I haven’t sifted through all my thoughts on this current furore over the Bill Henson photography exhibition so I will re-visit this with time (like some time next month when I facilitate a feminist discussion group on this very subject) but I have some initial thoughts. In case you’re not up to speed on the art world scandal to which I’m referring, Bill Henson is one of Australia’s most well-regarded photographers and he is particularly fond of adolescent subjects for his work. As he says, adolescents represent “moments of transition and metamorphoses”. He has often photographed adolescents in what appear to be very raw moments of vulnerability including being naked, intoxicated and engaged in sexual activity with one another. I have long been familiar with Henson’s work although I’m by no means a knowledgeable art viewer. I have always found his work to be beautiful and disturbing – at the very least I find it intrusive in young people’s privacy.
Last week the police raided his current exhibition and several pieces have since been removed by police as part of an investigation. The subject of these pieces is a naked thirteen year old girl. The gallery raid has infuriated the art community. They’re right in arguing that Henson’s exhibitions have previously included similar subject matter and haven’t been met with the police and community reaction that this one has. (For instance, Prime Minister Rudd has called the images “revolting”). Additionally the art community has argued that Henson’s work does not sexualise children. This, I find debatable.
I am extremely uncomfortable with the censorship of art. And there is no doubt for me that Henson’s images constitute art. But art is not immune from exploitation. I found it short-sighted that so many of the comments defending Annie Leibovitz’s photograph of Miley Cyrus came down to the beauty of that particular image. Yes, these photographs are beautiful, but whoever said exploitation always looks ugly, grainy and artless? Henson’s photographs are of a young girl, one who is very recognisable from her photographs, and one who will have to live with the Internet-permanence of these images. For this reason I find comparisons of Henson with artists like Caravaggio a little irrelevant. (And when will art involve photographs of naked females who don’t routinely look quite so subdued by the viewer’s gaze? Ugh.) Consent for this girl’s modelling was provided by her parents but can she and they possibly have given informed consent to what is the capacity for distribution, use and controversy of these photographs in the Internet era?
The world was different when Henson began his career and not just in terms of the growing power of the Internet, but also on account of an increasing understanding of the rights of the child and the damage of inappropriate sexualisation. Henson, the art world, and the critics of this exhibition will undoubtedly survive this debate intact, while also remaining completely clothed and I can’t help but contrast that with the vulnerability of this young naked girl at the heart of this scandal. We should use children in all our media, including art, with incredible caution. Clive Hamilton, executive director of the Australia Institute (the research group that produced the report Corporate Paedophilia) was interviewed on this subject and has raised a number of salient points for me.
CLIVE HAMILTON: Well I think the way childhood has been sexualised so heavily, particularly over the last 10 or 15 years, has inevitably changed the way we see children in their naked form.
I’ve argued that previously when perhaps it was a more innocent age, then artistic representations of children, as is the case with the Bill Henson exhibition, wouldn’t have provided difficulty.
But in an age where children have been so heavily sexualised by commercial organisations and by the wider culture and where there’s so much more alarm about paedophilia then I think the presentation of a 12-year-old girl, for instance, naked to the public, really has quite a different impact and raises new concerns.
In particular, when they are placed on the internet, you know they’re flashed around the world within hours and even though the website from the gallery in question has been taken down, the images of this girl who is about 12 we believe, are all around the world and can be used for all sorts of unpleasant purposes.
And I argue that she, the girl, the model, could not possibly understand the implications of being presented naked to the world, even though the presentation is very aestheticised and that therefore she could not give informed consent.
So there are serious ethical problems with having these child models presented in this exhibition in this way, particularly putting them up on the internet.
EDMOND ROY: Are you accusing the gallery owners, the parents, the artists of a certain naivety then?
CLIVE HAMILTON: Absolutely. I don’t think their motives were nefarious or exploitative but I think they were very naive to imagine that nowadays you can put pictures of a naked girl with all of her, you know, budding sexuality on public display and not expect it to have all sorts of impacts including some pretty unpleasant ones.
EDMOND ROY: What do you say to the argument about artistic freedom? The question has been raised about how artists should be allowed, as you point out, push the boundaries.
CLIVE HAMILTON: Well it’s not so much that artists, I mean it is in a way the duty of artists to push the boundaries, but it’s also an obligation on society to push back.
And we’ve seen after a decade or more in which children have become increasingly exploited in the media and popular culture and presented in more and more eroticised ways, we’re beginning to see a reaction against that and Bill Henson’s exhibition has been caught up in that.
You know, arguably he and the gallery owners are innocent victims but they should have known better. They should have been aware that the way that children have been presented in recent years is bound to create difficulties when you present them not in an eroticised way I’d stress, the pictures aren’t in any sense pornographic, but the context makes the presentation of children in the nude, you know, troubling.
EDMOND ROY: You did mention the internet earlier. Has the invention of that new medium changed the argument somewhat?
CLIVE HAMILTON: I think it’s changed it completely. I mean if we imagine going back 30 years and this sort of exhibition being put on in a gallery and it was seen by its intended audience, that is those who have presumably a sophisticated appreciation of photography as art, then I don’t think, I certainly wouldn’t have a problem with it.
But when the same pictures become consumed, if I can use that commodified term, by a range of people for quite different and unintended reasons, which will have impacts on the child models in question, through the internet, then I think there are serious worries about that.
I mean, if this girl at age 30 has a completely different, you know has a career and an integrity and, you know, a history behind her and suddenly these pictures pop up in a magazine or on the internet, I mean, I’d imagine there’s a good chance she’d be humiliated.
And yet it seems to me that the adults around her who have her interests at heart and organised, approved the exhibition, were not fully aware of these dangers and have probably caused that child some damage.
P.S. I have deliberately not linked to the particular photographs discussed in this post. If the debate is important to you then Henson’s photographs are easily found on Google but I don’t want to participate in their gratuitous observation.
[…] work until I was reminded of it on a blog recently. I should have referenced her already but this Bill Henson art debate has pushed me along. If you haven’t already seen some of Greenfield’s photographs, […]
The one thing I want in this debate, and it has been conspicuously absent in most discussions, is the realisation that there is an actual real human child involved. People claiming that this is exactly like the censorship of Lolita and Lady Chatterley’s Lover? Buy a clue. It’s not the same thing.
It’s possible to come to the same conclusion, but at least use some intellectual rigor along the way.
And if I never again hear that “censoring nude photos of children is denying them their sexual agency!”, it will be too soon.
“Henson, the art world, and the critics of this exhibition will undoubtedly survive this debate intact, while also remaining completely clothed and I can’t help but contrast that with the vulnerability of this young naked girl at the heart of this scandal.”
So, so, so bitterly true.
I generally agree with you and Clive Hamilton, but I really believe that our having “so much more alarm about paedophilia” has many elements of moral panic about it. Especially in its “stranger danger” incarnation. As such, I don’t think artists (or anyone else) should be condemned for not buying into it.
Ultimately, of course, it is about the child and not the photo. If a child has been harmed everything else is so much noise.
I just finished posting my own thoughts on this general topic (but not about the exhibition, I haven’t followed it at all), it’s messy and complicated. Icky.
[…] In defence of Bill Henson, Bill Henson, Eli Langer, Bill Henson, We live in a sick world…, Art and the sexualising of children, The Bill Henson ‘kiddy porn’ fiasco, Bill Henson, art and child […]
I’ve been thinking about this on and off today. I still don’t have much in the way of a definitive position but there are two things that keep coming back to me:
* the PM jumped straight on the anti-art bandwagon, there have been two examples of art censorship in Melbourne this week, the other artist in question was the PM’s nephew (it wasn’t anything to do with children or nakedness, but China and McDonald’s)
* researchers who want or need to use human subjects (especially children) are required to work through a very long Ethics process. They have to explain themselves to a board, and demonstrate that the research is valuable, and that the subjects will be well-treated. Artists don’t have an Ethics Board, or an industry standard, perhaps they need one.
* will the police raid Anne Geddes?
* Two years ago Melbourne’s Finest removed an artwork that was exhibited on a billboard. The exhibition was legal, the removal probably not, the policeman had just used his initiative and decided it was unsuitable for the public. It was a burnt flag, entitled “Proudly UnAustralian”, in the wake of the Cronulla riots.
We should ask questions of artists. We absolutely need to ensure that they understand and conform to our society’s expectations in dealing with children. Perhaps there needs to be more discussion of art while it is in progress rather than waiting til the exhibition. Bill Henson is very successful, and I wonder when was the last time anyone really questioned the way he works.
I’m also wondering about Working With Children checks, in my partner’s work he’s been involved with photographing (clothed) children, all the people in the business who have contact with kids have a WWC. They also have careful policies about making photos of kids available only to them, not generally available to the public. Not all businesses are careful. If you’re getting your kid photographed for school, or sport or drama club or whatever, it can end up on the internet in a context you wouldn’t like.
Thankyou Bluemilk, for raising this…
i just wanted to throw my seventeen year old daughter’s thoughts into the ring here, seeing as we approach this as mothers and she is approaching this a teenager, an art student and an aspiring artist.
she is studying Bill Henson in her HSC art course.
She showed me some of his photographs a few months ago, saying ‘check out the kiddy porn we’re studying for the HSC.’
she hates the photographs, but her most savage criticism is of the artist.. She calls him a disgusting old perve, and i think is very much aware of the old man behind the camera when she looks at the photographs.
Today we talked about the reactions we were seeing – and this is a brief summary of her feelings.
The images are of a time she remembers as being the time when she and her friends became aware of themselves as ‘no longer children, but not yet adults’. It was a time when privacy became hugely important, when they could feel suddenly exposed by people commenting on their developing bodies, or on a sexuality they were still trying to process. she said, these photographs force open the bathroom door that we had started wanting to lock, and make those self conscious bodies a part of an adult fantasy. And its a place where adults have no right to be. It sucks because even if its not a sexual fantasy,(and she says it looks like one to her – does that make her a pervert, as may of henson’s defenders would imply? ) its still an invasion of a private place.
Ok, its not pink bits porn, but i see her point. It not so much the nudity but the creating a fantasy out of preteen bodies.
[…] Bluemilk notes: “The world was different when Henson began his career and not just in terms of the growing power of the Internet, but also on account of an increasing understanding of the rights of the child and the damage of inappropriate sexualisation.” […]
[…] powerful, which appears to be more the themes that Henson explores in his work. But is that enough? Bluemilk has an excellent post analysing the various issues of images of child nudity, and presents a different and valid emphasis […]
While I feel for Rose’s daughter having to study stuff that creeps her out (in the same position nearly twenty years ago I had to study the BVritish artist Allen Jones!! and some pictures of Jan Davila’s that my tentative ttenage self could not bear to look at because they showed Gay Sex)) I think it’s very important to remember that her reactions are hers, they are not integral elements of the pictures. I don’t look and see the bathroom door being forced open, nor do I see pornography, I see a photograph of a young girl that brings a rush of my own associations flooding in. If we want to have art then we have to acknowledge such feelings as ours and not things the picture has done to us. If we can’t do that then maybe we deserve to have Kevin Rudd carefully vet everything we see to make sure nothing revolting gets through.
Clive Hamilton really is a censorious twit. Why he is so lionised by the Left, and why he is taken seriously by anybody at all, is totally beyond me. I saw through him up years ago as just another faux Left social conservative, the kind that Australia breeds in great numbers (indeed, we now have one of the same ilk as our prime minister).
Laura – an interesting and valid point you’ve raised about owning our own reactions to art, but somehow this point is being used against all those who find these photographs too much. If you can see the potential for titillation in it then you must be a paedophile yourself, kind of argument. This exhibits a reluctance to really debate the matter.
I have to admit I was surprised when I first saw the photographs in question because they had been described by supporters as a girl looking incredibly relaxed. That is not how I find her to be at all, I think she appears rather uncomfortable and pensive. Of course both these descriptions are interpretations and neither are more valid than the other. However I think it was very interesting to hear the interpretations of a young woman like Rose’s daughter with regards to these images, because young women/girls might just have something important to offer in their interpretion given that they are the subjects, as opposed to men who so far have dominated interviews with their interpretations of these images!
I read your own post on this topic and I support your passion for art and the enormous benefits artists provide us with (my mother is an artist) – “We need artists to take our minds out of our own narrow existences, especially to places we don’t know we are capable of going to.” – yes, but when artists require real live people for their muses then they need to observe the rights of those people. When those people are children they have to be especially careful because the power dynamic is so unequal. Their gift to us in producing art does not put them above the ethics we expect of everyone else.
Russell Blackford, I’ll tell you what I’ve seen through, the desperation to label any call, no matter how moderate, for a more considered approach to sexual objectification censorship.
Bluemilk, what an excellent post. You’ve articulated the issues around ownership and power so well. I was chatting with someone earlier about this and we both expressed frustration that because we find there to be something worthy of criticism about this particular work (and Henson as the central figure of director), we must be somehow close minded and denying these girls their right to express their sexuality. What rot. It really does the debate a disservice for the pro-Henson (for want of a better term – ah, you know what I mean) team to be so pig-headed about why people might find these images disturbing in a way that goes beyond simply being challenging and revealing.
I understand where Laura’s coming from, but I also agree with blue when she points out that most people weighing in on this issue ‘officially’ (ie, being quoted in articles and such) are middle aged white males. Surely Rose’s daughter can provide an equal if not far more revealing insight into how these images impact on notions of teen sexuality?
Oh, and further – thank you blue for pointing out how goddamn irritating it is to constantly see naked female bodies posed in passive, diminutive ways.
I object to images of fully nude children on public display for the most simple reason of consent. There are choices that adults make for children because we feel that they cannot completely imagine or comprehend the consequences.
At 13 would I have understood that a single photo could last a lifetime, could stir chatter among pedophiles, cause heated debate in the media, affect poorly a future job opportunity, upset a lover 20 years later?
Give children a chance to be children and save these choices for adulthood.
I have no idea where I stand on this issue but these comments from C.H. struck me:
“I mean if we imagine going back 30 years and this sort of exhibition being put on in a gallery and it was seen by its intended audience, that is those who have presumably a sophisticated appreciation of photography as art, then I don’t think, I certainly wouldn’t have a problem with it.”
I find it a little classist, actually, the idea that one group of people know how to read images (Beautiful! Challenging! Art!) but the unwashed masses who look at stuff on the ‘puter and not a matt white wall will read a work in exploitative and inappropriately sexual ways (N*ked kids). Nor do I think the context dramatically impacts how we read images, if that’s the point he’s getting at, because that context is always itself located in the broader social and cultural context that permeates internet and gallery alike.
For me that’s the tricky thing with these debates: the images don’t exist independently of how we read them, and there are always multiple ways of reading. With its broad social, temporal and geographical reach, the internet throws these issues into relief but I don’t think it changes the fundamental questions of children’s rights, exploitation, interpretation and expression.
I’d disagree that the art gallery wall isn’t an important bit of context Kris. A work of art does look completely different on a storage rack next to whatever fitted in the spot (collection management being a sort of ‘anti-curatorial’ practice in this regard). Some works of art in a store room still look awe-inspiring. Most just look like ‘stuff’ because they’re crowded in, at the wrong height for viewing, under flouro lights, and you’re too close to them. The museum as temple idea is gone. A reproduction of an art work on a computer screen also changes colour and size and loses it’s texture.
I totally agree with the selective audience classism bit though.
What I remember of being 12 or 13 was how hidden bodies suddenly became. I knew what kid’s bodies looked like, and I knew what adult women’s bodies looked like (generally from art and advertising, most of which was unrealistic), but I was painfully aware that bodies in transition from one to the other had to be hidden at all costs. I don’t think that’s a good thing to teach our kids.
There are two quite separate issues: the treatment of models during the production of art, and the finished artworks. The police have confiscated the art, but there’s been no suggestion that anything untoward happened to the models. They appear to have been treated far more respectfully than kids trying to become fashion models or actors. We do have a duty to ask questions about how children and teenagers are treated, but we also have a duty to do it in a way that doesn’t make things worse. I certainly don’t want to live in a world where one age group are untouchable subjects for art.
I am a 16 year old girl, and would be honoured to model for Bill Henson. There is nothing inherently “revolting”, or even sexual, about a naked body. The subjects are not in “provocative” or highly sexualised poses. Henson is honestly representing the adolescent body as sexually transitional and fraught with insecurity (hence the uncomfortable, tense mood). The art vs porn debate is irrelevant – the images do not depict a sexual act (sexual organs are not even clearly visible), nor do they have erotic intentions. Bill Henson, and most fine art photographers, have rigorous release forms their subjects must sign (and parents, in this case). We should not underestimate a teenager’s (NOT a child’s) maturity, or comment on irresponsible parenting. This girl has agreed to let an old man photograph her naked – not a decision one takes lightly, especially with normal pubescent insecurities. Legally, consent has been given in the correct manner. Whether or not all parents would do the same thing is another matter entirely. The society denouncing Bill Henson is the same one that honks when I walk onto a main road in school uniform. Where is the real problem?
If the model regrets her decision 20 years down the track (as some people claim she will), the MEDIA is to blame, not Henson.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/this-is-not-porn-say-hensons-models/2008/05/25/1211653846181.html
straight from the model’s mouth.
innercitygarden – I agree the context changes what a piece looks like and how we can relate to pieces. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of the socio-cultural context, ie, we read them by drawing up on a set of meanings (for example childhood, gender, sexuality) that apply regardless of where and how we view the image.
Sasha, I think the police may have to answer to your charge about any future regrets – if they have been part of the creation of a storm in a teacup, then they are as responsible as Henson. But Henson still brought these images to the public, so he must be answerable to his decision to do so. The media reports what people want to read, if something is controversial, the media will love it. This is something that the 13 year old in question (and her parents) should have been completely aware of before choosing to be involved. I can’t speak for whether or not they were, but you can’t blame the media for behaving entirely predictably.
Your point about her not being a child is quite right, but she is also not an adult. Our society still doesn’t handle adolescence well. We treat them as children in some respects (like restricting their decision making rights) but adults in others (judging them for decisions made in adolescence (by themselves or their parents) for the rest of their lives). I don’t know how this weighs in on the argument in question, but our confusion over adolescents and what they are and are not capable of is definitely contributing to the wide range of emotional responses.
A few initial thoughts that hopefully make sense!: I’ve always liked Henson’s work – it is aesthetically beautiful and he explores interesting terrain in the depiction of adolescence as a dark, uncomfortable and liminal life stage. I was interested to hear a barrister in the Age today state that ‘it was important that the test for obscenity not be reduced to: “How would a pervert view this?”‘ And I understand that viewpoint but believe it’s naive in the age of global distribution of images online.
Knowing Henson’s work, I don’t believe it was his intention to create a pornographic work, nor that the young model’s parents believed it was pornography (I don’t believe any sane parent would willingly put their child in such a situation – am i naive?). HOWEVER – thanks for putting Hamilton’s opinion up, blue – I do think the artist is naive in thinking that he can produce such an image without knowing that it might be taken in such a way (see Kris’ point above about socio-cultural context) – you cannot produce any image divorced of its wider context and attendant meanings.
And I do think we need to question the ways some art is produced, and the process of informed consent. If artists produce it, others should be able to question it.
[…] I wish I hadn’t bought into this whole debate on the ethics of art and the sexualising of children. It is making my head […]
This is the comment I just wrote on Sarsaparilla – I thought I’d be lazy and post it here too, because it’s kind of the culmination of my reflections on this post too.
“What worries me about this issue is that it clouds the other issue about the way children (especially girls) are portrayed in advertising and the modalities of marketing – bralettes and g-strings available for 7 year olds, children pouting in bikinis etc (like that link you posted Ampersand Duck – ew). The censorship of Bill Henson’s photographs is a response to what, in other contexts, is a genuine issue. Unfortunately it seems to have become polarised into either you’re on the side of sexualising children or your not. Smoke and mirrors.
I have a personal fascination with Bill Henson’s photographs of teenagers, and I am interested in the complex feelings they inspire in me. As an opposite argument to the ‘they’ll regret it when they become fully cognisant grown ups”, I desperately wish i had some kind of record of my adolescent body like this (and yes, i would consent to my daughters being photographed in this way, if that was something they wanted to do – shudder at, say, The Royal Australian College of Physicians suggesting the parents be investigated and perhaps prosecuted).
But the photos I see of children in fashion magazines don’t make me feel good. My responses are similarly complex but not because the images themselves are complex, rather they are complex because they are designed to generate a certain aesthetic response that goes against the grain of my own value system. I look at them and i feel the consumerist melancholy I am supposed to feel – lack, a void which can only be filled by acquisition. These feelings are of course about myself, transferred onto the body of children. it’s not a sexual desire for children, but a loss in myself that I am supposed to assuage, presumably, by decorating my children as if they were myself. A lot of women compensate their hatred for their post pregnancy body through buying expensive clothes for their children – perhaps that’s part of it too.
Anyway, my internal wafflings aside, I can see why this issue has arisen considering the cultural context, but the media has taken on the wrong person. Bill Henson has been demonised as the scapegoat because corporations are too big, too powerful, too difficult to pinpoint and because some people don’t get the difference between art and advertising (understandably in a postmodern world, where there’s not really supposed to be an inherent difference in the value of texts).”
—
I wanted to add that it bothers me how quick Kevin Rudd and other politicians have been to damn Bill Henson and yet what are they doing to discourage corporate paedolphilia, where the decision to produce exploitative images of children is conscious and calculating?
Delurking; hello!
This is difficult for me on a couple of levels. I certainly appreciate the delicacy of consent in this situation and the overwhelming need to protect a child’s rights. However, I can’help but hear an element of victim-blaming here: just as rape only happens when a rapist decides to rape, pedophilia happens when a pedophile perpetrates an act of pedophilia (leaving aside issues of psychological compulsion, which may or may not be an issue in both cases). Women shouldn’t *have* to limit themselves in nightlife/dress/comportment/etc to avoid rapists or sexual harassment, and art–and young subjects–shouldn’t *have* to limit themselves to avoid the fact that some perv somewhere online might find the images.
Now, whether that principle is workable in reality is, as always, problematic. I’m not necessarily coming down on one side or the other, but that’s what bothers me about some of the discourse you’ve presented.
Additionally,–and this is entirely a personal and imagined perspective–it seems to me that participating in a work of art, with full knowledge and consent inasmuch as that’s possible, and discovering after the fact that some pedophiles found the images sexually arousing and had used them sexually, would strike me as unfortunate, uncomfortable, but not necessarily a huge surprise and not traumatic, because there are crap people in the world who do crap things. Participating in a work of art under the aforementioned circumstances only to have a sudden public uproar about how no matter what you, your parents, or the artist say or do, this project is necessarily pornographic and reprehensible, seems far worse.
It’s a much greater invasion of her daily life (you know all the kids at her school must be gossiping about this, as well as her friends’ parents, and her parents’ friends, and the government, and the newspapers, on and on), and it completely strips her and the others involved of any agency. It doesn’t matter what they intended, it doesn’t matter how they executed it, it doesn’t matter how they felt about it while doing so, and it doesn’t matter what they have to say about it now: by virtue (so to speak) of a small population of sexual deviants, their work is invalidated and dragged through the gutter. What might have been a positive and interesting experience for this girl (not saying it necessarily was) is now almost certainly negative and shameful. I don’t think art should be held hostage to internet porn, especially when there will be plenty for pedophiles to look at with or without Bill Henson. The government’s position here in particular seems like exploitation of an easy opportunity to score points denouncing the horrors of pedophilia without having to do much about the much more difficult actual problem of internet child porn.
Note: I haven’t seen the photograph. It may be that on looking at it, my gut would tell me something wasn’t right, and that would be more or less that. But the above points are some of the things I see in the abstract here.
[…] Life drawing models will almost never give you eye contact once they’ve taken off their towels or their robes, they pose with their eyes averted, looking off into the distance or determinedly down into the ground. Maybe some of it is boredom or a desire not to distract you but given that they’ll also never come over to look at your drawings until they’ve put their robes back on, I think at least some of it is the unconscious acknowledgement of a power differential in the room. ”I am naked and being watched by you, while you are clothed and watching me” and while they’re pretty comfortable in the process they’re also not able to do anything as challenging or as intimate as making eye contact with their viewer. I was reminded of this when I saw one of Henson’s photographs of the thirteen year old girl. […]
Thanks for the comments everyone. He de-lurker, you.
I’ve addressed some of the issues raised in these terrific comments in my follow-up post here. https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/where-angels-fear-to-tread-more-thoughts-on-the-ethics-of-art-and-sexualising-the-child/
The one thing that I think is also worth exploring a bit more is that while there is a large body of work scrutinising the voyeurism and activation of male gaze/authority over the ‘reclining’ still-life nude female form in art work, art criticism is less vocal on the subject of the politics of representing the adolescent form. And while I appreciate Sasha’s eloquence and sophisticated thought on this issue, I’d like to point out, just for the record, there are plenty of images of these transitional beings in art (begin with Edvard Munch for particularly resonant Henson-like imagery of the exposed ‘virgin’ girl). I want to know too why Sasha and others needs to ‘see’ herself/ her body/ the adolescent body, as a way to overcome shame of the body? How does this work? I’d hazard a guess that a lot of young women would look at Henson’s beautiful models and measure themselves against them, unfavourably, resulting in self-doubt and self-hatred. In actual fact, as Germaine Greer recently pointed out in her foray into this debate, these transitional female forms are abundant and normalised in our culture to the point where female sdult models (i.e Kate Moss) have the bodies of 14-year-olds. In reality, we despise the middle-aged female form – a point that Greer has made elsewhere – and particularly the maternal body – sagging breasts, stretched stomach, marked skin, flat feet, wide hips… I’d consider Henson’s work important and radical if these bodies featured, at all. But we’re not; instead, we have these utterly overdetermined and idealised images of “vulnerable”, “threshold-crossing” bodies and we need to continue to ask why male baby boomers, like their predecessers in generations past, fixate on this stage of life and use these muses to express their longing for innocence, voyeuristic authority and control, elegies of loss and longing… These are legitimate readings of the text, and while the images I’ve seen are in fact quite beautiful (also a legitimate reading), the precursors (that bluemilk also talks about) are downright creepy, reminiscent of Larry Clark’s work, and invite voyeurism. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what Henson’s intention was (death of the ‘author’, anyone?), what matters is that all kinds of readings should be allowed, and not dismissed outrightly (a kind of subtle censorhip in itself )and labelled knee-jerk ‘moral hysteria’
[…] Bluemilk examines the furore over Bill Henson’s photography of nude adolescents, the role of the media, and the limitations of the artistic defence in “Art and the sexualising of children”. […]
“Knowing Henson’s work, I don’t believe it was his intention to create a pornographic work,”
He is the master of child porn chic. Can we at least be honest about this? If there are complaints, it is because he has lost his artifice, he is a copyist, he is now doing 1880’s retro child pornography. It is little wonder he has to sell it in a basement.
“He has often photographed adolescents in what appear to be very raw moments of vulnerability including being naked, intoxicated and engaged in sexual activity with one another.”
I don’t see HOW this could be legal? I mean, what’s the difference in this and kiddie porn? The “intended” audience? Does the “opinion” of the art world really override morality? or the law? I’ve heard child molesters speak on Oprah about what it is they get out of molesting children. It sounds shockingly similar to his little spill about the transition and the metamorphasis or whatever..it’s about capturing (or stealing) their innocence. I would also venture to say that child pornographers consider their work art (in their sicko brains).
“I don’t see HOW this could be legal? I mean, what’s the difference in this and kiddie porn?”
Cate Blanchett, Alison Croggon and a list of other group-thinkers to get him off the hook. I suggest you draw up a list of kiddie porn chic photographers and go visit their related puchase index at Amazon for a insight. We’ve tried to hit the High Street and Mall sales, but there are so many ‘artists’ out there selling their ‘art via the internet.
Cate won’t get a disney movie, Bill won’t get to do a kiddie porn show in London. It is the best we can do at the moment.
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Why bubble baths? Because I, like everyone else, wanted to see what happens behind that door when a lovely girl undresses and takes a bath. It is a time of intimacy, privacy, and vulnerability, not often seen by others. These girls came by in cute little outfits that showed off their personalities. They wore t-shirts with kitschy phrases written on them, or short flowery dresses that were easy to remove. Sometimes I had the girls get out of the tub soaking wet, run to another room, pose for some photos, and then run back to the tub. The girls brought over props too–jump ropes, toys, hats, tiaras, guitars, bubbles, hand puppets, miniature pumpkins, a yorkshire terrier, an iguana, and a duck made out of soap. There’s nothing like a beautiful young woman, wet and playful.
Disturbed is how that made me feel..very, very disturbed. Like the kind of disturbed that make me want to go home and nail boards to our windows and pull the shades as tight as they’ll go..Like the kind of disturbed that makes me not want to take my kids to the pool or let them play in the park. What’s wrong w/ this guy?
Bubble bath girl link is disturbing but so potent in that it shows a continnuum, and the blurring of boundaries between “art” and “pornography”. I think the term child porn chic is apt. Who knew there could be such a well-defined genre? And who is Einhorn anyway?
Henson was displaying art in a modest gallery for its own sake. I felt torn on the issue then, but now we have posing 6 year olds being used to make naked kids into the next artistic cause celebre.
I don’t think it’s clever and I don’t think this will end favourably for the art world…
I’m curious by those who straight out condemn Henson for his photos. On what do you base your judgment? Your own taste in art? Your ability to differentiate clearly between art and pornography? I see no evidence of this in any of the posts.
Kindly also tell me what I should do as an Asian chick. There is a forum out there that post photos of Asian chicks because of Asian fetishists. There are really perverted bastards out there who jerk off at the sight of an Asian lady. So, shall we ban all art works depicting Asians from galleries because there is a pocket of society out there who get off on Asian chicks?
I hear you say, “This is not about Asians. This is about children. What about the children??!!” hysterically. You’re certainly right. Let’s first forfeit any debate about whether Henson’s art is pornography – it is clearly not based on the fact that we can’t draw a clear line between porn and art (see Asian example). If any thing, the only way we can judge his work is by his intention and his method. He did not create these images for pedophiles to enjoy. He created it for the community at large. He did not force these models to pose for him.
So, let’s assume at this stage that Henson’s photos are art, and not pornography. What then, is the big deal? The REAL issue is about children being able to give consent for something that will forever immortalise them through a variety medium, especially the internet. The main critics have proposed that these children will be traumatised in the future with the knowledge that potentially, some pedophile will use their images online for unsavoury purposes. Unfortunately, this is the sad truth of today’s online society – it is hard to coral predators on online forums, and to protect absolutely, the rights of a child’s innocence. However, internet perverts also jerk off to a number of odd shit as well, shall we then make illegal pictures of cactuses and guinea pigs? Again, the politicians and naysayers argument is flawed.
The only way we can weigh this issue is to look at the hard evidence. Not one of his adolescent models in the past 30 years who are now adults have stepped forward to claim that they regretted their decision to model for him, and that posing for him caused them psychological harm. In fact, the opposite has been true – several have stepped forward to support him and make clear the positive experience they had posing for him.
I’m mildly disgusted by the moralists who make absolute statements. I’ve seen Henson’s photographs, and they are disturbing. They are not to my taste. However, I refuse to ask the law to legislate away art because it is not to my taste. Examine the evidence, and perhaps you will come to the same conclusion as I have. The Henson verdict must fall to the side of the artist at this point. I am able to concede that society is rattled, and rightly so. It has made me think harder about child protection laws, as well as freedom of artistic expression. For now, I am on the side Henson, acknowledging the importance of issues raised by some of the more moderate voices who fall on the side against Henson. However, to change my mind, I will need some clear evidence for your arguments.
[…] For instance, earlier this year we saw the Bill Henson affair, when there was a huge discussion over whether nude photos of young teenagers older preteens were pornographic. Far too many of the opinions defending Henson assumed that if you opposed the photos, you were a dirty, repressed child molester yourself. This sort of smug, arrogant reaction completely refuses to acknowledge that people who are troubled by Henson’s photos might have a legitimate worry about the sexualisation of young teenagers. Fortunately there were more sensible and reasonable views from people made uneasy by censorship, such as this po… […]
[…] see them as girls, teen-agers, or women, as innocent or experienced? A couple of years ago there was this big furore about well-known Australian artist, Bill Henson’s photographic nudes of pubescent kids. I […]
[…] Bluemilk notes: “The world was different when Henson began his career and not just in terms of the growing power of the Internet, but also on account of an increasing understanding of the rights of the child and the damage of inappropriate sexualisation.” […]