Art Monthly has an audited circulation of 5000 copies. The girl was photographed by her mother. The mother has no regrets, neither does her daughter. So far, so much storm in a teacup you’d think. But there is something disturbing in the vigour with which the Prime Minister attacks the issue of this so-called child exploitation. As The Australian reports this morning:
The Rudd Government will ask the Australia Council to develop a set of protocols to cover the representation of children in art, after a taxpayer-funded magazine put a picture of a nude six-year-old girl on its cover to protest at the Bill Henson dispute.
The review, which would consult members of the arts sector and the general community, was confirmed by a government spokesman yesterday, as politicians led by Kevin Rudd heaped condemnation on this month’s Art Monthly Australia magazine.
It seems that when it comes to, let’s see, saving the planet, we can prevaricate and quibble, but when it comes to cracking down on the apparent exploitation of a child by her mother in a magazine no-one reads, we can turn on a dime.
A few points of our own: No child was harmed in the production of that image and nudity does not equate to s-xualisation. That said, the repression of art and expression by representatives of the “general community” risks crushing precious liberties to the twisted views of zealots. If only our prime minister wasn’t one of them.
Play the issue not the commenter please Marilyn.
And freedom of expression is probably the most precious liberty there is.
there’s nothing i find less inspiring than ideological protest art that shirks meaningful debate through static ‘controversial’ gestures like this. no wonder most normal people think modern art is a load of bollocks, when lame, predictable stunts like this are wheeled out to “delineate the porus border between art and pornography” or some other first-year dreck. in doing so, artists, critics and gallery owners are just proving their growing irrelevance.
JamesK, you’ve directed some comments towards me that seem to have no relationship to what I wrote. I was not attacking Marilyn’s point, just suggesting that if this is as big a disaster as she insists it is, then surely she has some responsibility to do more about it than write something on this page. Her point about consent is one thing (and, actually, I think kids do have the capacity to consent to being in a photo but clearly they don’t have the capacity to consent to sexual activity or enter commercial agreements), but her hysterical statements about the appalling after-effects of being photographed less than fully dressed demanded action, not words, if they are true.
Just on a point of interest (apropos of nothing): Wrt the father of this girl in the latest controversial photograph art critic Robert Nelson wrote in The Age in April 2005, reviewing Bill Henson’s photographs of naked children:
“HENSON’S interest in juvenile erotica is not redeemed by the bombast of gloomy sites and leaden skies, nor is it compensated for by slicing up the photographic paper or dimming the lights in the installation (as in room eight) to the point that it is hard to read the labels.
Unfortunately, the good landscape work is discredited when used as a backdrop for rehearsing the lubricious display of nubile or pre-pubescent children.
With all its sublime operatic temper, Henson’s content nestles uncomfortably between the sinister and the trivial. He likes to photograph young people either in open erotic transport or as a passive target for the viewer’s lust. He does this with a long lens, where the focal length lets you ogle at the several smooch-kittens from 40 paces. It is an aesthetic of spying, granting you an illicit glimpse, as in all pornographic genres, a teasing sexual spectacle with ocular impunity.”
I would suggest that anyone who is certain ‘they are _right_’ on this issue is missing at least part of the issue. For many people, including myself, nudity does not always equal pornography. But I accept that for some people, nudity does equal pornography, and under all circumstances. There can be no solution that will satisfy everyone here.
Perhaps the question becomes: how best to balance freedom of speech and the right to privacy?
What about: we allow works of art/family photos/etc to be created freely, and we allow the publication of same once all identifiable subjects have reached legal maturity and then given informed consent.
I suspect this won’t at all satisfy people who object to the existence of what they see as pornography, and I know this will make it harder for some people to make a living as an artist, but for me, this balances freedom of expression with the right to make informed decisions as to when to relinquish privacy.
After all, great art takes time.