I am severely lacking in writing inspiration today.
Not that I don’t have a lot to write about. I have a very important subject to write about. It is just that the words wont come out in a satisfying way.
Australians will know what I want to write about when I mention the name “Bill Henson“.
Considered by many to be Australia’s foremost photographer, he is fascinated by twilight, the space between day and night, by adolescence, that space between child and adult. The moment of hesitancy. He has been exhibited around the world and his work is hung in some of the most prestigious galleries.
Online, some of his work is visible and much more can be seen on the net – just google the name and then click on “Images”.
Now to the the subject, the controversy. The best way to follow the developments is through a series of news items.
It began five days ago when police raided a Sydney art gallery. Within hours, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd weighed into the debate and the police began questioning the photographer. Betty Churcher, head of Australia’s National Art Gallery gave her opinion while some of the subjects themselves spoke out. The controversy widened to another gallery while more than 40 of Australia’s leading writers and artists supported Henson. Today the police have rejected the art world’s outcry, while two prominent politicians have supported the photographer.
In another report today, Louise Adler, the head of Melbourne University Publishing, one of 44 prominent figures who have signed an open letter urging Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to rethink his condemnation of the photos as “absolutely revolting”, calls the controversy a ‘beat-up’.
“I don’t believe that paedophiles and pornographers are going to rush to Roslyn Oxley’s gallery to find Bill Henson’s work for stimulation,” she said. “The question is, is it a private matter, one of taste or is it that the community has to come down and make a judgement?
“Do we need to be chaperoned by the state on these questions?” she asked.
I don’t believe we do. Although I know a lot of people will disagree with me.
Everyone’s comments are welcome, although I do reserve the right to adjust the wording, but not the intent of some comments, where those comments may be viewed as offensive by some readers of the archive.
So that truly informed debate can take place, the image which originally sparked this controversy is over the jump.
Despite the internet censoring by the police, I was able to find this image on the website of The Age newspaper from Melbourne.
Yes, it is a nude young girl.
No, it is not pornographic unless you believe nudity itself to be intrinsically pornographic. In which case I will remind you that not only did you arrive in this world in a pornographic state, but, beneath your clothes, you are STILL pornographic!
Filed under: lifestyle | Tagged: art, Betty Churcher, Bill Henson, Bob Brown, censorship, Kevin Rudd, malcolm turnbull, photography, police, pornography, sex, Sydney
Hmmmm….. Tricky subject. I guess for me it boils down to the knowing consent of the young girl. I am personally very happy to be naked, but then at near as damn it 50 I am entitled to do as I please with this body of mine. Should we protect minors? Yes I think we should. From art? probably not. From pornography? definitely yes. Then who defines which is the purpose in each set of circumstances? A bit of a conundrum really.
I agree with Angela. I have no problem with nudity, as long as the nude person is consenting.
Which brings us to the vexed question of how old someone has to be in order to be deemed mature enough to give such an informed consent, rather than just being exploited.
At this age, the young woman in the picture would be unable to give consent to a medical treatment on her own body – even to taking the contraceptive pill in some countries – without her parents’ consent.
However, I also think that Henson is, in fact, doing his art and the messages he is trying to communicate (about the cusp, the fragility, the space between etc) a disservice by having nude subjects. It puts the focus too much on physical changes, whereas adolescence is as much about the development of minds as it about the development of bodies.
I love bill henson’s work and I do not believe it to be pornographic.
I used to say the same about Larry Clark’s – loved the Tulsa photographs and his first films. then I saw Ken Park (the film that was banned) which seemed like a romp in paedophilia land and left a bad taste in my mouth.
i think it can be a fine line between art and pornography but Bill Henson is still on the art side. that image is beautiful.
I think the The Age is taking some sort of stand by publishing this image; i reckon they’ve got a team of lawyers on it, and they’re trying to prove something pro-Henson. And good on them for that.
Conversely, the Herald Sun today ran a Henson piece by everyone’s favourite extreme right wing columnist, Andrew Bolt. It’s wonderful the way Andrew can boil a complex situation down to him being right and everyone else being wrong.
I’m not an artist of the producing-an-image kind, so i’m mainly interested in this topic as an observer and appreciator of fine art and public debate. Jennie (who i found through tags) is actually an artist, and she has some interesting stuff to say on the matter of art vs porn.
http://jenniespalette.com/2008/05/28/community-support-for-bill-hensons-nudes/
Also, KRudd has come out and defended himself against Our Cate on his blog…
http://fakekevinrudd.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/regarding-cate/
So it’s all happening.
I don’t think this is pornography in the grossest sense. Though it could be used as such. Lolita by Nabakov has the same duo possibilities. That doesn’t mean either Lolita or this photo should be banned.
I would like to be sure that the girl photographed ( and her parents) is comfortable with what was done. After that leave art alone.
I’ve been musing over this from last night. No concrete conclusion, but my personal feeling is that if everybody had butted out and just left the exhibition to go ahead as per normal for this type of exhibition there would have been no hue and cry over it being “pornography” or anything else but some artist showing his work. In other words, the invited literati would have seen it, commented under the influence of Chablis or whatever about how “evocative” it was, gone away and waited for the next exhibition. As it is, the Mother Grundy’s of this world have arisen to the fray and everything is now a major fight about censorship and artistic freedom. I’ve seen the work … before Channel 2 had it removed from the Sunday Arts program, and it’s not to my taste, but it’s certainly not pornographic either. It’s in black and white, which is also not to my taste, but that’s MY taste and I do not impose MY taste on other people.
The model and her parents find the work OK … they gave permission for the photographer to do the work, the girl (who is quite a mature young woman apparently) felt no shame in doing the sitting. At least … until some do-gooder decided she should be shamed for sitting for such a “pornographic” series of photographs.
Intriguing that this is classified as pornographic and the beautiful photos of Anne Geddes are considered not to be in the same class! One is “porn”, the other is “sooooo cute”. Please explain … a 13 year old girl is pornographic and a naked baby is not? Hmmmmmmmm. Paedophiles unite???
Thank you all for your input. It confirms in my mind that there is indeed a difference between Pornography and Art. The great fear seems to be that, with respect to paedophiles, we should ban anything which they may use to feed their sick minds. The classic “turn-on” is the schoolgirl in her uniform. Does this mean we need to ban school uniforms? Or is there an underlying fear of nakedness amongst a large proportion of society? Similar to those fundamentalist “Hell Fire and Damnation” preachers with their mistresses who preach against adultery is there a group of those who rant against nudity yet scuttle home to gloat over their internet porn?
If this girl wants to be nude to public then I say,
“Go ahead,” because art will always be art as long as the person in the portrait feels good about him or herslf. Even though this girl is nude, she shows not only how a girl can easily be pressured to take her clothes off, but how girls today are being tempted for attention. This girl has attention (maybe more than she wants), along with all the sex predators online.
I have taken art clases myself, and I call this art, along with my collection of this and many other nude posters. If this girls wants to do this then let her, But as she grows she will soon feel unprotected as thousands stare at her day by day.
Hmmm
I personally don’t believe that what Henson does is pornographic. The difference between pornography and art is the intentions behind the photograph. As was stated previously that Henson’s work is about the twighlight zone between childhood and adulthood, and how people explore this. I know myself that this is a difficult subject to broach, and I commend the young lady for having the self confidence to show her most vulnerable self to the world. This is not easy to do, and I feel that this has only become an issue due to the interference by the media, when really the artworks should be assessed on their individual qualities.
as a feminist who has conducted many surveys about issues such as pornography i would like to add a comment that naked is fortunately what we are under a frock and that the nude in art imaging is up to the beholder.
Thank you, Corinne. I fear that the Mother Grundys of our society tend to get into positions where they can impose their minority view on the rest of us.
There – I didn’t mention Senator Conroy or Senator Fielding once – aren’t I good
I would agree that the intention of the artist should be seriously reflected on and not re packaged or de-contextualised to change that authentic intention. My view on this matter is that such actions are called cultural misaprpropriation and a re akin to intellectual theft. Bill Henson’s photographic art is highly refined and is a contemporary articulation of what in the Western civilization a long history of artists engaging with and commenting, with original views and interpretations about the human condition. This is what art is. Art comments upon, raises awareness about our place on the planet and our political, historical and social dimensions. To reduce this to an agument of censorship is indicative of tendencies in an age of decreasing intellectual capabilty to dismiss the place of original thought and the expression of original ideas. I would recommend to those who would want to expend their surplus energy attacking artists to get a hobby.