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Warning: Provocative Images may offend some viewers
By RickMeasham | May 29, 2008
Here in Australia there is an enormous brouhaha surrounding the photography of renowned photographer Bill Henson (left). If you’ve missed it, the controversy surrounds his use of nude child (teen) models in his photography (below).
I’ve been meaning to write a blog post entitled “What is art: I’m right, you’re wrong.” But it’s a difficult one to write. Basically I think there’s a lot of ‘art’ produced today that is better filed under ‘decoration’ and even ‘rubbish’ and a lot of the time ‘wank’. So I have a carefully built up ‘art meter’ in my head that has been working for years on a definition of art. However writing it down in plain English has so far been an elusive task, despite several aborted attempts.
But now Bill Henson’s photography has given me cause to skip that post (for now) and talk about an actual, controversial case.
Bill Henson’s use of nudes is not new.
Several years ago Fatima and I went to the Ian Potter Center at Federation Square to see one of his exhibits. There were nudes in that collection. I tell you this so that I have at least some credibility. I’ve actually seen some of the work. I’m not just hearing about it on the radio or hearing it from a friend of a friend over a latté.
What has happened here is that the Ridiculous Right has gotten wind of his work (How did it take so long? Where have they been all this time?) and decided that any depiction of a nude teenager is child pornography. There can be no discussion: the girl is naked, thus is child porn. They then reported child pornography to the NSW police department, who had no option but to investigate. The police then went to the gallery that was about to open a Bill Henson exhibit and removed his photographs, pending investigation. The Ridiculous Right’s media soapbox — early evening ‘current affairs’ type TV programs — reported on this with all the moral outrage they could muster. Calls for jailing this ‘dangerous pornographer’ rang in the streets. One thing I’ll give the Ridiculous Right: They’re great at sound-bytes.
“It wasn’t OK for a 14-year-old model fully dressed to be on the catwalk for Australian Fashion week, [so] it’s definitely not OK for naked children to have their privacy and childhood stolen in the name of art.” – New South Wales Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell
Even the Prime Minister was able to get in a good “revolting” in a TV interview, “Kids deserve to have the innocence of their childhood protected,” he said.
Child protection advocate Hetty Johnston says, “It’s child pornography by any name you want to call it.”
But then the tide began to turn. The arts world did a double take and said “whuh?” Unfortunately of course, a more moderate view doesn’t come in nice sound-bytes. But still, the Media began to turn. Even the bastion of the Ridiculous Right here in Melbourne, the Herald Sun, was able to see the argument enough to run a full page cover story dedicated to Prime Minister Rudd’s apparent close association with the “arts world” at the recent 2020 summit.
So let me amongst the voices with no sound bytes: this is not pornography.
Henson’s work is amazing and not in the slightest bit erotic or titillating. His images are provocative in that they show people truly ‘raw’.
If we’re to ban his work because it depicts naked children, we’ll need to go back to a lot of earlier work by the renaissance artists and paint some pants on them. The images are as titillating as a Michaelangelo statue.
Anyone who ‘gets off’ on these images, despite Henson’s intent, is already finding a lot worse on the interweb. They don’t need tasteful nudes, by a respected artist, hanging in a gallery, to get them all excited.
When considering publishing this piece, I had to answer one question that stumped me for a minute: Would I let Jack, as a teenager, pose nude for Bill Henson to exhibit?
But it only stumped me for me for a minute. If I believe in the photographer; If I believe Jack wants to do the modeling; If I believe Jack to be mature enough to make such a decision; If I believe Jack could understand that these photographs would be available to his school friends and work colleagues for years to come and he was OK with that; then there is absolutely no way I would stand in his way.
UPDATE: Friend and theologian, Fr Andy Hamilton has a measured and interesting article on the issue at Eureka Street.
Topics: Issues, Jack, Politics | 3 Comments »
May 31st, 2008 at 12:38 am
Rock on. Point well made, and I couldn’t agree with you more. It would be nice if we could all have a sensible discussion about whether or not we like this artwork, without everyone freaking out.
It’s easy to say “burn the witch”. It’s much harder – but more useful – to catch real criminals.
June 8th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I’m basically with you but I was afraid my writing wouldn’t be able to properly convey my position.
July 6th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
[...] Warning: Provocative Images may offend some viewers [...]