slackbastard

2020 Open Letter in Support of Bill Henson
theatre notes
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

I know it’s been quiet on the blog the past couple of days. However, it has not been quiet at home: I’ve been putting together an Open Letter in Support of Bill Henson from a number of the Creative Stream representatives at the Australia 2020 Summit. The letter has just gone out to media outlets, and runs as follows:

PRESS RELEASE: MAY 27, 2008

Open Letter in support of Bill Henson
From Creative Australia 2020 Summit representatives

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

As members of the Creative Stream of the Australia 2020 Summit, we wish to express our dismay at the police raid on Bill Henson’s recent Sydney exhibition, the allegations that he is a child pornographer, and the subsequent reports that he and others may be charged with obscenity.

The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists is no way to build a Creative Australia, and does untold damage to our cultural reputation.

The public debate prompted by the Henson exhibition is welcome and important. We need to discuss the ethics of art and the issues that it raises. That is one of the things art is for: it is valuable because it gives rise to such debate and difference, because it raises difficult, sometimes unanswerable, questions about who we are, as individuals and as members of society. However, this on-going discussion, which is crucial to the healthy functioning of our democracy, cannot take place in a court of law.

We invite the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and the NSW Premier, Mr Iemma, to rethink their public comments about Mr Henson’s work. We understand that they were made in the context of deep community concern about the sexual exploitation of children. We understand and respect also that they have every right to their personal opinions. However, as political leaders they are influential in forming public opinion, and we believe their words should be well considered.

We also call on the Minister for Environment Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, to stand up for artists against a trend of encroaching censorship which has recently resulted in the closure of this and other exhibitions.

We wish to make absolutely clear that none of us endorses, in any way, the abuse of children. Mr Henson’s work has nothing to do with child pornography and, according to the judgment of some of the most respected curators and critics in the world, it is certainly art. We ask for the following points to be fairly considered:

1. Mr Henson is a highly distinguished artist. His work is held in all major Australian collections including the Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of SA, Art Gallery of WA, National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia.

Among international collections, his work is held in the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Houston Museum of Fine Art; 21C Museum, Louisville; the Montreal Museum of Fine Art; Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; the DG Bank Collection in Frankfurt and the Sammlung Volpinum and the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna.

Major retrospectives of Mr Henson’s work at the Art Galleries of NSW and Victoria attracted more than 115,000 people, and produced not one complaint of obscenity. His work has also been studied widely in schools for many years.

2. Mr Henson has been photographing young models for more than 15 years. Until now, there has been no suggestion by any of his subjects or their families of any abusive practices. On the contrary, his models have strongly defended his practice and the feeling of safety generated in his process, and have expressed pride in his work.

We suggest that the media sensationalism and the criminalisation of laying charges against Mr Henson, his gallery and the parents of the young people depicted in his work, would be far more traumatic for the young people concerned than anything Mr Henson has done.

3. The work itself is not pornographic, even though it includes depictions of naked human beings. It is more justly seen in a tradition of the nude in art that stretches back to the ancient Greeks, and which includes painters such as Caravaggio and Michelangelo. Many of Henson’s controversial images are not in fact sexual at all. Others depict the sexuality of young people, but in ways that are fundamentally different from how naked bodies are depicted in pornography. The intention of the art is not to titillate or to gratify perverse sexual desires, but rather to make the viewer consider the fragility, beauty, mystery and inviolabilty of the human body.

In contrast, the defining essence of pornography is that it endorses, condones or encourages abusive sexual practice. We respectfully suggest that Henson’s work, even when it is disturbing, does nothing of the sort. I would personally argue that, in its respect for the autonomy of its subjects, the work is a counter-argument to the exploitation and commodification of young people in both commercial media and in pornographic images.

Many of us have children of our own. The sexual abuse and exploitation of children fills us all with abhorrence. But it is equally damaging to deny the obvious fact that adolescents are sexual beings. This very denial contributes to abusive behaviour, because it is part of the denial of the personhood of the young. In my opinion, Mr Henson’s work shows the delicacy of the transition from childhood to adulthood, its troubledness and its beauty, in ways which do not violate the essential innocence of his subjects. It can be confronting, but that does not mean that it is pornography.

Legal opinion is that if charges were laid against Mr Henson, he would be unlikely to be found guilty. The seizure of the photographs, and the possible prosecution of Mr Henson, the Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery or the parents of Henson’s subjects, takes up valuable police and court time that would be much better spent pursuing those who actually do abuse children.

4. Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the trial-by-media to which Mr Henson and his work has been subject over the past few days, is how his art has been diminished and corrupted. The allegations that he is making child pornography have done more to promote his work to possible paedophiles than any art gallery, where the work is seen in its proper, contemplative context. It is notable that the attacks on Mr Henson’s work have, almost without exception, come from those who are unfamiliar with the photographs, or who have seen them in mutilated or reduced images on the internet.

If an example is made of Bill Henson, one of Australia’s most prominent artists, it is hard to believe that those who have sought to bring these charges will stop with him. Rather, this action will encourage a repressive climate of hysterical condemnation, backed by the threat of prosecution.

We are already seeing troubling signs in the pre-emptive self-censorship of some galleries. This is not the hallmark of an open democracy nor of a decent and civilised society. We should remember that an important index of social freedom, in earlier times or in repressive regimes elsewhere in the world, is how artists and art are treated by the state.

We urge our political leaders to follow the example of Neville Wran, when in 1982 a similar outcry greeted paintings by Juan Davila. At that time, Mr Wran said: “I do not believe that art has anything to do with the vice squad”. With Mr Wran, we believe the proper place for debate is outside the courts of law.

Alison Croggon
Writer

Signatories:

Louise Adler, CEO & Publisher-in-Chief, Melbourne University Publishing
Geoffery Atherden, Writer
Stephen Armstrong, Executive Producer, Malthouse Theatre
James Baker, Tax advisor and accountant
Geraldine Barlow, Curator
Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney
Cate Blanchett, Actor
Daryl Buckley, Musician
Leticia Cacares, Theatre Director
Karen Casey, Visual Artist
Kate Champion, Choreographer, Artistic Director Force Majeure
Rachel Dixon, New media developer
Phoebe Dunn, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Commercial Galleries Association
Jo Dyer, Executive Producer, Sydney Theatre Company
Kristy Edmunds, Artistic Director, Melbourne International Festival of the Arts
Saul Eslake, Economist
Richard Gill, Artistic Director, Victorian Opera
Peter Goldsworthy, Writer
Marieke Hardy, Writer and broadcaster
Sam Haren, Artistic Director, The Border Project
Frank Howarth
Cathy Hunt, Creative consultant
Nicholas Jose, Writer
Andrew Kay, Producer
Ana Kokkinos, Film maker
Sandra Levy
Matthew Lutton, Theatre director
Nick Marchand, Artistic Director, Griffin Theatre
Sue Maslin, Producer, Film Art Doco Pty Ltd
Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art
Callum Morton, Visual Artist
Rosemary Myers, Artistic Director, Windmill Performing Arts
Rachel Healy, Director Performing Arts, Sydney Opera House
Liza Lim, Composer
Jan Minchin, Director, Tolarno Galleries
Helen O’Neil, Executive producer
Charles Parkinson, Artistic Director, Tasmanian Theatre Company
David Pledger, Theatre director
Marion Potts, Theatre Director
Katrina Sedgwick, Festival Director, Adelaide Film Festival

Additional signatories:

The following support the appeal contained in this letter without necessarily endorsing the detailed argument:

John Coetzee, Novelist
Ramona Koval, Writer and broadcaster
Julianne Schultz, Academic

Update (May 28) : Art or not, it’s still exploitation, Steve Biddulph, The Age | High Court’s soft spot for Henson, Leo Shanahan, The Age | Henson art is great, Sebastian Smee, The Australian…

Previously on Bill Henson’s Blues : Bill Henson : Crikey! says Clive | Bill Henson : Art or Pornography? | mgk / suki has an opinion down after complaint by local white supremacists to MD Webhosting

Henson images not porn, says expert, AAP/Herald Sun, May 26, 2008: Betty Churcher, a former director of the National Gallery of Australia opines. (Also Henson’s naked teen shots ‘not pornography’, ABC, May 26, 2008).

In reaction to the NSW police raid and confiscation of some of his work, a gallery in Albury has also removed a number of Bill’s other works: Another gallery removes Henson nudes, ABC, May 26, 2008. “The council’s James Jenkins says police have been asked to look at the works, which have been exhibited before without complaint.” (Also Gallery removes Henson photos / Henson hit again, Victoria McDonald and Brad Worrall, The Age, May 26, 2008.)

Whatever the good burghers of Albury might suddenly discover about the photos that have been hanging on their gallery’s walls, PM Krudd is under fire for his denunciation of Henson’s work as “revolting”. Australian PM under fire in row over art and pornography (AFP, May 26, 2008): Playwright Michael Gow, the artistic director of the Queensland Theatre Company, is quoted as opining that KRudd’s revulsion “was at odds with Rudd’s comments at a brain-storming meeting he called last month which included 100 leading members of the country’s arts community. “Among the many cliches endorsed at the 2020 Summit was the one about art… being provocative and challenging,” Gow wrote in a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald. “Now that some art has provoked, what has happened? The prime minister who invited us to Canberra has questioned the abilities and credentials of a major Australian artist.” Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald (Festival of filth and wagging tongues, May 27, 2008), Annabel Crabb reckons “POLITICIANS should keep out of art”. Which begs the question: should artists stay out of politics?

Unlike Albury, a Wollongong gallery reckons its gonna keep on keeping on with Henson (Wollongong gallery keeps Henson art, Jodie Minus, Illawarra Mercury, May 26, 2008). The question is: will they be inviting the police in to offer some expert advice?

The Age editorial (Consent is central issue in the Henson debate) of May 27 argues that “At the heart of this matter lies something more profound and of greater concern than the perhaps irresolvable question of whether Henson’s images of pubescent children are art or pornography. The crucial issue is that of consent: can a 13-year-old give mature consent to being depicted in this way?” Legally speaking, the answer is quite probably ‘no’, which is also the opinion of former judge and law professor George Hampel (Henson model could sue, Karen Kissane, The Age, May 27, 2008).

In a final example of the reaction of the corporate/state media sector to the controversy, following his comrade Andrew Bolt’s lead, Tim Blair in The Daily Telegraph (Bone of artistic contention, May 27, 2008) weighs in, taking a free kick at leftists/the art world/Catharine Lumby.

Speaking of art and cops, on previous censorship of a piece by thirty-something Trotskyist Azlan McLennan, see also : Art = Ego (January 12, 2006) | Victorian Authorities Censor ‘Entartete Kunst’… Again (January 28, 2006) | “If someone has a go at me I’ll always have a go back” (February 7, 2006) | Leunig saved from free-fall (February 15, 2006) | Burn-A-Flag-For-Lenin Week! (November 12, 2006)

Oh yeah, millionaire street artist Banksy got competition. While his uncle is busy being revolted, Young Rudd’s fiery artwork too hot for council to handle, apparently (Michelle Grattan, The Age, May 23, 2008): “MELBOURNE City Council has rejected a controversial painting by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s nephew that depicts the clown Ronald McDonald carrying the Olympic torch past a burning monk.” Which is not the first time the MCC has gotten more than it’s bargained for from some upstart artist: in May 2004, Azlan McLennan’s Fifty Six was given the arse, and the MCC also told him to piss off from an exhibition in September 2005.

Above : McLennan’s work being cleansed

Finally, a fact that is both obscene and not-obscene. Since the end of the G20 summit in Melbourne on November 19, 2006 to today — and despite the protestations of thousands of young people organised by some young social entrepreneurs — UNICEF estimates that 16,650,000 children have died as a result of poverty-related causes.

Bummer eh?

In today’s Crikey, Clive Hamilton expands upon — actually, merely re-elaborates — his earlier essay on Bill Henson’s work, identifying three ways of viewing it: as ‘art’, as ‘pornography’ and as… well, ‘pornography’, albeit of a more nuanced variety; a product less of the artist’s intention than of the social environment, one in which children are subjected to ubiquitous forms of sexualisation (See Corporate Paedophilia: Sexualisation of children in Australia, E Rush and A La Nauze, Australia Institute, October 2006).

And again, it would seem that Hamilton is contradicting himself: on the one hand maintaining that “Despite her nakedness, the girl is not posed or presented in a sexualised way; if they are consumed in a pornographic way it is not the artist’s intention”; on the other, “In such a cultural environment, the naked body of a child, particularly a girl of 12 showing the first signs of sexual development, can no longer be viewed “innocently”, and cannot but be seen by everyone, other than hermits, in a sexual context”. So, with the possible exception of social hermits, Henson’s photography (to be precise, a handful of images until very recently on display at a gallery in Sydney), must be viewed as p-rnography. Perhaps the only saving grace for Henson, according to Hamilton, is the distinction that may be drawn between his intention — not, presumably, to produce titillating imagery of young girls — and the social context in which his work is received. But even in this instance Hamilton equivocates. Thus “Even among his fans, there seems to be a widespread feeling that his earlier images of intoxicated youths engaged in sex in dingy settings are ‘creepy’ and exploitative”. So too, presumably, his latest work.

It seems to me that, in vastly broadening the scope of artistic interpretation to the whole of society, Hamilton has effectively condemned Henson, as well as the gallery owners. Under Section 91G of the Crimes Act, the Act under which NSW police were authorised to confiscate Henson’s work, the crime of child pornography is defined, in part, as follows:

Any person who:

(a) uses a child who is under the age of 14 years for pornographic purposes, or
(b) causes or procures a child of that age to be so used, or
(c) having the care of a child of that age, consents to the child being so used or allows the child to be so used,

is guilty of an offence. For which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for 14 years. In addition:

(3) For the purposes of this section, a child is used by a person for pornographic purposes if:

(a) the child is engaged in sexual activity, or
(b) the child is placed in a sexual context, or
(c) the child is subjected to torture, cruelty or physical abuse (whether or not in a sexual context),

for the purposes of the production of pornographic material by that person.

Assuming that (a) and (c) do not apply in this case, it would appear that guilt or innocence would depend on whether or not “the child is placed in a sexual context”. If one were to accept Hamilton’s logic — the context is society, and the society is one in which children are ‘sexualised’ — this would seem, perhaps sadly, but inevitably, to be the case.

And Henson is a p-rnographer.

The Art Gallery of NSW makes Bill Henson part of its “for schools” program.

Henson represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1995 which broke records with 123,649 people attending the exhibition. He also received a $20,000 Australia Council fellowship that same year.

He had a major retrospective in 2005 at the Art Gallery of NSW and the National Gallery of Victoria in 2005.

According to the AGNSW, Henson’s work is held in all major Australian collections including the Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of SA, Art Gallery of WA, National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia. Among international collections, Henson’s work is held in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, 21C Museum, Louisville, the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the DG Bank Collection in Frankfurt, and the Sammlung Volpinum and the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna.

“I find them absolutely revolting,” said Kevin Rudd, who may not know much about art…

2 . Hamilton: Art or p-rn is not the question

Clive Hamilton writes:

For decades in post-war Israel performances of works by Richard Wagner were banned. The associations between Nazi Germany and Wagner’s music were too strong in the minds of most Israelis.

The argument was not about the quality of Wagner’s music but the political meaning of it. I make this observation in the context of the furore over Bill Henson’s photographic exhibition, which includes pictures of a n-ked 13-year-old girl, to remind us that art, like sport, cannot be separated from politics.

All art engages with culture, at least good art does. Henson has been praised by critics and supporters for challenging our sensibilities and pushing the boundaries of social acceptability. So why is Henson, by all accounts a garrulous man, refusing to defend his work?

Artists and the artistic community cannot push the boundaries of social acceptance and then, when they get a reaction, step back declaring “I’m just an artist” or “Art is sacrosanct and should be above the fray”, especially when the reaction is the one they wanted, if in smaller doses.

There are at three ways of looking at Henson’s latest images. The first is to see them as artistic representations designed to elicit certain feelings and ideas concerned with themes like the vulnerability of youth, the transformation of children into adults, and the contrast between teenage angst and the pointlessness of life.

Something along these lines is Henson’s primary purpose and, it’s fair to assume, is the type of experience anticipated by most of those who would have visited the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery to see Henson’s work.

The second way of looking at the pictures is through the eyes of pederasts and perhaps the much larger number of men who have normal s-xual lives but cannot help finding these sorts of images disturbingly er-tic.

In most of the public comment on the controversy these are the only two ways of understanding Henson’s photographs ─ they are either art or p-rnography. Within this conventional frame, they are art in my opinion. Despite her nakedness, the girl is not posed or presented in a s-xualised way; if they are consumed in a p-rnographic way it is not the artist’s intention.

Although not expert in the law, I would be very surprised if a court convicted anyone for taking or displaying these pictures. However, deciding that the photographs are not p-rnographic does not end the ethical argument. Despite the predictable positions taken by moral campaigners and civil libertarians, the situation is more complicated, which brings me to the third way of seeing Henson’s pictures.

Over the last decade or so advertisers and the wider culture have increasingly er-ticised children. They have been over-loaded with adult s-xual material and have had attributed to them forms of adult s-xual behaviour, including being dressed, posed and made up as if they were s-xually active, taught that having crushes and s-xual feelings is normal and even that engaging in various s-xual practices at their age is fine. Children as young as eight and nine are now routinely treated in this way.

This has been a recent phenomenon ─ previously it was only teenagers of around 16 or more who were presented this way ─ yet it has occurred slowly enough for most Australians to be inured to it or to accept that that is just how the world is. After all, when even respectable retailers like David Jones er-ticise 10 and 12-year-old girls in their advertisements, it is easy to dismiss any objections we may have as peculiar to ourselves.

The er-ticisation of childhood means that we have been conditioned to see children differently, as having adult s-xual characteristics, urges and desires. How else can we explain why we seem to accept mothers going shopping with 12-year-old daughters dressed like pr-stitutes? Why are we blasé about pre-teens watching video clips showing simulated intercourse? And why do we allow girls magazines widely read by pre-teens to advise that an-l s-x is a “personal choice”?”

Why have we done nothing about these and a hundred other manifestations of child s-xualisation?

In such a cultural environment, the n-ked body of a child, particularly a girl of 12 showing the first signs of s-xual development, can no longer be viewed “innocently”, and cannot but be seen by everyone, other than hermits, in a s-xual context.

If Henson did not know this then he should have, and so should the gallery owner and the girl’s parents. Putting the images on the internet was unforgivable, for in doing so they relinquished all control over how the images are seen and consumed.

It is fair to ask whether Henson was entirely innocent of the s-xual context in which his pictures would be viewed. Even among his fans, there seems to be a widespread feeling that his earlier images of intoxicated youths engaged in s-x in dingy settings are ‘creepy’ and exploitative.

Yet it is now clear that over the last two years, the Australian public has woken from its apathy and has become restive over the exploitation of children by the marketers and purveyors of popular culture. We should not be surprised that this disquiet has boiled over in response to the Henson exhibition.

I suspect that the extraordinary levels of anxiety over paedophilia in recent years have represented, at least in part, an over-compensation by society for its complicity in permitting children to be s-xualised. Now that anger is being directed at the real targets, Henson’s latest work might be collateral damage or it might be more deeply implicated.

CRIKEY: See Leo Schofield in conversation with Bill Henson here.

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.

See also : Bill Henson: Art or Pornography? | mgk / suki has an opinion down after complaint by local white supremacists to MD Webhosting | Stateporn (archive : s0metim3s)