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Art Monthly editor plays into Hetty’s hands
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Editor Maurice O’Riordan is a total fool for putting the image of a naked young girl on the latest cover of Art Monthly. After so much effort, so many carefully crafted messages and an industry united, this boofhead comes along and inflames an already sensitive public issue. Not only is his decision misguided, it lacks a total understanding of how to influence public policy and play the media game. It is so misguided that today we have a situation where every single person who first condemned artist Bill Henson is now singing in unison against the artistic community with calls for laws and protocols to be introduced. Those in the arts community have been left standing with their pants around their ankles and can now expect a royal bollocking from Hetty Johnston and her Bravehearts wowser club. In fact, the visual arts community was abuzz over the weekend, with one source revealing that on this particular occasion, they might not get behind their own — in fact, they might leave O’Riordan out to dry. You would expect an editor, a journalist, someone who is engaged with the written word and with the art of debate to be a little more tactful, but it appears that O’Riordan has lost all perspective on this issue. The Australia Council for the Arts has now been left like a shag on a rock trying to, again, defend the integrity of artists. The council’s CEO Kathy Keele was even resigned to saying that “continuing to argue extreme positions is not creating any greater clarity.” Keele is absolutely correct and O’Riordan finds himself in the same camp as Johnston. To successfully engage with a debate of this magnitude you have to see that there are always two sides to any story and you must respect the opposing side. O’Riordan has lost that respect and by trying to rub Hetty Johnston’s nose in the Henson debate he will ultimately lose. Arts Minister Garrett hit the nail on the head saying the magazine was being needlessly provocative. Let’s put this into context. During the Henson debate, it was clear that the gallery’s decision to put the images online and on the invitations was naive to say the least. But the arts community got behind Henson and the gallery to defend their right to freely create an exhibition of the photographs. O’Riordan, by taking art out of context like the gallery did with Henson’s photographs a month or so ago and placing an image that could concern the community onto a magazine has unnecessarily thrown fuel onto the fire. And now the proponents of arts censorship are on board. They have had time to re-form, re-think and re-formulate their public comments. You can’t imagine a worse case scenario. Kevin Rudd said yesterday, “we’re talking about the innocence of little children here. A little child cannot answer for themselves about whether they wish to be depicted in this way.” NSW Premier Morris Iemma chimed in, “this is an issue of child protection.” And Johnston led the chorus, “this is manufactured by adults for the pleasure of adults, the financial benefit of adults, whatever it is. This is an adult desire being projected on to children.” According to the Sydney Morning Herald the magazine editor, Maurice O’Riordan, “could not be contacted for comment yesterday”. That’s hopefully because he knows that he has made a very stupid mistake. |
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32 Comments
Nelson’s. Stupidest. Move. Yet. He’s referred this to the Police! It’s a photo which has been in public circulation for years, revealing a glimpse of a nipple on an undeveloped breast (cf that irritating photographer who does all those baby images - Geddes?? - on greeting cards), which has undoubtedly been viewed in one way or another by literally thousands of people without previous reference to the police, and he’s decided the best way to spend his time on this issue is to refer this, and no other similar images, to the cops. Why this picture, why now, and what does he seriously think is going to happen? What a waste of resources (and I’m referring to Nelson and oxygen here, not just the fact that this is going to tie up half a dozen cops with much better things to do with their day).
Actually, further to previous, it’s just occurred to me that Nelson is even stupider than I’ve accused him of being. He’s a Federal MP with some substantial numbers committed to backing him. He’s perfectly placed to put up a private member’s bill to deal with this precise situation. He could, with a bit of nouse, get guidelines implemented as law which spell out what is acceptable (eg a glimpse of a nipple on an Anne Geddes greeting card) and what isn’t (exactly the same thing on the cover of an arty magazine) so that when he has to refer anything he hates to the Police, they’ve actually got something to work with. His referral to the police without anything to back it up is about him either being lazy or gutless. Either way, he’s a waste of his taxpayer funded salary.
Maurice you idiot.
Wonders will never cease; people doing stupid things TO their children.
Jehovah’s Witnesses dragging them around on their delusionist door knocking, driving with your 2-year-old on your lap, letting your massive dog “play” with your 1 year old, publishing your 6-year-old’s naked photograph on the cover of a government funded magazine after a vigorous public outrage at previous material.
Doh!
BTW, photography is not art.
“Throwing fuel onto the fire” is actually part of an artists job descripion. It is not their job to make things easier for arts bureaucrats or politicians.
The hysteria inherent in all this was perfectly represented by an ABC radio news report that said that one of the girl’s breasts was “clearly visible”. Later that day I saw the image on SBS news and was astonished to discover that this supposedly shocking and disturbing ‘breast’ belonged to a six year old girl photographed sitting modestly before an artifical tableau. The fact that her ‘breast’ was very similar to that of any child of that age, regardless of sex, was apparently irrelevant to those intent upon seeing pornography in every representation of the unclad human form.
Any parent who has photographed their children when not fully clothed is now potentially cast as an incipient paedophile in this McCarthyite climate. It is time that those who delight in their own moral outrage were told to desist and grow up a little.
Glen M please get to know actually what paedophiles are really thinking and feeling and stop distributing paedophilic attributes scurrilously to anything you don’t like when you think you can get away with it.
Jackie French has nailed it. The tragedy is she feels she has to say “don’t get me wrong-“ is that because we all know what sorts are out there.
TO RENA’s comment
Rena, abuse, especially of the kind you call child abuse occurs less now days and whether you know to call it rampant or otherwise it was much more so in the past the further back you go. Your presumption to the contrary is based on the modern public exposure. Art is validated as such in terms of the effort and or skill given to express something meaningful meaningfully in whatever medium judged or evaluated with intellect, feelings or emotion that scores for the observer in the name of beauty or other worthwhile shared humanity which even when acutely controversial has an acknowledgeable propriety which determines the general acceptability.
Luke Briers: Are you talking about photo journalist Henri Cartier-Bresson perhaps? A great Leica technician.
There is something suspiciously unhealthy about adults going on and on like this about a child’s nakedness.
I agree Arts Minister Garrett hit the nail on the head saying the magazine was being needlessly provocative.
Since we’re provoked I guess we have to say and do something.
Four, five and six year olds giggle at being naked for fun.
The only natural and loving thing that a decent adult does when in that same space is to enjoy that something in the child that makes her/him giggle.
Here however we adults have managed to bring to join that giggle so much that the child won’t understand such as crusading, issues of child abuse, child exploitation, sex, stiff wet porn, votes, politics, censorship, freedom and only God knows what next. The naked child would stop giggling if they had any idea of all this and start howling.
Nicholas is right about the boofheadedness of the Arts Monthly guy and I agree with most of what Dave says also. Couple of additional comments on aspects of the case: (1) Sunday Telegraph getting all steamed up yesterday about it yet the other big story on its front page and on its website, right next to this one, was Stephanie Rice and boyfriend in underwear with Steph pouting seductively at camera, etc. I know there are issues about age, consent, etc., but isn’t this a bit of a double standard; (2) someone said wouldn’t it make more sense to black out the little girl’s face rather than the rest of her, especially if there is an issue about her being embarrassed later (she obviously isn’t); (3) how many naked kids from Darfur have we seen in media or are they OK because they are black and starving?
Good on you Kev - I am tired of those in the arty clique whose contribution to the sum of the human condition is to brown eye the community at large. Above us all. Their values first and last. I’d feel the same about the journalist who published the photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc - if he posed the shot and called it art. Instead that photo gave the world a shocking glimpse of injured innocence and actual human misery - sufficient to justify the frankness with which that message was conveyed. The confected chocolate box presentation of the six year old and its use to confront the community on the issue of child exploitation is self-indulgent, self serving and absent of any redeeming purpose.
What is lacking from Hetty et al is any evidence at all that actual child abuse is aided, abetted, encouraged of condoned by this or any other similar picture. The point about child pornography is not the image per se, it is that abuse that is inherent in producing it. That is what everyone can agree we should stop. If someone produces an image which the child clearly consented to, is clearly not upset about and is, in fact, at some pains to defend in a fairly self-possessed manner then it is not for Hetty and friends to project their moral ambiguity onto the situation. Find a real instance of child abuse- there are plenty around- and get exercised about that. This is what is wrong with taboos; they become all form and no substance.
I write books for kids. Many- obviously- have photos of kids on the cover. If you browse the bookshops you’ll also find a surprisingly large number of picture books with illustrations of naked kids or babies. We’re not talking erotica here, but images of kids FOR kids- illustrating the world they live in, either in real life or their imaginations. Are some wackos seriously suggesting that no publication ie including children’s books - can include photos of kids? Or innocent illustrations of kids who aren’t fully dressed? Are kids going to be become the new ‘unseen’, hidden behind the veil of misguided morality? Don’t get me wrong- I too deplore the exploitation of children or of their images, both commercial or sexual. But let’s keep a bit of sanity here.
So we again we have parents consenting to their naked child being displayed to the world to make a political point. How sick are they that they would use their daughter’s body for their own purposes?
All photographs of naked children should include their equally naked parents to demonstrate their that they have consented to the photograph.
It seems modern art is more about controversy than any real artistic talent, to me if you need to portray someone naked to show their vulnerability you lack ability and imagination. It is as thoughtless as giving a loved one a rose.
My biggest issue is that we have a society that’s censorship is falling so low it is past the gutter and well into the cess pit of debauchery, I am unsure how much these artworks entirely influence this but in a world were abuse of all kinds has become more rampant we seemingly fail to make the connection between what is being shown to the people and the change in our behaviour.
Will this publicity mean child abusers will try and get their kicks out of posing as so called “artists” feeding their vile addictions.
The issue can be discussed without actually displaying more pictures of naked children; it already has resulted in a bombardment of pictures of naked children flashing up in all forms of media? Lets not have anymore…
I will stay away from children’s rights as that is well and truly discussed, we know adults often have no idea what they are agreeing, to what hope has a child got.
A lot of the comments above are being made in out of context…..that is, they’re made as if we live in an ideal world….however, the arts community do have an overepresentation of social airheads who believe art underpins the success or failure of society…really..I have that proposition put to me by numerous arts types., ome of whom cliam to be ‘educated’.
The arts community’s case was done no favours by the witless Age art critic Robert Nelson & his equally witless wife, who attempted to present their 11 year old daughter as a meaningful commentator in this issue.
What a pair of reprehensible dimwits !!!!
They’re guilty of the crass exploitation of a minor the likes of which I’ve never seen….they should be charged with…something!!!
My personal reading of the cover image is that it’s about art versus nature. The setting appears artificial, while being at the same time a landscape, which is supposed to be a picture of ‘nature’. The makeup and wig (or photoshopping or whatever) and pose of the child are also deliberately ‘artistic’ and unnatural.
Rather like that famous picture of a pipe labeled “this in not a pipe”, this seems to me to be saying “this image is not nature, it’s art.” Which makes it ideal for the purpose to which it has been put. To me it reads completely cold and neutral in sexual terms, which, paradoxically, makes it too intellectual to be wholly successful as a piece of art. It’s too contrived.
This is where Bill Hensons work is superior, because it does have that undercurrent, and hence gets under the skin, so to speak.
And the pose is one of those damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t things – if you hide the genitalia, you draw attention to the fact that you’re doing so and invite the viewer to imagine what is hidden, if you display the genitalia, you get accused of creating a sexual image.
The problem isn’t with these images. It’s in the poor parenting I see everywhere. I was at Chadstone shopping centre recently, and taking in the way a lot of children are dressed . There were lots of very young girls (with their parents) -7-12ish - wearing makeup and what I might call pop-tart clothes, which must have been bought by those parents. There were small boys in cut-down versions of the underwear-flashing ripped-T rent boy style, too. If parents don’t want their children sexualized, why do they dress them up like this? Why do they pimp up their children in this fashion? Do they think it’s cute or something?
I reckon a lot of the hysteria over these pictures is actually born of parents guilt at their complicity in this. The photos confront them with what they have done, or allowed to be done, to their own children, and they quite rightly get angry. And then turn round and shoot the messenger who is showing them what they are doing.
I don’t actually mind the little girl’s photo (naked or not) on the front page. She is beautiful and the photo is very good. But I think, we are missing the point here.
We live in a very perverse community, in which people masturbate in front of colourful magazines, in public places, in front of TV, kindies and schools; little babies get killed by their parents, others are sexually abused by relatives and even family members. It looks like the permissive society does not guarantee safety for anybody. We may argue whether we accept photography as an art or skills but I think there is no argument in the fact that something went terribly wrong with the so called ‘sex revolution’. We have more sex predators than ever before. Whether photos of naked kids can be banned or not is totally irrelevant in the society which has failed to reform itself and prevent (now) rampant child abuse. Banning photos seems to me a bandaid remedy which makes us feel better and we do not have to do anything else; just be vocal on some issues and feel great. Australia is a very young country: we do not know how to fight drugs, child abuse or climate change (water shortage). Can we ever grow up so a sight of a naked child does not arouse some of our gents and the public discussion could focus on the arts/skills only ?necessary
I am confused is this a painting over a camera image or a collage of photo and painting? The image in the SMH via internet is not clear enough to know. The girl in the picture was given time on the ABC 7:30 report my opinion was that she was repeating what her parents said (had to ask her father what Rudd had said) and was of the opinion it was a photograph. The magazine cover is needlessly provocative and it would be better not used but having said that what should be done with all the naked cherubs in church sculpture and paintings? Perhaps Copenhagen’s little mermaid should be removed from public gaze and a lot of old master’s paintings have their genitals removed. I think the morality police are getting a bit oversensitive. I cannot see that this illustration is in any way erotic let alone pornographic but the fuss could well lead to a sense of “sin” in an innocent child. The Bravehearts approach is the label all victims as scarred for life but how much are they helping these victims overcome this or do they become professional victims?
The photo wasn’t taken for political purposes. It was shot some years ago.
The magazine editor chose to use that photo on the cover. The wisdom of that is a moot point, but the photographer should not be held accountable.
Rudd and his Labor party cohorts, as well as other politicians ‘outraged’ by the nude photos of children in an artistic context, not only display their own philistinism, but breathtaking hypocrisy also. Is the ALP, without a murmur of protest from any other official political party, welcoming and publicly funding a substantial portion of the World Youth Day? Is this not the same anachronistic institution with reactionary views that breeds and attracts paedophiles to the extent that in the USA they employ a retinue of legal professionals to prevent court trials of sexual abuse victims at the hands of these sanctified perverts? That so many youth are allowed within the same vicinity as these individuals, warped as they are by the unnatural vow of celibacy they’ve committed to and demanded by the Catholic church, (which incidentally is aimed at protecting its vast wealth from any paternity claims) is criminal in itself. The innocence of children? Pope Benedict was in the Hitler youth movement. This controversy is part of a broader attack on democratic rights of all individuals, not just artists and must be opposed. Art is not about pleasing people and pretty pictures. Look at Goya and Picasso’s Guernica and countless other serious art that was considered offensive by official establishment as well as the Nazis.
I’m personally sick of this Hetty bashing where someone taking a stand against child abuse is the bad guy and the paedo’s are just “artistic”. All across the planet paedophiles are justifying themselves by saying its art and it doesn’t hurt the kids at all. This is about crossing lines and the community doesn’t want to cross it. The law says publishing pictures of naked children is against the law. Deal with it. If some loser artists can’t find anything better to take photo’s of then naked kids then maybe they need to get a life. My sense of freedom is just fine thankyou.
Connor, I disagree about photography being an art form (but agree that not all photography purporting to be art actually is), but you’re so right about Jehovah’s Witness kiddies. I’ll never forget the look on the face of one such kid as he walked with his parents past our house a year or so ago. He was staring longingly at our kids bikes lined up in the driveway. It was a very sad thing that this lad’s childhood had to be wasted on his parents religious fanaticism and not wasted on a bike in the local reserve like mine was.
Glen M, I’ve got no problem with Hetty Johnson when she’s addressing real child abuse (eg her perfectly reasonable comments about child abuse in Queensland Aboriginal communities recently). The problem is focussing the debate on respected artists who’ve got models (and, where required, parents) permission to generate works which are for public display and are fairly easily interpreted as not being of a sexual nature (unless, like Hetty Johnson, you regard all nudity as pornographic and presumably have to shower in your pyjamas), because it means that you’re reducing awareness/discussion of REAL child abuse, where victims don’t get a say and where actual sexual misconduct is occurring. It’s counter productive, and child sex abuse victims can’t afford for campaigners to be counter-productive. I wouldn’t care if tougher laws/guidelines about this were brought in - it would save these pointless controversies - but Hetty Johnson’s putting this case or the Henson case in the same basket as some perv taking pictures for their own gratification does no one any favours at all.
I am surprised and disappointed that photographs of naked children in this context is not considered pornography.
It should be.
O’Riordan: go to gaol
Mrs X: remove her child.
If Hetty, Rudd et all have their way, presumably all pictures of naked Aboriginal, African, Asian, etc children will be expunged from the media, too. Or is it different if they’re non-white?
What offends me most about the so-called moral outrage is that it debases the innocence and beauty of childhood.
Here we go again. Endless paragraphs will be written in the name of child protection, when there is no complaint from the child involved in this photograph (she’s interviewed in today’s media) or her parents. Meanwhile, people actually involved in abusing children get on with what they do unscrutinised. The article is absolutely correct in bagging the editor involved here - this was unnecessarily provocative - but the counter-productivity of Hetty Johnson’s response should not be ignored. Accusing kids of being porn stars is, in my view, abusive of itself, and Hetty Johnson’s refusal to grasp this is just self-serving. I also repeat my comment from the Henson fracas - Kevin Rudd’s suggestion that kids should be allowed to ‘just be kids’ is excellent, and while he’s banning kids from appearing in nude pictures, he should also ban politicians such as himself from parading his kids in front of the media as part of his ‘happy family guy’ marketing plan. Similarly, kids should not be exploited by trying to turn them into sports stars where this interferes with their education and social lives - no more hours in the pool or on the tennis court. Remember, child exploitation takes many forms, and not many of these involve nudity.
It seems we’re heading back to the future, especially with Kevin 07 (Mistake 08 as someone quipped today - nice one) getting into the ‘naked art’ issue. For goodness sake, can’t we all stop being wowsers? We’ll be back to covering up table legs next.
Art is art. Some of it’s good; some of it’s bad; a lot of it is, well, marginal; and far too much is talentless. All of it is an issue for individual judgment. Some art journals and their editors are a bit iffy too. But a free society cannot afford to censor expression; to do so would degrade that very freedom.
Today’s Australia has vulgarised its characteristic hedonism and openness. That may well be a cyclical effect, but when we have a national obsession with sex and the body, it’s counterproductive to start a war about photographic art and foolish of police to raid art galleries.
We should not confuse the great task of combatting child abuse and paedophilia by becoming enmeshed in sterile arguments over the value or otherwise of particular art. In relation to children as subjects of art, unless something is plainly paedophilia and thus (rightly) against the law, an individual who finds some particular piece of art offensive should simply ignore it. When I last checked, the government had not legislated to make voyeurism compulsory or made art appreciation mandatory.
Neither should the present debate, which has been created by multiple acts of crass stupidity, become an argument over public funding of the arts. They wouldn’t survive without public funding. And on balance, that would be a bad thing.
Yeah! That’s right Connor! That Henri Cartier-Bresson chap can go and get stuffed, walking around thinking he was an artist schmartist!…. BTW!
Get a grip, Pickard, you can’t even see anything in the picture except a nipple. I’m not up on what turns paedophiles on, but I’m pretty sure they’re after more than a nipple. The only difference between this picture and something like “Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time” is that there’s less detail in the picture.
I do hope that one of the most famous anti war photos of history the one of 9 year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc fleeing her village with napalm burns in South Vietnam will not be child pornography by the time the Hettys, Ruddys, et al have finished with their moralising.
I am confused is this a painting over a camera image or a collage of photo and painting? The image in the SMH via internet is not clear enough to know. The girl in the picture was given time on the ABC 7:30 report my opinion was that she was repeating what her parents said (had to ask her father what Rudd had said) and was of the opinion it was a photograph. The magazine cover is needlessly provocative and it would be better not used but having said that what should be done with all the naked cherubs in church sculpture and paintings? Perhaps Copenhagen’s little mermaid should be removed from public gaze and a lot of old master’s paintings have their genitals removed. I think the morality police are getting a bit oversensitive. I cannot see that this illustration is in any way erotic let alone pornographic but the fuss could well lead to a sense of “sin” in an innocent child. The Bravehearts approach is the label all victims as scarred for life but how much are they helping these victims overcome this or do they become professional victims?