologically supporting network of loving looks and mutual regard we want our children to grow up in would be ripped away. The complexity of children would become publicly invisible - except for the photographs that sell products to them.
Their world sees only two possible contracts between adult and child: either one of parental or pedagogical authority, or one of sexual exploitation. All other contracts based on mutuality, creativity, fun or play, are suspect.
That last paragraph seems to me to go to the absolute heart of the matter.
Whether or not these issues can be publicly debated in a public sphere that is deeply compromised by social exploitation itself and commercial considerations (and here I think the criticism of O’Riordan may represent projection) is of course, moot. I’m inclined to agree with Andrew Bartlett that the debate over Henson was much more seriously performed in the blogosphere than in the mass media. But, regardless of whether debating these issues is comfortable, it’s a debate we now can’t avoid, since Kevin Rudd has announced that:
Mr Rudd said he had ordered the Australia Council, which funds the magazine, to develop new protocols about using images of children, and any recipient that did not abide by them would have its funding axed.
That being the case, surely everyone who approaches these issues in good faith would agree that debating them should be characterised by a deep responsibility, and not an uninformed rush to judge.
Note: The archive for the discussion at LP over the Bill Henson controversy can be found here.
Update: More from Gary Sauer-Thompson at Junk for Code and Ken Lovell at Road to Surfdom.
Another update: Prominent American blog Crooked Timber takes note of “moral panic in Australia”. And more commentary from skepticlawyer.
Update: More from Gary Sauer-Thompson at Junk for Code and Ken Lovell at Road to Surfdom.
Kevvie’s ordered the Australia Council to do what?
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Harumph. And a fine thing too. This is art. This is revolting!
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Obviously Art Monthly have decided to have a go at Kevvie. So the debate viz whether it’s a smart play or no’s yet to be decided. But I think they deserve marks for trying. Of course they’ll probably lose. When you use reason to combat people absolutely convinced of their righteousness with any less than a crowbar you lose.
Good post Kim. It is very good to read sensible discussion on this topic. And for me this quote expresses the heart of the matter:
‘The psychologically supporting network of loving looks and mutual regard we want our children to grow up in would be ripped away. The complexity of children would become publicly invisible - except for the photographs that sell products to them.
Their world sees only two possible contracts between adult and child: either one of parental or pedagogical authority, or one of sexual exploitation. All other contracts based on mutuality, creativity, fun or play, are suspect.’
The voices of condemnation are going to create precisely the sort of world that they are most afraid of, if they manage to create the laws that they are after. God I hope they don’t.
When I first heard about this latest furore I thought I am not going to say anything about this until I’ve seen the photos and then I read that the child was photographed by her mother, five years ago and she is now 11 and very proud of the pictures. Good on the arts world for fighting about this issue, I just hope that they win.
Thanks, Rayedish!
That picture in question appears to be purely artistic. I find it incomprehensible that it could be interpreted any differently. What’s more the parents approved and the child herself approved of the photo and its publication. Talk about a storm in a teacup.
We are in the middle of another moral panic folks. In the cool light of day, it will be difficult even to comprehend the furor over an image like the one that graces the cover of Art Monthly. It is not pornographic; it is not of a naked body; it is not erotic; it is not in the slightest bit prurient. It is an image of a solemn child whose relation to sexuality, insofar as it has one, is intellectual and exists mainly because its title asks us to remember Lewis Carroll’s ambiguously eroticised photos of young girls. By virtue of that title we are, maybe, invited to see the image as if it were sexualised, but, if so, it’s an invitation the image itself cannot make good on.
So why the fuss? In the end because, in Australia, denouncing a connection between child abuse and arty intellectuals makes politicians look good whatever the context; it’s an easy populist boost. In this case I only hope that the pollies are cynical. That would be better than their being suckers for dumb moral panics.
I actually doubt that Rudd has ever interested himself in art of any kind. Being an intelligent man, if he had, I’m sure he wouldn’t be so glib. I think he’s got quite a narrow frame of reference on a lot of things. As for Iemma, well, surely he’s just a useless hack? I’ve never seen anything to indicate otherwise. And Brendan Nelson, well…
Interesting to see the only two pollies who had something a bit more nuanced to say on this latest “furore” being Julie Bishop and Jon Stanhope.
Olympia Nelson has been so articulate about her feelings in relation to this. In all honesty I just can’t understand the argument that the child might regret this photo when she’s an adult. There seems so much unspoken shame here about nakedness. And so much obsession about sex.
At least the Chief Minister of the ACT has spoken sensibly about this.
I loved Olympia Nelson’s style on the news tonight!
That’s part of it. There are cycles in cultures some large, some small, yeah? The cycles re art and literature and what is permitted and why are some of the most interesting ones. One of the modern conceits is that we modern people are more enlightened somehow then our ancestors but that is arguable. Much of it has to do with context.
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In the 19th century when the repression of sexuality and sexual talk was at its height artists needed to justify themselves via their academies or salons if they wished to depict the nude (in England). What’s funny about this is that if you look at these works the ‘noble’ pretext is totally bogus and the subject matter is most definitely pornographic. I think that the most pornographic sculpture in history was produced by English people in the late 1800s. And I’ve been to India.
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Here we have the context of a perceived libertinage amongst adolescents under the age of consent. There’s the practise of ’sexting’ which might be a media beat-up based on isolated incidents. However it might be illustrative: this practise involves taking pictures of one’s genitals and sending them to someone you like (Ah What light from yonder window breaks - Not).
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And of course there pedophilia.
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In this context it’s normal for society to undergo a conservative backlash. And Art is an easy target. But those on the ‘Art side’ shouldn’t be too self-assured simply because reason might be on our side. In almost every instance where this has been ‘debated’ the tendency has been to say that it’s wrong because it is, to infer that those who may enjoy this are perverts and to not enter into any further discussion.
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That is a very effective strategy if backed by a howling mob.
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Fun fact viz the ‘liberation of art’ in the 19th century. This happened via France (of course) and one of the milestones was this picture. (Warning: Explicit). Funnily enough Courbet’s patron for that work and for this was a Muslim courtier.
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Times do change.
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It might be interesting to consider that most here have grown up in the wake of a great liberlisation in the English-speaking world that started circa 1960. This has been progressing more or less steadily since. A backlash is inevitable.
Kim blogged: “I actually doubt that Rudd has ever interested himself in art of any kind.”
Bienvenue Mademoiselle-a-bientot! but I disagree with the above mam’selle. I think that sentence is unwarranted, unfair, and irrelevant. If there’s one thing almost certain about art, imo, it’s that people of good faith hold a multitude of views and attitudes, whatever their level of appreciation and knowledge of art history might be.
The last thing I want to see in a PM is an insincere adoption of a viewpoint on art. Let him speak freely and sincerely.
Yeah, nothing like a parent wheeling out a child in front of a whole bunch of cameras to parrot out their own personal campaign.
My favourite part?
Journo: “What do you think that the photographs are about or trying to say?”
Kiddie: “Oh, I think… ahhh… I think… [looks to dad] can you help me with this one…?”
How very articulate. Seriously, did you not cringe even a little?
Yes I agree. Criteria for censorship of art changes constantly. As do sexual norms obviously: male pedophilia for instance was regarded as one of the glories of Ancient Greek culture by its greatest moralists. And I guess a conservatism which is to be understood as 60s backlash may be part of the current return to wowserism.
But I don’t think the public attention give to pedophilia over the past twenty years or so can be explained as sixties backlasy. (I’d see it myself as a complicated effect of neo-liberalism: a retreat by mainly evacuated moral norms into the last ditch of protecting the innocence of children).
And Australia has always been more ready to censor than almost any other nation: as someone commented on this blog it was the only country on earth to ban Christina Stead’s novel Letty Fox in the fifties for its depiction of a young girl’s sexuality although no-one reading that novel today can even begin to see what might be erotic or dangerous about it. Why Australia has been so censorious I don’t know. I guess it must be related to its insecurity over its own moral decency, which is itself presumably an outcome of the relative scarcity of gentility here, for better or worse.
So the pollies leaping over themselves to denounce this innocuous image belongs to a great Aussie tradition. It’s the obsession with children that’s new.
Yeo, there’s something a little bit sick about a society that insists on sexualising all nudity.
I left a comment on the Courier-Mail article to the tune of pedophilia being a pathological condition and that it’s important we treat it as such. The idea that child nudity is going to encourage pedophilia is as ridiculous as the assertion that making matches available for sale at corner stores is going to see a rise in pyromania. The current “debate” is based on the idea that nudity is inherently shameful, particularly when it involves children. We have turned into a society that for some reason tolerates overtly sexual messages in clothes modelling yet as soon as it’s someone who’s actually human such as a school teacher from NSW or a child, any sort of baring of the flesh becomes disgusting.
The Rudd government consistently says it wants to crack down on child abuse and uses this as a justification for putting pressure on anyone who depicts a nude child or for mandatory filtering of the internet. At the heart of it, the Rudd government are either a bunch of prudes who don’t understand what the sexual revolution means for progressive politics or are attempting to win over a new constituency such as concerned, socially conservative parents.
The Rudd government have been handed a golden opportunity to reframe many political debates but it seems that good sense loses out to political playmaking once again. It is possible to defend art depicting nude children while decrying pedophilia as the anti-social pathological condition that it is. What the Rudd government have done is bring artistic reputations into disrepute all for the sake of avoiding a wedge. I wonder what our Minister for the Arts thinks of the idea of blaming the artistic community for social ills.
People like Dennis Ferguson will exist regardless of what’s on the cover of Art Monthly. People like Ferguson probably don’t give a hoot about what’s hanging in a gallery or what’s on a magazine cover when there are other, less savoury, means of accumulating genuinely pornographic material involving minors. Upstanding citizens aren’t going to be tempted to give up socially normative sexual behaviour and start diddling kids just because they saw a 6 year old’s bare thighs in an art magazine. If we have a genuine pedophilia problem let’s actually go after the problem rather than skirting around it and trying to criminalise behaviour that pedophiles have in common with regular people. Fiddling around with the internet and cutting off art funding is not going to solve anything.
For anyone who has seen the trepidation an Australian citizen can have for stepping over the threshold, from streetwalkway, to enter an art gallery, for the first time, while willing them to go in, this is yet another debilitating act.
Whose purpose does it help, if the effect is to serve art?
What is a certainty is that within those comfortable with their relationship with art, one way or any other, the slings slangs and support will go round and round again.
What is a problem for art is that it is yet again defined for a mass public - otherwise equally deserving of all it avails - by terms and phrases and another contentious specific which push that public away.
This is not to assert or apportion blame. We’re an outpost. One spoiling voice can make five headlines in two hours here. One expansive artistic attempt can have the same impact. Neither of these are necessarily deserving of the effect.
Lost to all of that is the gentle woman, hands filled, who peeked her eyes through a gallery entrance, stopping, when on the way to fulfill her normal day. She’d never once been in a gallery - what did she know of them? You can imagine. Did she care for art or galleries? Who knows, really, but on this day she cared enough to stop and poke her head through the door. “Is it ok if I have a look?” she asked, from outside.
This strikes a blow to the heart of art. Because the art is for her. For them (not solely, let’s not be swayed by that either).
Repercussions like this as provoked in the latest leave a lady like that at the door, a glimpse if lucky and walking past.
Forget the bemoaning for any sacrifice in the making of it, the purpose of fact is that art is for the viewing, and anything which turns that viewer away - especially someone stepping into that space within themselves with trepidation - is a step someone in the arts, somewhere else, has to make up for. (That’s the nature of art - it wants to speak with, even hold, every one. And someone somewhere will want to create art to do so).
By each and every means this current discussion is worthwhile. But shit it’s limiting, as well.
Quick, Kev, call this guy
“The Rudd government have been handed a golden opportunity to reframe many political debates but it seems that good sense loses out to political playmaking once again.”
Sam, the last sentence is bang on. I would suggest that the Rudd government prefers to not lose votes.
Kim,
Cultural elites have it taken as writ that original and interesting thought is necessarily “alternative”, “transgressive” or “revolutionary”. Once upon a Picasso time there was something to be said for this pov.
Pretty clearly that time has long since gone. The point of diminishing returns for shock value has been reached when the shock far exceeds the value.
There are some areas where the public does not enjoy being shocked. Children are still taboo in this area because there are so few of them nowadays. Parents want to preserve the innocence of childhood.
Ordinary people, mainly parents, think that taking pictures of nude children and publishing them for the perusal of the general public is weird, verging on creepy, verging on sick. THere is instinctive public resistance to roping children into art experiments or exposing children to the massive sexualisation of the visual arts economy. No matter how ostensibly noble the motive or pure the art.
No doubt that most cultural elites, often non-parents, dont have much empathy with this view point. But that only serves to emphasise the yawning moral gulf between cultural elites and the general populace in this area, as in so many others.
The Culture War has not petered out. It continues to rage underground, as the populace recoils from the pathologies of multicultural diversity and sub-cultural perversity.
I can’t quite see the link with “multicultural diversity” on this one, Jack!
Jack Strocchi @ 19
Hrmmm…I will remember that the next time I happen across Australia’s Next Top Model as I watch a 16 year old strut down the catwalk to sell clothing. I may wonder to myself where the “instinctive public resistance to roping children into art experiments or exposing children to the massive sexualisation of the visual arts economy” is hiding at that point.
The fact is, we don’t mind using a child’s or young person’s sexuality to SELL THINGS but as soon as we are looking on a nude child without a frame of reference we get uncomfortable.
Seems a bit backwards to me.
This is a difficult and complex issue.
There is much to be said for the view that pornography is only in the eye of the beholder - and that people looking at photos of naked kids who think it is sexual have a problem.
On the other hand, there is much to be said for the view that taking photos of naked kids, regardless of the artistic merit, is a little odd, creepy to many, and revolting to some.
I think the art magazine is ridiculous for stirring this up again - incredible arrogance after the Henson debacle. Basically thumbing its nose at the general populace - and yes, the ‘general’ view is that photos of naked kids are crossing the boundary and are creepy. The general populace doesn’t agree that photos of naked people is art in the same way that paintings or sculptures of naked people is art.
Kim - I too saw Olympia on the news and was a little disturbed with what I saw. She was clearly out of her depth dealing with the issues, her father was very creepy - clearly coaching her on what to say.
On balance, I say let kids be kids - and that means keeping them out of controversy like this. Poor Olympia is going to be troubled by this - but that probably would have happened anyway with odd parents!
er.. Louise, aren’t 16yo models on a catwalk.. well, er.. aren’t they clothed? (skimpily perhaps, but still their private parts are covered) The photo in question is of a 6 year old with her private parts exposed to the breeze (if not to the camera).
16yo isn’t perhaps the best analogy. 16yo is over the age of consent, I can root a 16yo if the 16 wishes it. Rooting a 6yo is not on under ANY circumstances.
Andrew, gotta agree with you, there was something creepy about that feller on the TV, & it wasn’t just his manner of dress or decidely non-masculine demeanour.
Bring on the next moral panic - it’s been at least 10 minutes.
steve’s on to it - them art critics and their suspiciously un-masculine bow ties.
Is there anywhere one can point out that the current hysterical pearl-clutching tends, once again, to hide the fact that it is neither the artist, the parents nor the child who is the actual offender?
That individuals who wish to “pleasure” themselves with the sexual possibilities of children are, essentially, bullies of a particularly nasty type.
That the current behaviours of those who are pearl-clutching in shock/horror are missing the target by a country mile! And are in their stridency just as bullying and intimidatory as those whom they should be targeting.
It’s either that, or Anne Geddes is a really horrible, wicked person for the type of imagery she creates. So why is she not being targeted? (Or am I just flagging another pearl to be clutched at?)
[Bring on the next moral panic - it’s been at least 10 minutes.]
Is it just me, or is the whole issue of nudity being shameful a product of being a Quincelander, ie Rudd & Hetty Johnston ? If we’re not careful then we will soon the the nuddy police charge parents for posting happy snaps like this.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sesameellis/2510601831/
Well, Queensland was a fairly repressive society in the past, in parts, but I think it might be drawing a fairly long bow. Iemma and Miranda Devine and Brendan Nelson and Andrew Bolt and…
Speaking of which, I see the idea articulated by Andrew at 22 that Robert Nelson (Olympia’s father) is “creepy” (although he may not have meant it in the sense I’m thinking of), and steve starts to pile on the insinuation at 23, is about to get a run from Andrew Bolt - maybe - presumably the “colleague at work” he’s been consulting is a lawyer.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/do_i_ignore_it/
By the way, Bolt in his first post, no doubt showing his deep regard for truth and journalistic standards, doesn’t seem to have realised that Nelson was on tv with his daughter. When his commenters - who along with talkback callers presumably represent “society” or “the people” in these debates - get the point, we get insinuations that Nelson is a pedophile.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_far_must_we_fall_before_an_artist_throws_up/P0/
If anything’s damaging to her, surely it must be the avalanche of vilification that’s about to fall on her family? I wonder if that’s occurred to “child protection advocates” such as Bolt and his crew.
[Well, Queensland was a fairly repressive society in the past, in parts, but I think it might be drawing a fairly long bow. Iemma and Miranda Devine and Brendan Nelson and Andrew Bolt and… ]
I just say that because it is usually Hetty who starts the ball rolling, and it’s rather ironic that Queensland is the most sexually repressed state, yet has the highest number of child sex offenders(just going on what is reported).
In the case of Miranda, morris and Bolt, is it because they are a god-fearing lot ?
I also note the Cardinal Pell is in a spot of bother re another sex scandal involving one of his fellow clergy members.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/08/2297082.htm
I really don’t think Hetty represents all Queenslanders. She’s run for the Senate a couple of times here and got nowhere!
[I really don’t think Hetty represents all Queenslanders. She’s run for the Senate a couple of times here and got nowhere!]
Maybe so, but she is sort of like Marge Simpson or Maud Flanders in the way she is the token “Child Protection Crusader”
Our WA Equivilent is Michelle Stubbs, though she has been rather quiet of late.
In other news, prominent American blog Crooked Timber takes note of “moral panic in Australia”:
http://crookedtimber.org/2008/07/07/moral-panic-in-australia/
I very seldom take the part of the ladies and gentlemen of the press, but this looks like a fairly cynical ploy on Art Monthly’s part to move more copies of their mag. Can’t fault their sales skills, but I’m still of the view that this is a hornet’s nest they don’t want to stir up. This is only partly because they depend on the taxpayer’s largesse in order to exist.
Without defending Rudd’s views, I’m going to hop in and defend his right to be a philistine when it comes to art. This is partly personal, because I’m still a philistine when it comes to a great deal of art. I tried for years to try to appreciate much ‘high art’ (including opera and conceptual visual art), in the main because people around me thought a novelist should have ‘views on’ and ‘appreciation of’ the ‘finer things in life’.
However, when you haven’t grown up with it, it’s very difficult. I gave up on both after a time, mainly because I kept going to sleep in operas, and just didn’t ‘get’ most modern art. I find Henson’s teenage nudes somewhere in between ‘perplexing’ and ‘yucky’. I defend his right to exhibit without the filth barging through his art gallery as a civil libertarian, not because I think his art is independently valuable.
Like me, the Kevvster didn’t grow up in an ‘artistic’ or highly educated family. The man is a highly technically proficiant linguist and diplomat, but not expecially cultured. And that’s fine.
So Jack, do you drive a racist barrow in topics fully unrelated to racism very often? Who cares… Go back and hang out with your lowlife compatriots on Stormfront.org.
Only to small minds which struggle with extraordinarily simple concepts.
No, the ‘general’ view, i.e. the majority opinion in Australia, is that naked kids can and do feature in bona-fide art. It is only a few noisy nutcase wowsers, who want to flog an agenda of fear of the unknown, who proffer objections to art like Papapetrou’s and Henson’s, and refer to nudity as porn regardless of construct or context. Lots of you dorks want to scare the crap out of parents with what MIGHT excite a paedophile, but not a single one of you, unless paedos yourselves, actually KNOW what excites paedophiles. Peddling baseless fear of paedophilia is as bad as paedophilia itself.
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Also, can you kindly not parrot Brendan Nelson when he’s in political point-scoring mode? Go get your own damn opinions.
Trackback.
Art Monthly would have made their point more effectively if they’d run a collage cover of Michaelangelo’s David, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and the Coppertone toddler, with Crime Stopper-style tabloid-y black squares over the relevant bits; or better yet - starbursts.
Most people are missing the point. Rudd is not objecting to this on the grounds that it’s pornographic. He’s objecting on the grounds that a 6 year old can’t give informed consent.
If he’s going to be consistent he’s going to be taking issue with a lot of parents about all manner of things, including the local god-botherer who pounds on my door every 6 months or so trying to wangle an invitation to come in and save my soul. He invariably has a small child with him, who I seriously doubt is in a position to make an informed decision to spend her Sundays proselytising for the lord.
Parents spend their lives inducing, cajoling or coercing their kids to do things that the kids manifestly DON’T want to do, yet Rudd takes exception to them doing something that this particular child was happy to do on the grounds she wasn’t old enough to give informed consent. It’s a ludicrous position.
What he really means is that parents can take decisions on behalf of their children as long as they conform to his narrow prudish preferences.
I meant to add: I keep citing the example of Bindi Irwin, who is certainly not in a position to give informed consent to the way she is being used. Nevertheless I’ve yet to hear a word of criticism from Rudd or the Johnstone woman about her parents, or read threats that the government is considering withdrawing funding from the Irwin empire.
Their hangups about nudity are extraordinary. Do they ever go to the beach?
“Quick, Kev, call this guy.”
LOL, as people say on the interwebs. Nice one, Leinad.
I hereby nominate Jack Strocchi for the post of Australia’s first Pedofinder-General.
He could give the pedophiles a choice: listen to an extended lecture on The Decline of The Wets, or self-immolate. Most would straight away light a fire and throw themselves in.
I can’t say I find Papapetrou’s art any where near as engaging as I find Henson’s, but as you note, SL, that’s beside the point. Ken Lovell is on the money. This is now about - according to Rudd anyway - a really nutsoid view of consent.
The question i have asked people when i discuss this is how have these girls faired at school once the pictures hit the playground? It is interesting to consider this. After all, kids could’nt give a crap about artistic merit, child protection or any such matter. All they know is that a kid at their school is nude and we have the picture. Kids are not known for their subtelty and i just wonder what has been the reaction. We discussed the Henson issue with The Eye and will post the interview on our blog. I just thought i would add this to the list.
Given that it’s unlikely that Art Monthly would be playground reading, that only becomes an issue when the media and politicians decide to highlight any of the art in question. See my previous comment about the “child protection advocates” at 28.
not that I have read all the comments but what amazes me about the cover of Art Monthly and I am sure I am not the only one thin king this, but it is a really crap piece of art, it’s really terrible, regardless of the nude kid it. It would be great if Mr Rudd said “who would buy or hang that piece of shit on their wall anyway, now about global warming and our health system….”
It’s part of a series of responses to Lewis Carroll’s pictures. The picture on Art Monthly is responding to this picture in particular.
The series is here.
Bring back Colonel Tennessee Fainting Goat!
Bring back FDB!
“but I’m still of the view that this is a hornet’s nest they don’t want to stir up.”
Fairly subservient comment coming from someone who is apparently a lawyer and civil libertarian. Rather than allowing them (Kev, Hetty, Morris etc) on to the moral high ground, this kind of boofheaded posturing will eventually expose their impotence if they keep it up. I think that everything should be done to rub Hetty’s and Kev’s noses in it. Let them wear the wrath of the outraged commoners who so enjoy BB, Ramsay and Kyle Blandilands (did we all get a kick out of Daisy the Prize Pig).
i worked with my share of adolescent sex offenders while working for Juvenile Justice and can to some extent back Frank C up and state that at least 2/3rds of those sex offenders came from very repressive, god fearing homes. all of the offenders whose victims were children came from that set. this is obviously anecdotal and therefore not a terriably useful data set, if you wanted more info then you ought to contact MAPPS http://www.office-for-children.vic.gov.au/youth-justice/library/publications/mapps but i don’t think that they would tell you.
re the photos, i am inclined to think that it was needlessly provocotive, but professionally i’ve conditioned myself to avoid and diffuse and sidestep what i consider to be needless conflict as it distracts from necessary conflict. But i do understand why some are adopting a ‘more power to you Art Monthly’ attitude. the necessary conflict here is that this curffuffle adds to the stranger danger and nude = sex memes.
It is no secret that the vast majority of sexual crimes against children are committed by family members and others in positions of trust so enough said there.
in the 80′ and early 90’s there was a rash of individuals being busted with their “holiday videos” . some of these were shown on the news, including the ABC. what struck me about these portions of video was the normality of the scenes shown. everything that was normal is reframed by these offenders to suit their pathology. nudity does not matter to the offenders that i have worked with or the subjects of the case studies that i have read, they live far to completly in their own imaginations. i believe that in many cases nudity actually confronts their personal, internal constructions and breaks down their capacity to effectivelly construct the fantacies that are essential to their pathology.
we cannot shy away from the fact that so much of what is commonly seen as innocent can be reframed within a pathological mindset into something sinister. if we allow fear of that pathology to change our behavior, to reframe that innocence ourselves into something sinister, well we are just destroying another village in an attempt to save it.
We had an interesting family discussion about this at my place last night. My mother (artist) had done a painting last year of my children. The subject was from an old photograph of when they were little, climbing on some rocks, no clothes on . My daughter is now early teens. We realised after the painting had been done, that my daughter wasn’t completely comfortable with it being made into a painting to be hung on the wall. Her grandmother had never intended it to be for public view or for sale. But all the same, it got me thinking. Is it possible that, if we had taken umbrage about freedom of expression and been in the midst of a public stoush over it, would my daughter have felt any pressure to modify her feelings?
Those of you with kids - have you noticed that after the pre-school years kids do seem to get a bit more body concious? My partner and I used to get about the house sans the gear but when the kids reached a certain age, I found it embarrassed them, so changed our behaviour so they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. I see this as ‘courtesy’. Maybe there is something very basic about taboos on nudity that people are overlooking here. It would be interesting to get an anthropological view on this. I mean, my kids know I go to sessions with a life model and they’ve seen the resulting work, but they don’t seem more inclined to go without clothes because of it.
Here’s food for thought - I was once at a life class and the model (nude) objected to people who were not part of the art class walking through the room to get to a tap - she actually interrupted the session to speak and gave this guy a dressing down - she said it was rude to walk through as if she was a lump of wood. I tell you, it felt like a shift in power relations for the model to assert herself in that moment!
Interestingly my mother, the artist of the picture described above, had reservations about public exhibition & sale of photography such as Henson’s. For the record, I’m not really comfortable with it either. The photo on the cover of Art Monthly while itself quite discreet, raises issues that still need to be worked out and not in a hackneyed ‘arts vs wowsers’ discourse that becomes predictable. Elsewhere, someone said Rudd should have used his diplomatic skills better in this debate, and I think that’s true, he got a bit emotional, but I don’t think he’s wrong to say that issues of children’s capacity to give informed consent are a legitimate concern.
One thing I’ll say about kids is, they are often at pains to prove how mature they are. That’s not the same as real maturity.
I have been doing life drawing in different places on and off for twenty years and I don’t think I’ve ever been in a session where some non-participant wanders through the room. That seems to me like a major breach of the protocols usually observed around life drawing.
Kim said:
Unlike Henson, the Art Monthly people knew that what they did would cause the photo to get national attention. As for distribution on the internet - putting something up on a website these days is the equivalent to putting it up on the noticeboard at the local supermarket. Its going to get seen, its going to get indexed. Your friends and enemies are going to google you at some point - if your parents put up nudie photos of you on the web, you’re going to go to school one day and find printouts of them waiting for you.
The opinion of an eleven year old, no matter how erudite she may sound, holds no weight in this argument. I can’t believe she is even being interviewed in this debate.
Seems like this was a provocative stunt to increase Art Monthly’s circulation.
Anyway, we all know that the internet is pedophile heaven.
Yeah. Why bother listening to what children have to say, their opinions are utterly irrelevant.
WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
What has this got to do with the internet, precisely?
Or are you saying, ‘the internet is like pedophile heaven’ because that’s where good pedophiles go when they die?
My child is at the girl in question’s school. His only reaction something along the lines of why does someone become famous and get in the newspaper just because of a photo like that. In other words he’s mildly jealous and doesn’t even register that it’s the nudity which is the issue. (I resisted twisting him by the ear and yelling - Are you blind kid? She’s naked!!)
I am floored by Rudd’s comments. Would have bet my house on him being more sophisticated than that. I was wrong.
I noted that too Chris.
I initially found myself siding with Henson (and then, in a random coincidence, standing cheek by jowl with him on a train heading through the north melbourne suburbs we both live in) and viewing it all as an overreaction. I still do. Overall.
But as a provocation or deliberate stir of the pot, the issue is not just murky because of arguments about not offending the usual suspects. It is also murky because there is no clear way to extract the argument that’s about free expression, artistic independence, etc from the argument that’s about questioning the value of the age of consent.
Hetty isn’t the only person on the child advocate side expressing concerns. Her bogan wowser voice gets hyped by the media over more nuanced and better educated voices in the child protection world that have also expessed concern.
Had the wowsers not raised their favoured ‘Is it art?’ topic then perhaps there would be more recognition that the real relevant expertise here is not in the art world, nor the pollies, nor the lawyers, but in the mostly unthanked and underpaid people who research and work in the incredibly complex field of child protection.
Those I know see this as a very grey and difficult issue. And no Weez they are not simple people, with respect.
Well said Armagny. Liz Ann McGregor from MOCA is also quoted in the Telegraph as saying that Art Monthly has been unhelpful in stirring up the issue just when it had cooled and NAVA was moving to produce guidelines for artists.
Weez “Only to small minds which struggle with extraordinarily simple concepts.”.
No need to get insulting Weez. This is not an ‘extraordinarily simple concept’ - if it was, why is there such debate about it? I guess if you only see things in black or white then its simple. This is not a black and white issue.
And I seriously challenge your view that the general view thinks that ‘kids can and do fetaure in bona-fide art’. Why do you think Rudd said what he did - surely he’s tapping the populist sentiment? Why do you think that Art Monthly did what they did - surely they were deliberately stirring the pot?
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What happens when in twenty years that octopus wants to run for President or become a school teacher? Won’t somebody think of the cephalopods!
Jack Strocchi -
It is interesting that the first thing to go or the last thing to come with Cultural Warriors is taste and knowledge. Your little schpiel viz Picasso is all very well but children were depicted nude hundreds of fucking years ago. Do you wish to ban Caravaggio?
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I’m sorry if you and your circle are unhappy with sub-cultural perversity Jack and I understand your reasoning. But the fact of the matter is that we inner-city perverts require body art and copius piercings before admitting you to our scrumptious orgies and bacchanal delirium. And we don’t like those k-mart velcro loafers and nylon poo-brown cardigans either. So sorry. No beautiful freaks for you my friend.
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I do suggest a little empirical research. Let’s measure the mental health and social intelligence of kids raised in these bohemian pits of iniquity with those raised by the Pious whose groins resemble Barbie dolls. I’ll lay bulk green money on the weirdos.
This might be true - legally. However it’s interesting that you rule it completely irrellavent in the discussion. I suspect that behind many who push to protect children from sexual abuse lie a wish to protect them from adulthood as long as possible.
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I have yet to see one single skerik of evidence that links the depiction of nudity with child abuse. I have however seen boatloads that links execessive sexual repression, a cultural of bodily shame and very pious people with it. It literally bursts out.
Has anyone claiming that Art Monthly is “stirring the pot” actually read the editorial? It’s been linked to in the post. Or are people doing what Rudd did and making off the cuff judgements or just buying into the prevailing media narrative?
Just wondering…
The picture in question was one of the winners of a Citigroup photography prize several years ago and appeared in promotional material and was exhibited publicly. The artist’s work - and as pointed out here - this image is part of a series - has been on public display for years. Without attracting any “controversy”.
It seems to me that Art Monthly’s detractors are united - whatever their position on the call for legislation or whether or not they purport to represent consensus within “the arts community” - by actively wanting to avoid further debate, because it’s either inconvenient or painful. What sort of index is that of our maturity as a society? Are we all happy to let “experts” sit back and formulate guidelines now?
#47 Patrick B - it’s called ‘don’t feed the trolls’ or ‘pick your battles’. Art Monthly don’t seem to have figured this out yet. Next thing there’ll be a nasty piece of reverse onus legislation on the books and they’ll be minus their funding.
I also recommend Armagnac’d on the age of consent issue - which probably needs to be kept separate.
Read it, Mark. Seemed a pretty obvious pot-stir to me, albeit dressed up in pretty language. It is possible to do confected outrage with attractive prose and presentation…
That’s going too far. I’m sure there are people who sincerely believe that such representations are linked with child abuse. I believe they’re wrong. What is needed is to require them to consider the lack of actual facts on their side. But in the media and in the political circles this requirement is apparently not necessary. Kevvie’s gone along with it. No debate necessary.
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So Skeptic’s right if they stir this nest the artists might lose.
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It’s an unfortunate fact of life that most humans live by the Stupid, the whole Stupid and nothing but the Stupid.
Neither do I. I think that we are aware of pedophilia because of the open-ness the 60s created. Pedophiles operated before then unfettered because their victims were ashamed. Shame silences. There’s a certain tendency amongst social conservatives to blame permissiveness for pedophilia.
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The most ridiculous expression I’ve yet heard of this notion is Mel Gibson’s attribution of clerical pedophilia to Vatican II.
The editorial makes it clear that their cover is in aid of the Henson debate. If they’re not stirring the pot they’re pushing the barrow at least.
Yeah, but doesn’t it need to be pushed? Given the quality of the so-called “debate” over Henson. If you read the rest of the mag, octopi aside, the quality of the analysis, particularly in the piece Kim quoted from is really good and much much better than most of the total crud that’s been written in the press on all this.
And I’m not sure that the “wanting to increase sales” thing doesn’t apply equally - if not more so - to all the newspapers who happily run all this stuff with an incredible lack of any restraint, and as tigtog pointed out wrt the Henson pictures, a gross lack of responsibility…
If we’re actually going to have a serious discussion about these issues, we need to get beyond the instant rush to condemn or praise for that matter that seems to go along with the speed of the media cycle.
I also very much doubt that the editor sent Barry Cassidy a copy so he could ask Rudd a question on Insiders on Sunday! Aren’t the media also responsible for enabling the stirring of the pot, if indeed that’s what’s going on?
Yes, because the alternative is to blame the cherished traditional family and societal structures that disempower children, reward them for compliance (thereby making them vulnerable to adult manipulation) and create a veil of secrecy over what is deemed ‘private,’ and conservatives want to avoid that at all costs. I know it is slightly OT now but I thought the Kylie Valentine article was absolutely spot on about allowing the voices of chi