Bill Henson and Art Monthly Australia - bully for them

SPECIAL NOTE. This post contains an exclusive interview with Blogging Royalty 'The Eye'.

It is not often that a piece of art has the kind of impact that sees it transcend the subject matter itself, and become so much more. Art can in these cases lead to some pretty big questions being asked and some very heated debates. It can make us question how far freedom of expression is allowed and whether an artist needs to enforce some kind of self regulation. It also makes us as a society ask ourselves what kind of responsibility we have when art has crossed some kind of perceived moral line in the sand. It is a rare thing indeed when one of the so called respectable arts can make this kind of front page impact. That sort of attention is usually left to the more mainstream artists. "Which pop singer has had another drug induced meltdown?" "Which socialite has released a follow-up homemade porn video? More at 6."

In the case of Bill Henson’s latest exhibition, it is the repercussions for the subject matter herself that leave us at SOI to wonder who was there to consider her safety?

About a month ago a series of artist Bill Henson photographs depicting a nude underage girl sparked an emotional national debate about censorship and the sexualisation of children. In fact when news of the exhibition broke, the gallery displaying the work was inundated with angry calls, some threatening to burn down the building. Child exploitation is a highly emotional subject and one that has recently been on the radar for a number of reasons. The timing could not have been worse for Henson given the recent outrage over a Myley Cyruss topless shots (the 15-year-old star of Disney hit TV show Hannah Montana ) and more recently the mass arrests over child pornography. And now we have a brand new controversy just making news over the retaliatory shots of a six year old girl on the cover of a petulant Art Monthly Australia in what is essentially the printed version of poking your tongue out. What makes it even worse is that these shots are just plain crap.

Recently we have seen the NSW police abandon their questionable case against the artist, I doubt many people truly believed that Henson’s intention was to create child pornography. Nor do many view the work as pornography, but is this really the point?

To our way of thinking the bigger issue comes down to the manipulation of the child involved rather than the fear of less savoury individuals viewing these images for purposes far from innocent. The fact is these people will pick up a Target catalogue and see something vastly different than what was intended. Our issue with all this comes down to something far more practical.

It turns out that the girl in the photos parents are friends of Henson. It was while at a dinner party together that he brought up the possibility of using their daughter as a model. Now you can see just how enticing this would be to the parents involved. It is likely that they are not artists themselves so the idea of having their daughter immortalised by one of Australia’s leading photographers would be absolutely thrilling. I can see the excitement in their faces as they clink champagne glasses to seal the deal.

I would suggest at this point that many of us are now wondering how much time was actually spent discussing the possible down side of this venture. The biggest question that comes to mind is what happens when the other kids from her school discover (which indeed they now have) that they are now the proud owners of nude pictures of their school chum. It doesn’t take a vast stretch of the imagination to work out what the other kids at school will do to her. One word springs to mind – bullying.

Art is at its heart subjective and the intent of an artist can get lost or even ignored. Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov experienced a shocking lesson in this very thing when he opened the front door at Halloween to find two girls dressed as his nymphet creation asking for candy. So you can just imagine what sort of things these kids, who lets face it, can be horribly cruel will say about these images. All discussion of artistic merit and the beauty of innocence is completely and utterly mute here.

Forget pornography, forget the perverts, forget artistic merit, forget censorship. If the parents of this girl can tell me that the children she goes to school with have not teased, taunted and bullied her in any way; if this does not taint her reputation in that school for years to come. Then I will apologise.

I ask again, is ANYONE let alone the parents considering this outcome? I just wonder how smug they are going to feel when she comes home from school one day and runs crying into their arms.


Mark's $0.02

Hi, Mark here.

Look, for me this issue is really simple. It's not about the definition of pornography, it's not about censorship, it's just about consent. Consent, consent, consent. Kids can't make this kind of decision for themselves, and given that it's conceivable that a child may regret it in the future, why should a parent consent on behalf of their child? And for that matter why should an artist accept that consent?

It wouldn't pass the ethics committee at my university.

I think a big problem with this debate is that people confuse morals with ethics, a topic which i will post on in the future. - Mark

And now our exclusive interview with The Eye.

We chat with the creator of 'Eye On Big Brother' fame. This year his informative posts on Australian Big Brother '08 have really struck a chord with people. Listen to this interview and you will understand why. This is one smart fella. Dont forget to go check out his site here.

Here is the interview -henson.mp3

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