As a card-carrying Right Wing Death Beast, also called, on occasion, a Jesus freak, God-botherer, racist, nazi and … a disgrace!…. I’ve been following the recent furore over the Bill Henson exhibition up in NSW.
For those not in the know, Bill Henson is a photographer. A very talented photographer who, while he takes remarkable landscapes, also has a predilection for pubescent girls. (Google images is your friend for that one.)
Bolta covered this story here, here, and here.
Tim Blair commented on it here and here.
On the other side of the cultural divide, we have Alison Croggan’s take on the witch hunt that is decrying Henson for a child pornographer.
Personally, I see the photos of young teenage girls without clothing and under evocative lighting as more porn than art, and while others may disagree and call it Art, that’s not at issue.
What is at issue for me is that in this day and age, when so many bleat about the sexualisation of children (and yes, I’m most definitely one of them), there seems to be some sort of blind spot in the minds of those who just don’t get that photographing nude 12 year olds might send a bit of a mixed message to those children we’re supposed to be protecting.
However, the wyrm is tyrning, it appears to me, with Jill Singer coming out against the photographs in this morning’s paper.
I tend to disagree with a lot of what Jill has to say, but I do agree with this piece, and find the confirmation that you don’t speak out against the Black Skivvy Brigade or else.
We both know Bill Henson, she better than I, and we also know the art world. It is a place where you tread very, very carefully.
Everyone is your best mate if you praise their work, your instant enemy if you proffer the slightest criticism.
And here was a photograph about to be exhibited by a man we like, of an image we both recoiled from instantly.
(Bolding mine.)
There are many women who tend to keep quiet about any discomfort they might feel about Bill Henson’s work. No one has a problem with his ruins, or trees of course, it’s just the young girls.
Another woman, senior in the arts industry here, tells me she has been ambivalent about Bill Henson’s imagery of young girls for years, but has remained silent for fear of being lumped in with the religious Right.
I guess that makes me of the religious Right, but your religion shouldn’t matter a toss in this instance. and I figured I was one anyway.
It’s a shame that women who are supposedly in control of their destinies feel cowed by their environs enough to not speak their minds and hence enable further exploitation of children.
Yes, I’m aware that I’m using emotionally-charged language, but so what? The fact remains that a minor child (presumably with parental consent) has had nude photographs of themselves taken and exhibited around the world and money has changed hands.
That is not a business agreement between equals, and regardless of how informed she may think she is, a girl on the brink of womanhood is not of legal majority and should not be treated as such.
She is a child.
But enough of that before I start some serious ranting.
What really has made my day in all of this is that according to one blog, it’s all…… wait for it….
Kevin Rudd’s fault!
(Okay, not exactly; I’ve just been dying to say that)
Bringing it back on track, over at the Sydney Arts Journo blog (h/t Alison), Kevni is given a severe smack on the wrist for coming out and agreeing with the majority of the population.
Of course, the fact that most of the population don’t go* to galleries means that their opinion shouldn’t count, so Kevni should have supported Bill.
My favourite comment I’ll paste in full, because it demonstrates beautifully that some people really can’t handle a bit of disagreement:
Writing anonymously as an advisor to one of Mr Rudd’s prized candidates in last year’s election, I want to add that on this one, you are wrong Kevin: very, very wrong.
Even your nemesis, John Howard, would not have abused the privileged and time-honored position of the Office of Prime Minister with such a knee-jerk, ego-fuelled, juvenile reaction to the unquestionable reach and INTENTION of Mr Bill Henson’s creative pursuit.
Your vilification of him, and the true spirit of Creative Australia will return to haunt you … just as we cautioned it always would.
While the election was fought on “New Leadership”, you have nothing of the nobility, maturity (artistically, culturally or otherwise) that Howard had.You are born of a media age, and this will go down the public record as the first moment in your Prime Ministership, when you didn’t read what was written and allowed your ego and sense of altruistic self-aggrandisement to rule your tongue.
Personally? I have always protested that you lack the maturity and compelling ability to read the road map forward to a destination suitable for the achievers in this country … not the reactionaries. There are hundreds of websites, Google them, that are far worse and far more easily accessible than this exhibition. They are pornographic. This is art. That was and forever will have been Bill Henson’s intention.
I am grateful for one thing. The people of Australia have finally seen you for the fallible, popularist Prime Minister they will tire off within months. But those of us with credit for your victory will hang their heads in shame. You have betrayed the true nature of reconcilliation because everyone can now see it for the opportunistic, grand-standing event that it truly was.
How easily your opinion is bought. How demeaning to our values of cultural signficance that is.
I love it when Lefty heads implode. Why this person didn’t see Kevni for the hollow man he always was boggles my mind. How dare Kevin actually disagree with what his supporters think?
Dude, Kevni was voted in because the electorate wanted a change, and he campaigned on being just like John HoWARd only younger and fresher.
He also said he had ideas, and one of the few things he did since getting into office was to pull together a circlejerk to try and find them.
The general population tends to be rather conservative at heart, disliking revolutions or revolutionaries (except on tshirts) and especially not being enamoured of blokes taking pictures of little girls.
Kevni is just doing what he’s always done – going along with the loudest crowd, and at the moment, for a change it tends to be the average aussie.
By the way, according to an Art Expert, Bill Henson’s photos are not pornography.
Well, I never saw that one coming, did anyone else and do I need sarc tags?
*I’ve been to a few openings, but it’s been about 4 years for me. And I no longer have a black skivvy. Sorry.
The Tizona Group 
May 25, 2008, 10:53 pm at 10:53 pm
I left a comment over at Boltas which I invited them to not post as it linked to shitheads artwork. I had a link to google images search page.
As you say google the blokes name and see if any of the pics are of him.
If Im correct google works by placing the most clicked links first? That might explain why when I put the turds name in google image search all I got appeared to be naked little girls. (Im at work so Im not going to click and enlarge to make sure) No pics of him at all 2 days ago.
Its pretty simple, does it show naked underage girls?
No: its fair game
Yes: It isnt acceptable
Not that complicated realy.
May 25, 2008, 11:00 pm at 11:00 pm
The recent Texas case involving that polygamous Mormon sect I’ve been following has opened this can of worms for me, and one of the problems is that there is no basis for reaching a consensus about who is an adult and who is a child. Here in the US, states even disagree, some marking eighteen as the age of consent, and others setting the limit as low as sixteen. In other words, these statutes are arbitrary, and they aren’t even based on Judeo-Christian cultural heritage.
Mary, mother of Jesus, was most certainly betrothed to Joseph before she was sixteen, perhaps as young as fourteen: The traditional Jewish age of inclusion is thirteen years, and that is based upon the biological onset of puberty – quite logical, actually, for a religious tradition. So, the infant Jesus, who would go on to become The Christened Son of The Living God, was born to a woman of no more than fifteen years of age (And, Joseph was his biological father, notwithstanding the two edited Gospels to the contrary, but that’s a subject for another time).
Another problem is the lackadaisical definition of pornography: True pornography depicts the actual sexual act and is not simply nude photographs – or paintings, as is the case with countless ancient masters – of men, women, or even children. One judge famously said, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it”: This is lunacy, but what do you expect from a lawyer?
Should nude photography, suggestive or not, of pre-pubescent boys and girls be illegal? I say yes, because such “art” inflames the prurient interests of maladjusted individuals, and it is culturally indecent, exploiting for money, as it does, children; individuals who have not even reached the most traditional age of inclusion.
The problem in our culture today is, we keep children as children long after they are actually functional adults. Think of it as the flip side of sexualizing children: This is “infantizing” functional adults. If you’re told all your life that you aren’t an adult until you’re eighteen – or even twenty-one (!) – you’ll believe it, and act like it, when the fact is that virtually all sixteen year olds are functional adults.
It’s a broad cultural problem, and religion and emotion are involved, so don’t expect a solution anytime soon. I must say, the reading I’ve done on the subject has been quite informative, however.
May 25, 2008, 11:22 pm at 11:22 pm
I agree, Angus, with the concept of majority, maturity, whatever, being arbitrary.
My mum was married and a mother at 21. Her sister was married and a mother at 15 (and still happily married to the same man).
I’ve had nude photos of myself taken, and they are black and white arty things and not at all pornographic, but that was as an adult. The only reason I don’t post them is because it would upset other people, and I don’t believe that the whole world needs to see me with my kit off.
Again, I’m not a child.
Twelve years old is definitely too young, but we have artists, and advertisers and educators and lobbyists pushing the boundaries. Let’s face it, if 16 year olds had the vote, then Kevni probably would have gotten a landslide rather than the meagre majority of votes he actually got.
Regarding Mary and Joseph, the short comment is that they lived a couple of thousand years ago, with different technology, different medical facilities and a much lower life expectancy. With infant mortality the way it was, you married and bred younger and faster.
The more children you had, the greater the possibility of having someone to keep you in your old age. (of 37)
May 26, 2008, 12:04 am at 12:04 am
There’s a real inconsistency here, which Bolt points out in an update to this piece.
Modelling?
Showing underage boobies in magazines?
But it seems that as long as you call it “art,” anything goes?
May 26, 2008, 12:13 am at 12:13 am
Oops, my avatar fell off again. Found it!
May 26, 2008, 12:16 am at 12:16 am
There needs to be a clear “under this age is not acceptable” and thats it. Family snaps and stuff excepted.
I dont care what the old days used to do, or when puberty hits, its a socialy accepted age and thats it. Pornography regularly does the “1 day over 18” bit on their models as a promotion, Id hate to see that reduced to “old enough to bleed, old enough to be butchered”.
May 26, 2008, 12:27 am at 12:27 am
Heartily agree on the “infantizing” adults. Even adolescence is a fairly modern invention:
That observation aside, I certainly do not agree with photographing nude children to satisfy prurient appetites.
May 26, 2008, 12:40 am at 12:40 am
#7 Isn’t it a good thing that we are a wealthy and advanced-enough society that we do not have to basically sell 10-year-olds as indentured slaves?
Or do you want a return to those “good old days”? You could always go to a dirt-poor third-world country to raise your family, they still do stuff like that there.
May 27, 2008, 9:19 pm at 9:19 pm
Get off my ass, bitch. If you want to sell kids, you can do it here.
Some parents are keeping their children in a prolonged (even by our standards) adolescence wherein children that are going off to college do not know how to operate a washing machine.
I heard one of the seniors that will be graduating this week telling the guidance counselor “I dunno why they fired me; I was only late to work 3 times!”
I blame the parents.
May 28, 2008, 12:09 am at 12:09 am
It’s not that the parents are intentionally keeping their children in a prolonged adolescence Swampie, it’s that the kids are generally too lazy to bother learning the important things, like how to cook, clean, wash and such. Instead, the subjects that taught those important life skills have been forced out to be replaced by stuff like “How to interpret Native Aboriginal Dance”, and other topics which will no doubt assist these kids in the workforce.
May 28, 2008, 5:59 am at 5:59 am
#9 You obviously have some issue with parents not teaching their children enough responsibility.
That, however, has nothing to do with either 10-year-olds as indentured servants or, the original topic here, whether 13-year-olds should be deemed capable of understanding the ramifications of and therefor legally consenting to stripping for strangers.
May 28, 2008, 6:29 am at 6:29 am
Google ‘Bill Henson’, click on ‘images’ and it is clear some of the photos are clearly sexually provocative. A naked adolescent girl lying on a bed isn’t porn??? One of the photos clearly implies a direct act of intercourse. Others are also sexually suggestive, not merely ‘just’ a nude shot.
Many of the photos are clearly not art but porn. I would say ‘soft’ porn but how can it be ‘soft’ when the subjects are about 13?
And what the hell does The Age think it’s doing by publishing one of the full-frontal photos?
May 28, 2008, 6:41 am at 6:41 am
I have two main problems with these photos:
1. She’s 13. That’s the end of it. She’s 13, without the legal ability to make the decision and fully understand it’s ramifications.
2. Those photos will never, ever, ever leave the internet. They’re going to haunt her for life.
July 10, 2008, 6:11 am at 6:11 am
[…] in a sexual fashion and subsequently printing them in a national magazine, as a form of protesting the criticism directed at Bill Henson, the artist who took nude, provocative photos of a 13 year old girl and publicly displayed them at […]