News Limited have it splashed all over their website;
"PUBLIC pressure has forced a Sydney gallery to cancel the opening night of an exhibition featuring photographs of naked 12 and 13 year olds just before the doors were due to open.
"The exhibition, by Australian photographer Bill Henson, was scheduled to open at 6pm (AEST) today at Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Paddington, in Sydney's eastern suburbs."
The people at Holt Street, Surry Hills even put the images online.
Like most sensible, intelligent and creative people I abhor the sexualisation of children but Henson's isn't that. But to quote another purveyor of all things creative (picture, right); 'But Eddie darling, is it art?'
What I want to know about this Bill Henson brouhaha though is what Cate Blanchett thinks about it all, being the purveyor of all things Cultural, Artistic and Creative as far as Chairman Rudd is concerned.
Her mate Chairman Rudd is pretty clear about it;
"Photographs of naked 12- and 13-year-olds at a Sydney exhibition shut down by police are revolting and have no artistic merit, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.
"I find them absolutely revolting," he told the Nine Network.
"Kids deserve to have the innocence of their childhood protected. I have a very deep view of this. For God's sake, let's just allow kids to be kids.
"Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids."
Feel like you're back in 1971 yet?
And then we get an earful from Hetty Johnson 'founder and executive director of Bravehearts, a child sexual assault action group'.
"It's child exploitation, it's criminal activity and it should be prosecuted, both the photographer Bill Henson ... but also the gallery because these are clearly images that are sexually exploiting young children," Ms Johnston said.
"They are clearly illegal child pornography images, it's not about art at all, it's a crime and I hope they are prosecuted."
Who is Hetty Johnson anyway? There was an Australian Story about her, that highlights her as one of the key figures in the demise of Peter Hollingsworth.
She may have been right about Hollingsworth. But that doesn't necessarily make her right about this.
One reason that Chairman Rudd has been quick to get in about this is that he has come across Hetty Johnson before.
Extract from Australian Story:
CHERYL KERNOT: I think what I recall most about Hetty's temperament is this absolute determination and often single focus. When the tollway campaign was on, that was her life.
HETTY JOHNSTON: It was the mid-'90s and I was doing the job of an accountant, had been for years. Then the road issue popped up and I was somehow dragged into that.
NEWS REPORTER: Environmentalists claim the Eastern Tollway will cut through Australia's largest koala colony, situated in bushland near Brisbane.
CHERYL KERNOT: It was an unusual group and a successful one. It was very good at working on the strengths of the individual members. I think she was very intelligent. It's what made me sit up and pay attention.
HETTY JOHNSTON: I quit my job to actually fight this. For two years I didn't get an income. I became so passionate about it and it just changed my life.
NEWS REPORTER: Wayne Goss and Labor took a savaging from a cranky electorate. Labor lost four seats over its decision to build a tollway road.
HETTY JOHNSTON: I think initially the Goss Government was incredibly shocked. It was remarkable. We had a hand in dismantling a really solid Labor government. And the Labor Party didn't like it, naturally.
It's a small world up there in Queensland.
But it wouldn't be a Henson exhibition without ruffling a few sun-drenched feathers would it? His images are always striking, always confronting and always asking questions.
And Hetty Johnson attempts at censorship and Kevin Rudd's Sunday school sensibilities are just a bit too sensationalistic to really make any sense.
C'mon Cate, can you sort this out for us or are you from Queensland as well?
Friday, 23 May 2008
Where are we again?
Posted by sydney arts journo at 9:58 AM
Labels: Censorship, Visual Arts
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21 comments:
Excellent question, but I doubt you'll receive an answer.
Opportunistic political grandstanding is like that.
This is utterly ridiculous.
I have a feeling Miranda Devine's neo-conservative mouthing off against Henson and Dolly magazines in yesterdays paper might have had something to do with this too. Which just makes me even more angry...
And I was really looking forward to this exhibition (and no, I am pretty sure I am not a pedophile)
Police have said they are laying charges. In my view, this is very serious for all of us.
So they are:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/henson-show-charges/2008/05/23/1211183060208.html
And where is Garrett??? Hello?!
"The gallery will remain closed while the current exhibiton is re-hung."
"Re-hung."?
I find this obviously deviant and perverse, overt sexual reference to re-constructualise the popular construct of the male appendage utterly offensive and I will be lodging an official complaint with whoever it is that will whip this thing up ... oh, er sorry ...
where do you think garret is? wandering around looking dazed and confused like he normally does.
Is Garrett from Queensland too?
Garrett was born in Sydney and Blanchett was born in Melbourne.
Speaking of sexualising children, how old was that boy in "Notes on a scandal"?
Don't worry - the mob will decide what's art from now on (just vote at http://www.smh.com.au/polls/national/form.html)
It's all quite Pythonesque in it's own sad way - I'm getting right onto Fairfax Digital and ask if in future all my poems and plays can be submitted to a poll to decide just how filthy they are!
I think the pictures are sexual and that henson has made an error, but hey, its great publicity!
and you gotta love that turbo boomerang karma - no sooner does Rudd have a test drive of some populist censorship than it comes back and hits him, via the same thing happening to his nephew! http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/rudd-nephews-artwork-rejected/2008/05/23/1211183064608.html
Yes Benito, but that "Rudd's nephew" is not art. Where are the breasts?
If you do manage to locate Prime Minister Blanchett, could you let them know at the STC? I understand they've been looking for her for a number of weeks now themselves...and yes let's see if the likes of Garrett prove to have any integrity left at all, and stand up for free speech, instead of witch hunts by Right wing journos and shock jocks.
I'm by no means a neocon. I've had an absorbing interest in the arts all my life and I'm the first to argue against censorship. But this isn't censorship; they're taking the pictures for evidence in a criminal case. Whether the State needs to protect the public from Portnoy's Complaint is a very different issue from whether someone was harmed without their legal consent in the making of the work, and if none of you sees that then no wonder the Mob chooses not to listen to the arts crowd.
I saw Henson's exhibition at AGNSW a few years ago and was totally appalled at the glowing acceptance it was getting. It's way beyond the (definitely unpleasant) sexualisation of children that's happening in commercial circles, in that Hensen's work systematically emphasises the fragility and vulnerability of the children while it sexualises them. Child abuse, like other forms of rape, is about power, so these elements are important to abusers. That's why it's creepy. (And don't tell me he's asking questions about it - what question? and what's the need to ask it 1,000 times?)
Even so, if he could make the work without actually involving minors, I'd probably say leave it on because I'm against censorship. The point is, he can't, and we can't know what damage it's doing, at the time of making or over the years as the kids realise what being on display like that really means.
I really do wonder if Johnston has the model in the photos interests at heart, did Johnston ever stop to think that by alerting authorities it would become front page for the News Ltd publications? She has single handidly ensured that every person in Australia with net access can now view the images...
I'd never have known about the exhibit had it not been for her, I do wonder if she bothered to think of the model and the consequences it may have for her?
seems like she just wants her name in the spotlight...again!
It looks like we might have our first prudish prime minister for a long time.As a friend pointed out, he even pursed his lips when discussing the subject on TV. For all his faults, John Howard did not force his moral views on the rest of us. I think we have to go back to Menzies to find a prude in the Lodge.
I wonder if Rudd will turn out to be a wowser as well?
It will set up some very interesting tensions.
I'm sorry, I must have been away the day Hetty Johnston was appointed Attorney General. Well done Kevin, you little nerd, for immediately caving in to a zealot without even attending the gallery or speaking to anyone in the arts community. So much for "listening" -- more proof that the 2020 conference was a total wank and Labor-party self promotion.
Ken, I would have to disagree with you that John Howard 'did not force his moral views on the rest of us'.
That's all he really did eith through direct statements or funding channels. Think reconciliation, defence spending, Iraq, Woomera, Nauru, higher education cuts, voluntary student unionism, wheat board inquiries...
I am exhausted already.
I think you're confusing morals with something else SAJ. I don't believe for s moment that we would have had this problem under Howard. This is primarily a State-based policing issue, and we all know how on the nose the NSW State Labor Government are. Like any good, hearty controversy, this is potentially being used to distract the public's attention away from the flailing Iemma Government. And we also know from experience that there's nothing a disenfranchised population likes more than some good, over-zealous policing. Makes them all feel safe in their beds ... when in fact, they just being rounded up like cattle and prodded.
The real issue is that paedophilia is obviously alive and well in the State ALP ... and Bill Henson is nothing more than a scapegoat for the hysterics who shamefully believe that this is going to change a single aspect of the extent of danger children face at the hands of the sickos who lust after and desire them.
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