Wednesday 11 June 2008

Child Porn and Art

I was waiting for the verdict of Bill Henson's photos to be decided in court and then I was going to post something sarcastic like "It turns out it is still illegal to take naked photos of 13 year old children in this country... even if they are grey scaled." But over the weekend the minister for the Arts said that the courts are the wrong place for an art debate, at least Mr Garrett knows that. The courts are also the wrong place to haggle over the price of a car you want to buy, and the wrong place to play sudoku. But I thought the courts are the right place to discuss the law, I mean, it's kinda what they are there for...

Since the courts are the wrong place for an art debate, does that mean an art galley is the wrong place to enforce the law?

When close to 100 people in this country have recently been arrested for having child porn (and more to come), you would think the government would have taken a hard stance on Bill's photos of naked 13 year olds. It's not like they turned a blind eye to the photos, it was Kevin Rudd who started the whole controversy. I guess those guys with child porn who have been arrested should have gray scaled their images, enlarged and framed them on a public wall and then invited the general public (and Prime Minister) to see...

It is interesting to see that Mr Garrett agrees with the charges been dropped when it was his own parties leader who started the investigation. I wasn't expecting Bill to be put in gaol, maybe he'd get a bad boy lecture, but I was expecting the more explicit photo to have been removed. But now the photos are all up, the exhibition opens tonight, and if you have $25, 000 you could now legally buy a photo of some naked 13 year olds.

Since the photos are legal with a PG rating, why does the abc news web site still censor the image?

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousThursday, June 12, 2008

    It is an intreesting point, Bill has been a pedophile icon for years, since at least Gina McColl did her 'Dark lord of the camera' of the camera piece in 2005,

    'with its obsession with adolescents, twilight, clouds and grand architecture, is also so melodramatic, overwrought and cliched in its oppositions? And then there's the kiddie-porn aesthetic.'

    I don't think she was seeing something which wasn't there,

    'His erotic photographs of skinny, grimy, gloomy adolescents have coincided with the rise of "heroin chic" and sexualised depictions of prepubescents in fashion photography (Corinne Day), advertising (Calvin Klein) and art (think of American artist Larry Clarke's movie Kids).'

    That is soHenson, and to be told he was as sexualized as a used Trabant, is a bit of a shock, who exactly is on this classification board?

    So in Britain and elsewhere it is child pornography and in Oz, it is family viewing, it makes you wonder if the Classification Board may be free passing people on a wider scale and making Australia look rea dumb to Us, UK and Interpol & IWF stakeholders.

    Is Australia, a Cambodia with money & Cate Blanchett, speaking of which, I can't see Disney put any work her way for a while.

    'I feel that someone is going to steal up on the girl on my computer and offer her various comforts that will put her even further in a man’s power. So the images could almost be set up for sinister wish-fulfilment, a dream of possessing and controlling an almost nubile child for sexual gratification.'

    Was how Robert Nelson put it, in LOndon the police put it more simply, "if he does it here, he goes to prison" and that probably is what the Classification Board should have decided.

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  2. AnonymousThursday, June 12, 2008

    'Unfortunately, the good landscape work is discredited when used as a backdrop for rehearsing the lubricious display of nubile or pre-pubescent children.

    With all its sublime operatic temper, Henson's content nestles uncomfortably between the sinister and the trivial. He likes to photograph young people either in open erotic transport or as a passive target for the viewer's lust. He does this with a long lens, where the focal length lets you ogle at the several smooch-kittens from 40 paces. It is an aesthetic of spying, granting you an illicit glimpse, as in all pornographic genres, a teasing sexual spectacle with ocular impunity.'

    Review from 2005 ( Robert Nelson) it does tend to lean in the direction of 'sick puppy syndrome'.

    Could it be that Bill Henson, is a not a dirty secret in Oz, and he simply has immunity from prosecution because of his rich pals?

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