A government grant
That used to be the answer to the age old question, What's the difference between art and porn. Now, the answer is unclear.
For those of you who have not been following the news, celebrated Australian photo artist Bill Henson has had an exhibition in a Sydney Art gallery shut down and pieces of his work confiscated, including pieces that have been owned by galleries all over Australia and toured a lot of regional galleries for a decade.
Why? Because they are pictures of naked adolesences.
Police are investigating and are confident that charges will be laid any down now.
This has galvanised the Australian community into two, well three sides actually. The art "Leave him alone, it's not porn, it's art you neanderthals!" community, the "It's not art, it's vile and any sexualisation of children is wrong, let me wrap you up in more bubble wrap my dear" Community (which includes the PM) and the "Let me make it clear, I do not like looking at naked children in any way, but I think there is a different between art and porn, no I made it clear I do not like looking at naked children at all" Community.
Personally, I fall somewhere between the first and last group. I can't comment on the pieces confiscated as I haven't seen them, but I have seen some of Henson's work and as far as I can tell it was not erotic or pornographic. I may not be an art expert but there is a difference.
The controversy that this has raised several problems for me
First, our political leaders, who have made oaths to up hold our laws and traditions, coming out and condemning the man without not only having seen the photos in question, but before any charges have been laid. PM Rudd said he did not "understand why we can't allow kids to enjoy something of the innocence of childhood". "I find them absolutely revolting ... Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly, I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids," Brendan Nelson claimed the photographs violated Australian values and said it was "time for us to take a stand".
One of our first and often cited values and a legal tenant is "Innocent til proven guilty." Now I'm not naive enough to believe this is true, as the wider community will often jump to their own conclusions, usually around the water cooler or the bar. But Rudd is our highest elected official. Part of the legal process, the legislative arm. He has a duty to up hold our legal tenants. All elected officials do and they should let the judicial system do it's job before condemning a person.
Second, there is the usual outcry that child protection laws need to be strengthen. One proposal will make naked shots of children illegal, including shots of babies' in nappy commercials. This seems a little extreme to me and has some scary implications. How far would such laws go? Would it be illegal to own or take photos of naked children all together? Goodbye those embarrassing photos wheeled out at 16th, 18th or 21st birthday parties of first nappy change, first potty or first bathtime. Parent's pissing you off, just report them to the cops, books full of child porn in their cupboards. Christian groups could have mass photo abulm burnings.
Thirdly, and this I consider the most interesting one, is nudity automatically pornography? As far as I can tell, the models were not doing anything sexually related (aside from being naked). Not kissing, or touching anything (such as each other, themselves etc) in a sexual manner. Not in sexual poses or doing anything to suggest sex or sexual activity except being naked.
Is nudity a sexual activity? The art community is claiming no. They claim that nudity expresses vulnerability and a loss of identity.
I have to agree with them. A torture technique (or extreme interrogation method) is to strip a person naked. As this makes them vulnerable and takes away their identity.
People wear clothing for more then warmth and physical protection. They are part of who we are. Think back to your childhoods and the various different styles worn by the various cliques. Nerds were buttoned up collars with pocket protectors, goths all in black and red with dog collars, pop queens in the lastest fad etc. Now look at your own wardrobe. I personally own something like five T-shirts, three collar shirts, 1 pair of jeans, two pairs of trousers (one for work, one for formal) a long coat etc. All in the basic black or dark colours. What this says about my personality I have no idea, but the important thing is I wouldn't feel like me in a bright green tropical shirt.
And if nudity is a sexual activity then all my National Geographics, my medical text books, my history text books etc will have to removed from my bookshelves and placed under my bed where they belong. Actually I should hand myself in, I'm sure there's pictures of naked children or parts of naked children in my medical text books. Most certainly in National Geographic.
And finally, who is really the dark and twisted element of society? The artist trying to make art or his detractors who see naked children as sexual objects?
For those of you who have not been following the news, celebrated Australian photo artist Bill Henson has had an exhibition in a Sydney Art gallery shut down and pieces of his work confiscated, including pieces that have been owned by galleries all over Australia and toured a lot of regional galleries for a decade.
Why? Because they are pictures of naked adolesences.
Police are investigating and are confident that charges will be laid any down now.
This has galvanised the Australian community into two, well three sides actually. The art "Leave him alone, it's not porn, it's art you neanderthals!" community, the "It's not art, it's vile and any sexualisation of children is wrong, let me wrap you up in more bubble wrap my dear" Community (which includes the PM) and the "Let me make it clear, I do not like looking at naked children in any way, but I think there is a different between art and porn, no I made it clear I do not like looking at naked children at all" Community.
Personally, I fall somewhere between the first and last group. I can't comment on the pieces confiscated as I haven't seen them, but I have seen some of Henson's work and as far as I can tell it was not erotic or pornographic. I may not be an art expert but there is a difference.
The controversy that this has raised several problems for me
First, our political leaders, who have made oaths to up hold our laws and traditions, coming out and condemning the man without not only having seen the photos in question, but before any charges have been laid. PM Rudd said he did not "understand why we can't allow kids to enjoy something of the innocence of childhood". "I find them absolutely revolting ... Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly, I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids," Brendan Nelson claimed the photographs violated Australian values and said it was "time for us to take a stand".
One of our first and often cited values and a legal tenant is "Innocent til proven guilty." Now I'm not naive enough to believe this is true, as the wider community will often jump to their own conclusions, usually around the water cooler or the bar. But Rudd is our highest elected official. Part of the legal process, the legislative arm. He has a duty to up hold our legal tenants. All elected officials do and they should let the judicial system do it's job before condemning a person.
Second, there is the usual outcry that child protection laws need to be strengthen. One proposal will make naked shots of children illegal, including shots of babies' in nappy commercials. This seems a little extreme to me and has some scary implications. How far would such laws go? Would it be illegal to own or take photos of naked children all together? Goodbye those embarrassing photos wheeled out at 16th, 18th or 21st birthday parties of first nappy change, first potty or first bathtime. Parent's pissing you off, just report them to the cops, books full of child porn in their cupboards. Christian groups could have mass photo abulm burnings.
Thirdly, and this I consider the most interesting one, is nudity automatically pornography? As far as I can tell, the models were not doing anything sexually related (aside from being naked). Not kissing, or touching anything (such as each other, themselves etc) in a sexual manner. Not in sexual poses or doing anything to suggest sex or sexual activity except being naked.
Is nudity a sexual activity? The art community is claiming no. They claim that nudity expresses vulnerability and a loss of identity.
I have to agree with them. A torture technique (or extreme interrogation method) is to strip a person naked. As this makes them vulnerable and takes away their identity.
People wear clothing for more then warmth and physical protection. They are part of who we are. Think back to your childhoods and the various different styles worn by the various cliques. Nerds were buttoned up collars with pocket protectors, goths all in black and red with dog collars, pop queens in the lastest fad etc. Now look at your own wardrobe. I personally own something like five T-shirts, three collar shirts, 1 pair of jeans, two pairs of trousers (one for work, one for formal) a long coat etc. All in the basic black or dark colours. What this says about my personality I have no idea, but the important thing is I wouldn't feel like me in a bright green tropical shirt.
And if nudity is a sexual activity then all my National Geographics, my medical text books, my history text books etc will have to removed from my bookshelves and placed under my bed where they belong. Actually I should hand myself in, I'm sure there's pictures of naked children or parts of naked children in my medical text books. Most certainly in National Geographic.
And finally, who is really the dark and twisted element of society? The artist trying to make art or his detractors who see naked children as sexual objects?
posted by Renegade79 at 8:18 am
2 Comments:
It is a clear case of people jumping onto a populist bandwagon. As soon as the first cry of child pornography went out this was always going to get ugly and people were going to take the sides that you described.
Newspapers, looking for controversy come out with the scandalous story on child porn in our art galleries. Family values groups are outraged and call for the banning of these images and the arrest of the artist. Government is called to comment (or in some cases goes out of its way to comment) and immediately condemns them because there isn't anything else they can do.
Kevin Rudd cannot come out and say i support this artist 100% because he will be hit massively hard for it. It is a while until the next election but i can just imagine the ads now. "Kevin Rudd wants your children to be porn stars. Vote Liberal/National/Family First". So he does what he needs to do to get ahead of the political tidal wave.
Seriously, if he'd sat on his hands and done nothing Brendan "please, somebody like me" Nelson will have been screaming at him in parliament to ban the images. If, god forbid, he'd actually done something sensible and said "We live in a democratic society and while these images are certainly confronting they are not pornographic" then he still would have been roasted. Forget what Nelson would have been calling him, cries of "Kevin the Pedophile" would be getting shouted from every talk back station in the country.
It was a no win situation so he took the option that caused the least amount of damage. He came out and vehemently opposed the images. So he alienates the small "L" liberals. It isn't like we have someone else to vote for.
As to the police investigation, that's getting the same public pressure that Kevin was getting. Family groups would have been picketing police stations across the country if someone hadn't come out and said "we're going to arrest that creepy photographer man and protect your children".
They're not going to charge him with anything because, under the current laws, there is nothing to charge him with. He's done nothing illegal.
He'll be crucified in the media though. If we had lynch mobs then this guy would be their primary target right now.
It does need to be noted that this artist has had several similar artworks hanging in the Newcastle Art Gallery for many years and nobody has complained about it. Then again, nobody wrote a news story about them either.
Am i disappointed that there has been such an outcry over this art? Yes, i am. While it isn't my cup of tea there's nothing strictly wrong with it. It is simply one artist's expression of the world and that sort of stuff should be at the very least accepted if not celebrated.
Am i surprised that there has been such an outcry? Not at all. We might like to think that we are a forward thinking nation but overall we are not. And from what we've seen recently it looks like we have a long way to go.
Good article, Nat. Some of your best work.
Rudd could have done this:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/28/2257747.htm
by playing to the crowd he is simply reinforcing that behaviour for the future. We will never become more progressive as a nation by going down that road.
More later.
Post a Comment
<< Home