A selection of photographs from the Bill Henson exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney, closed after a visit from the police, appeared on the gallery’s website until late yesterday when the site was shut down.
UPDATE: Now NSW police say it's "likely" they'll lay charges against the gallery over the exhibition. As for the gallery's publication of the same images online? That's a matter for federal police. The gallery has announced it will re-open the show asap -- without the offending photos. They say: "After much consideration we have decided to withdraw a number of works from the current Bill Henson exhibition that have attracted controversy. The current show, without the said works, will be re-opened for viewing in coming days."
Henson is one of Australia’s foremost photographic artists with a considerable international reputation. Much of his work explores the idea of adolescence as metamorphosis from childhood to adulthood. It reminds the viewer of the anxieties, confusions and intense emotions in which their mature selves were forged.
The photographs in question are of a n-ked girl, back-lit, who appears to be about 12 years old. Her poses and expression convey wistfulness and ambiguity, as if she is saying “Here I am, as you see me; but who am I?”. Like much of Henson’s work they have a dream-like quality to them.
The photographs show the girl’s budding breasts, her hips and, in one case, a glimpse of her v-gina. Their intention is not to arouse er-tic feelings and they are unlikely to do so except in those already inclined to view children in that way. They are imaginative, haunting and beautiful. Although not s-xual images, they can be seen as a commentary on the slow, halting and unsettling metamorphosis of child’s body into an adult one.
However, the fact that the pictures cannot be characterised as p-rnographic is not the end of the ethical story because the social context in which the photographs are presented changes their nature.
If we lived in a society of sophisticated people with mature s-xuality, one that respected children and the integrity of their maturation process, then there could be no objection to the Henson exhibition. Alternatively, if the photographs were seen only by the intended audience and in the gallery environment, the exhibition could fulfil its purpose without controversy.
Perhaps some decades ago such a world, or at least a subset of the world, existed; but it doesn’t any more. The exhibition cannot be isolated from a society in which children are increasingly exploited for commercial reasons and used for gratification.
Childhood has become highly charged s-xually, in a way that goes far beyond, and distorts, the normal process of s-xual development in children. I am not referring primarily to the fact that children grow up in a culture saturated with s-xual imagery, but to the trend towards presenting children in advertising and media in increasingly er-ticised ways.
This trend was described in detail in the Australia Institute’s report Corporate Pa-dophilia and has been supplemented by evidence presented to the on-going Senate inquiry into the s-xualisation of children, including the land-mark report by the American Psychological Association.
In addition, the testimony of experts like criminologist Bill Glaser that pa-dophiles not only find stimulation in media images of er-ticised children but take them as a justification for their own predatory urges inescapably casts a darkness over the Henson photographs.
There can be no doubt that the images posted on the web are now circulating around the world and being used by some men for s-xual gratification. The images will be available in perpetuity. For those who want them.
It is impossible for a 12-year-old to understand the implications of allowing her n-ked body to be presented to the public. As she cannot give informed consent she is in the hands of the adults around her ─ her parents, the photographer, the gallery owner. I don’t doubt that their motives were pure; but they were also naïve and they have caused damage to the child.
The s-xualisation of children by the media and the wider culture has occurred only over the last decade or two; yet as a result images of n-ked children can no longer be seen as harmless.
It is tragic that those who are responsible for s-xualising children have robbed us of the ability to see Bill Henson’s photographs the way he intended. In destroying the s-xual innocence of children they have destroyed the innocence of innocence.
Closing down the exhibition should not be characterised as the victory of prudery over artistic licence. Oddly perhaps, if the exhibition had been mounted in more conservative times it would have passed unremarked and been appreciated by the art-loving minority.
If artists have a responsibility to push at the boundaries of the acceptable, society has a responsibility to push back. After a decade or more in which children have been increasingly exploited, society is beginning to push back and Bill Henson has been a victim: innocent perhaps, but he should have known better.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING:
A nation of philistines. The last time that NSW Police were stupid enough to venture into art censorship in 1982, was also at Roslyn Oxley Gallery. Then they fueled the career of painter Juan Davila. I don’t know what they hope to achieve this time as Bill Henson’s career is well established, but the price of his photographs is sure to rise with the increased controversy. It will also increase the long held reputation of Australia being a country of prudish philistines. -- Melbourne Art & Culture Critic
Rudd the reactionary. More disturbingly, our recently elected Prime Minister – just six months into the job – is showing a tendency to provide a kind of reactive running social commentary. Indeed, it’s eerily reminiscent of the style of a certain former prime minister, in the not so distant past. -- Jack the Insider Blog, The Australian
The real question: what does Cate think? 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... -- sydney arts journo
Art? Pig's bum it is! Yeah sure, next it'll be children engaged in sex acts paraded around as 'Art'. In previous times, these slimeballs would be tarred and feathered before being turfed out of town. The Sydney Morning Herald is conducting a poll on it and apparently 55% of people think it's kinda OK to have pictures of naked children in a gallery and presumably on the internet. Shame on them. -- A Western Heart
Not a clear-cut question. The question is: do the photographs carry a sexual flavour, or are the anxieties of an alarmist media colouring the works with a darker, unintended hue? It would be naive to endorse such a view with confidence; Bill Henson’s photographs are unmistakably dark and have a creepy, voyeuristic feel to them. The children in question appear awkward and embarrassed. There is a sense of irony in that the exhibition has been closed, and yet media outlets continue to fling around lightly censored versions of the images. -- Sy Rogers, Design Federation
What if he was a painter? I’m not entirely sure where I stand on this. On the one hand, Art has always had a different set of standards to other means of expression. I suspect that there would be no furore over this if Bill Henson was, say, an oil painter. Cherubs are routinely depicted as small children or infants. Cupid is a naked child. There are a myriad of ads on television every day where small children and infants run around sans pants. -- This is my truth, tell me yours
Crikey hyphenates words like s-x and v-gina not out of prudery, but in an attempt to lull over-zealous email spam filters into a false sense of security.