Hopefully this will get some headlines - the 2020 Creative Australia Delegation - lead by Alison Croggon has written an open letter in support of Bill Henson.
It was distributed to media outlets this afternoon and invites "the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and the NSW Premier, Mr Iemma, to rethink their public comments about Mr Henson’s work."
Thank god Cate Blanchett was on the list! After all my banging away, it was getting quite exhausting and I was running out of ideas for headlines and photos to use for blog posts.
She was joined by approximately forty other signatories (out of the 100 or so delegates) who make up what could be the makings of a new arts lobby group. And what a way to enter the fray.
It's an impressive list and well worth a read. Marvellous.
(UPDATED: It is already having an effect. This is what I was talking about. And you should make sure you check out Alison's blog. The flies have gathered. Media coverage added as it comes to hand. Newer articles at the bottom;
AFP - Blanchett backs censored artist
SYDNEY (AFP) — Hollywood star Cate Blanchett Tuesday joined prominent arts figures in condemning moves to prosecute a renowned photographer on obscenity charges, saying it damaged Australia's cultural reputation.
Daily Telegraph - Cate Blanchett backs Bill Henson
ACTRESS Cate Blanchett and other prominent Australians who attended Kevin Rudd's 2020 Summit have backed controversial photographer Bill Henson, saying charging him would damage Australia's cultural reputation.
Nine MSN - Cate Blanchett fights for embattled artist
Cate Blanchett and her fellow 2020 Summit Creative Stream members have thrown their weight behind embattled
SMH - Henson 2020 backlash
Cate Blanchett is among a number of prominent Australians from the 2020 Summit who have come out in solidarity with artist Bill Henson.
Sky News - Henson art petition
Actress Cate Blanchett has signed an open letter to Prime Minster Kevin Rudd, urging him to reconsider his stance on a series of controversial photographs by artist Bill Henson.
SMH - Big names speak up for Henson as other galleries remove works
AS THE high-profile defence of Bill Henson intensified yesterday, police admitted it might still be weeks before any charges are laid. The artist has yet to be interviewed.
The Australian - Cate Blanchett calls on Kevin Rudd to soften Bill Henson art remarks
KEVIN Rudd's handpicked arts mentor Cate Blanchett yesterday co-signed an open letter urging the Prime Minister to rethink his public comments about artist Bill Henson's work.
Herald Sun - Cate Blanchett's mates hit Kevin Rudd over Bill Henson
PREMIER John Brumby has defended the PM's attack on artist Bill Henson's work as "revolting" amid calls for a retraction by artists.
Michelle Grattan in The Age - Now it's the artists who are revolting
THE trouble, if you are a Prime Minister, with mixing politics and art is that every now and then the artists bite the politicians.
SMH - Turnbull condemns Henson raids
Malcolm Turnbull has criticised the police raids of galleries displaying the work of photographer Bill Henson.
Elizabeth Farrelly SMH - Adults overboard in the frenzy to sniff out smut
But let me come clean. I don't much like Henson's work. I find it cloying and slightly disturbing. Treacly. Unnecessarily Norman Lindsayesque. This I share with Morris Iemma, Frank Sartor and Kevin Rudd. But that's where the common ground ends. Unlike them, I know that individual dislike, or even general disgust, isn't the point.
Andrew Bolt - Herald Sun
THERE must be excellent reasons to let an artist strip and photograph a 13-year-old girl so rich men can hang pictures of her bared breasts over their beds.
ABC Online - Police chief rejects artists' Henson outcry
The New South Wales Police Commissioner has rebuffed criticism from 40 of Australia's arts leaders over the removal of controversial photographs in Sydney.
Guardian UK - These photographs aren't sexual: they're just human
Bill Henson is one of the very few indisputably great contemporary Australian artists - a photographer of astonishing talent, whose work is held in the collections of the National Gallery in Canberra, the Guggenheim Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and, in an irony that will soon become apparent, the High Court of Australia.
Crikey - Henson: time for the police to put up or back off
How long does it take for the New South Wales Police and their legal advisers to decide whether or not to charge Bill Henson with offences under Commonwealth or State law? The coppers have had the Henson pictures they took off the wall of Ros Oxley’s Paddington Gallery for almost a week now and yet no charges have been laid against Henson or the Gallery.
Crikey - Henson schmenson, take a look at Dolly
Why is it that "artistic" images of a young girl have created such uproar, and yet s-xualised images of children in the advertising, media and clothing industries remain effectively unchallenged? Have we become so desensitised that we only respond to overt nakedness?
NEWS Limited - Henson photos offensive - Scipione
THE NSW Police Commissioner has described Bill Henson's controversial photographs of naked children as "entirely objectionable". Charges are expected to be laid after police last week seized 20 Henson photographs of a naked girl and boy, believed to be aged 12 and 13, from Sydney's Roslyn Oxley9 gallery.
New York Times - Nude Photos Ignite Australian Debate
Cate Blanchett joined forces on Tuesday with prominent people in the arts to protest plans by the police to initiate an obscenity prosecution over images by Bill Henson, an eminent photographer, that feature nude 12- and 13-year-olds, Agence France-Presse reported.
El Universal - Se solidariza Blanchett con el fotógrafo Bill Henson
La actriz australiana Cate Blanchett expresó hoy su solidaridad con su compatriota el fotógrafo Bill Henson, cuyas imágenes de adolescentes desnudas han levantado una fuerte polémica sobre qué es arte y qué pornografía.
ABC Online - Henson photos must abide by laws: Brandis
Shadow Attorney-General George Brandis says there has to be balance between artistic freedom and the law. Opposition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed that he has two works by controversial photographer Bill Henson and he has strongly defended artistic freedom.
Reuters - Cate Blanchett and Australian PM hit rocky patch
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's cosy affair with the nation's arts community, in particular Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett, has hit a rocky patch over an exhibition of naked photographs of young girls.
Anglican Media Australia - In your outrage, don’t forget the subject
Once upon a time, a just-pubescent girl stripped naked in front of a middle-aged man, who gazed at her physique, judged its best angles, and how her image might best be presented to the world, and he photographed her. Hold that thought in your head.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Nothing like a bit of solidarity
Posted by Nicholas Pickard at 5:24 pm
Labels: Censorship, News, Visual Arts
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14 comments:
Well done Nicholas. I have no doubt your call to arms was more than a little bit influential in making some of those signatories into finally coming forward. As we can read from your Testimonials, your comments are noted at the STC...
Believe me, getting 40-odd arts related people to agree on something takes time. Also, it was crucially important that we were sure of what we wanted to say. This was mooted on the weekend and I'm glad it's finally out. And exhausted.
If I can do anything at all to help with this, please let me know. It's an issue that I've been covering on my own blog, where I also issued a rallying call (go and have a look at the discussion here ...
http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2008/05/henson-debate-take-stand-for-art-and.html
... some of which was of quite high quality.
I don't have the kind of audience that could have produced the statement you've referred to, but I do know some quite prominent people in other fields such as literature and philosophy who might be prepared to be involved in any ongoing campagign.
Russell Blackford www.russellblackford.com
Guys, guys, guys!! Don't you know any thing about Kevin Rudd, his history and his passion for media manipulation?
He's a stooge! Proof?
1. He appears on Rove prior to the election and goes all hip and groovy. He even answers the "Who would you turn gay for?" question with smug sincerity. Nice one Kevin07.
2. He wins the election and appears on Kerry-Anne Kennelly, where he made the now infamous "revolting" comment.
He's a friggin ex-diplomat! He turns it all on at the drop of a hat. He wings it ... he made the comment on KAK because what other choice did he have in front of THAT audience?!
Safe as houses. That's our Kevin.
Come back JWH! All is forgiven!
The offending material is indistinguishable from the genre of indecent images of children which have featured in thousands of criminal trials.
I wouldn't plan on Henson being allowed to ever travel to the United States.
It is now being used by thousands of pedophiles, the image has become iconic for them,
and the blame for that is the people who were putting on gallery web-sites and publishing commercial material to use as invitations.
The photograph would be viewed as child pornography by UN, British and Americans standards and similar materialhas been associated with criminal convictions in Australia.
Gregory Carlin
Director
Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition
Please post a link to Elizabeth Farrely's brilliant piece in today's SMH. It is worthy of a Walkley.
Sounds a little counterproductive to me. The point of this sort of open letter is typically to get as many signatures as possible, of people from various groups, and thus convey broad community concern. This open letter, however, is confined to the representatives of one small group, a group that was itself selected through a political process, and therefore excludes the majority of the community.
Seems like it can only reinforce the notions of 'arrogance' and 'elitism' that the arts community, one imagines, would want to distance themselves from. And it's not the first time I've got that impression from this whole affair...
I disagree timt--this particular group went to Canberra in good faith for what they were told would be a free exchange of ideas about the arts. Kevin Rudd took all the credit for this supposed democratic group expression. The fact that he (and the gormless Garrett) are now willing to dismiss as "disgusting" and stand silently by as police raid an artist's work and threaten the laying of criminal charges is an outrage and a violation of the trust those men were given by the creative "stream" at 2020. Of course an outdry and debate by the general public is welcome (as this letter states) but there is a great power in this statement as well, becasue of the unique circumstances in which these signees found themselves. I am, however, slightly perplexed by the refusal of the Chair, Cate Blanchett, to identify herself as the Artistic Director of the largest theatre company in the nation, and simply call herself "actress." Michael Gow and Stephen Armstrong state their true positions, why not her? What are we supposed to read into that?
It was actually the Today Show on Channel 9 anon, but I take your point about a popularly elected PM as opposed to a wisely elected one.
Just wrote a comment which seems to have disappeared...
Don't read anything into Cate's job description, TE. I simply didn't have time to check on Cate's designation, so went for the default position. Some people felt able to speak as representatives of their organisations, others didn't, and I didn't want to presume.
TimT, of course others should speak. I can't see any difference between the 2020 group making a statement and a statement from, say, an employers' group during an industrial dispute (why do we never see them described as the "business elite"?) Yes, there ought to be all sorts of petitioning, from all sorts of people;but it is also crucial, given the seriousness of the situation, that there's some sort of cohesive statement from representatives of the arts community.
And thanks Nick for the links.
Dear Alison, when I read your letter last night I did it with tears in my eyes and, am not sure why, but was very glad it had been signed by Cate Blanchett. It was some sort of relief that these 40 something individuals, which had been lead by Blanchett in April, had finally come out with a rational and well thought statement and asked our Primer Minister not to impose his personal moral views on us.
But I think it is wrong to see the 2020 group, however you want to call them, as representatives of the arts community in Australia. They are artists or members of the arts community, nothing more nothing less. The “arts community”, whatever that is, has never elected that group to represent them.
Why can’t we compare an employer’s group to the 2020 group? Because the employers would not have been appointed to be part of the group by the Prime Minister and if they are there is thanks to a tangible reason, they direct a company.
And that’s exactly why I thought your letter was so relevant.
M.
I agree with 'M' on this one Alison.
I think what you have done with the 2020 group highlights the need for a legitimate arts lobby group with membership, a code of practice, PR campaigns, community education campaigns, a policy agenda, reports - and above all else, lobbying chutzpah.
One look at the Business Council of Australia's website shows just how far behind we are.
http://www.bca.com.au/
The petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/bh280508/petition.html
I think Alison needs to do some work on her views relating to dog-art. I just read something she posted to a list I am also on. I was quite shocked.
She's coming back to an arts-ghetto under pressure. They rattled the cage, spat, crapped in their own nest, and swore, and were obnoxiously petulant.
We'll have to see if we get a PG/G out of this one. I advise brown-paper subscripions for Japanese Schoolgirl Monthy! An Oz-mag has just went on the pedo-list for our Customs & Excise.
Straight door-knock warrant job. So, it looks as if trussed up Japanese schoolgirls is viewed as 'sexual' by the fascist wowser guardians of what come into my country.
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