The Bill Henson controversy has all but collapsed, but will the artist’s reputation ever recover?
Certainly leading public figures have done their best to ensure that it might not. How do their comments look now in light of the failure to lay any charges?
Forget too that the Classification Board has now cleared the five photos seized by police for general release. Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister and First Parent sticks by his view that the works are “absolutely revolting”.
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said the works “violate Australian values”. “This photographic exhibition, from what I have seen and what I have been advised, violates the things for which we stand as Australians and indeed as parents.” There’s the parent thing again.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma put in his two cents all the way from China, declaring the pictures “offensive and disgusting”.
Victorian Premier John Brumby had not seen the photographs. On whether they were art or p-rnography he said: “Art is always a very fine line — I probably lean in this case to saying it crossed the line.”
Liberal Senator Guy Barnett wasn’t pulling any punches. Henson defenders promoted one law for art galleries and another for computers he said, noting “it is child p-rnography and a perversion of art”.
Fellow Liberal Senator Stephen Parry said the photographs breach all the possible areas of legislation addressing child p-rnography. He went as far as to compare the photos of n-ked children to 100 ecstasy tablets. “If photographs of n-de children are taken to be art, then every deviant person that wishes to hold illegal images would store them on their digital camera, and when questioned, would state that they were going to be used as ‘photographic art’.”
But it wasn’t just politicians who had a crack; the press certainly helped it along.
Miranda Devine, in an attempt to instigate panic in parents across Australia, said we live in “a culture dripping with s-xual imagery … The effort over many decades by various groups — artists, perverts, academics, libertarians, the media and advertising industries, respectable corporations and the porn industry — to smash taboos of previous generations and define down community standards, has successfully eroded the special protection once afforded childhood.”
Hetty Johnson, Executive Director and founder of child protection group Bravehearts, said that Bill Henson “has a tendency to depict children naked and that is p-rn”.
So much outrage, so little time.
Will Bill Henson’s reputation recover? Well, I hate to share my ignorance but I’d never heard of him until the controversy. Now I have heard of him I can only say I’m now a fan, as is my 15 year old daughter. He is an artist who has an incredible insight into the human heart. I know my opinion matters dot squiggly to the rest of the world, but its the opinion I respect the most!
If you are in Sydney you are invited to attend a public forum on this topic which has been organised by Watch On Censorship and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 140 George Street, The Rocks, next Thursday 12 June from 6 – 8pm. ‘Art Censorship: The Bigger Picture’ will feature a panel of speakers including Hetty Johnston, Clive Hamilton, Ian Howard and Julian Burnside (plus one other speaker TBA from the gallery sector.) The evening will be MC’d by Margaret Pomeranz and the discussion will be chared by David Marr. All welcome at this free event. More information on the NAVA website at http://www.visualarts.net.au.
Journalism? Reporting? Commentary?
No. No. If so it was meaningless.
Thank you for referencing Miranda Devine’s article which at least was interesting and with which I largely agreed.
When you say that Stephen Parry “compare[d] the photos of n-ked children to 100 ecstasy tablets.” you miss the point of the outrage and consternation.
Bill Henson is making money out of photographing naked children and selling those images. Because he is identified as an artist, those that buy the images are subject to different rules than those who would otherwise posses such images, especially if the images are in digital form. The point that Stephen Parry also makes is that there are others who may attempt to take legitimise child abuse by labelling it art.
I can see a potential cost of prosecuting those that posses child abuse images when those images are labelled as art. I can see a potential cost of child abuse suffered at the hands of an artist that isn’t as careful as Bill Henson. What has not been explained to me are the benefits to society that outweigh these potential costs.
Emma Kemp’s narrow minded comments add nothing to the debtate unless Stephen Parry actually swallowed some of Bill Henson’s images before going out dancing. If thats the case then the ecstacy reference is pretty sweet.
As a photographer, with work in many galleries, I believe I have the right to comment on the Henson affair. Oddly, I don’t like his work. I find it gloomy and pretentious. Never-the-less, I believe I have as much right to to comment as some of the a*se-holes, whose work is written below. The word ‘outrage’, marvelous is it not?
So much bulls*it packed into a single word.
Emma Kemp: thank you for your brilliant article which illustrates the semi-literate thuggery which passes for political comment, in our fair country.
Brendan Nelson:”violate Australian values”? You, who served under the corrupted court of the John Howard régime. You mention values.
Morris Iemma: Reporting from China, has the clarity and vision to discern ‘Art’ without even looking at the image?
Kevin Rudd: still sitting primly on your ludicrous statement, also from China: Do you have the same uncanny ability to detect art, as Morris Iemma? One glance and from such a distance. People from Queensland really shouldn’t comment on art. Generally they wouldn’t know it if they fell over it.
Then there is the vain glorious Hetty Johnston. Who is in the scene for HER OWN SELF GLORIFICATION, has taken on the role of judge, jury and executioner TO ADVANCE HER OWN SQUALID AMBITIONS. The children whom she purports to protect are in enough danger from pedophiles WITHOUT drawing the rain coat brigade in to worsen the problem. Then it is revealed that she accepted payola from the adult p-rn industry in her run, failed, in the Senate????
You rotten, rotten people. Go back to the rock where you have been sleeping for the last ten thousand years.
Of one thing I am certain. Henson’s name will last a lot longer than the dog-in-a-manger, pious monsters who rush in to condemn him.