A Foreigner's View on Bill Henson's Case
Since June, Bill Henson was forgotten by the media after the Censorship Board had declared his photographs of naked children fit for general release. The alleged child pornographic photographs seized from the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery were returned and his exhibition reopened but to collectors and by appointment only.
The dust had finally settled. Henson broke the silence he’d maintained at the onset of his saga in May. The consequence of his action exemplified the adage that some things are better left unsaid. Political leaders, academics and parents screamed blue murder at his latest revelation that he scouted his models in a primary school with the consent of the principal. As a foreigner living in Sydney, I sympathize with Henson for the way that Australia has been belittling their mate’s 30-year artistic career.
The proliferation of pedophiles has kept moral watchdogs busy sniffing out any wolves in sheep’s clothing. In the U.S., renowned photographers Jock Sturges and Robert Mapplethorpe were accused of child pornography. Like Henson, the lack of evidence resulted in unsuccessful prosecution of their works. Gone are the days when photographs of naked babies by Anne Geddes are viewed innocently by the public and the media. The harangue on child nudity has become so heated that even parents who take candid shots of their kids playing in the bathtub or running around naked in the garden are under fire in the discussion board, Arts Vs Porn of the popular networking site, Facebook.In Henson’s case, art experts have shared their opinions but the moral crusaders refused to be convinced. I am not a fan of Henson. I am not aroused by the portrait of the naked 12-year old girl featured in Good Weekend. I am also unable to appreciate its underlying beauty. BUT I am definite that it is not pornography. If I have children and Henson would like to photograph them naked, I will say no. I will say the same to movie directors, TV producers and modeling agents. My decline will have nothing to do with nudity; I just do not want my child to be exposed to the adult working world at a young age.
All the hullabaloos around Henson have portrayed, if not implied, Henson is a child pornographer who endangers children’s safety. Otherwise, why would be a visit to St. Kilda Park Primary by an acclaimed photographer permitted and accompanied by its principal to look for model “send a shudder through people’s spines” as Julia Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister claimed? I agree that schools should not be a conduit for commercial purposes but according to David Marr’s report, concessions have been granted to television producers, filmmakers, artists and modeling agencies to scout for talents in schools (SMH, 6 October 2008). Why the double standard now? Henson’s visit to the school had the principal’s permission; he did not approach the children directly; the principal contacted the parents whose children Henson wanted to photograph; if the parents are agreeable, the principal then provided Henson’s contact to them. What protocol had the principal and Henson not followed? Filling in the paper works, perhaps? Was it because he was not just looking for models but nude models that made his expedition tawdry? Or was it his tainted reputation since May that caused the peculiar attention on him? If it was Steven Spielberg’s visit to any Australian primary school looking for the next Dakota Fanning or Daniel Radcliffe, I believe the media coverage would be different and therefore the response. I’m sure parents will not be “revolted” and “horrified” as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd thought and Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull would not think that children are jeopardized in any way.
I come from Singapore. Our government and its people are largely conservative and nudity is heavily censored in any expressed form. Last year, our homegrown-turned-international fashion photographer, Leslie Kee held a Superstar exhibition in Singapore. Some of his photographs of Asian nude male celebrities with pubic hair and genitals clearly visible were deemed unsuitable for local consumption by our censorship authority. But our political leaders did not speak ill of Kee’s photographs and our police did not remove those nude photos – Kee removed them. It is sad in Henson’s case that the right to freedom of speech was not exercised with prudence in the judgement of an Australian artist who’d make Australia proud internationally. If I were him, I’d be terribly disappointed with my country.
The verdict from art experts on Henson’s photographs was ignored; the consent of the models’ parents was rebuked. But the day when authorities had reached a consensus that Henson’s photographs are not pornographic, he is in the eyes of the law not a criminal. In that aspect, he should not be singled out but treated equally like other professionals who have scouted for talents in schools. Obviously, Henson believes that what he’d done was nothing wrong. However, the only wrong is that he’d misplaced his faith in a community who see him as a vulture preying on rabbits in a school garden. Henson is in a position where the law of defamation is hard to invoke. The fact that it is hard for Henson’s detractors to prove that his photographs are pornographic also makes it hard for Henson to prove otherwise. However, Henson has an impeccable record of his achievement to demonstrate that his photographs are recognised locally and internationally as art and not pornography.
Lawrence Stanley, an attorney specializing in entertainment and obscenity law argues in his article Art and “Pervasion”: Censoring Images of Nude Children, that whether erotic intention subsists in a photographer’s works depends on the viewer’s intentions, feelings and experience. To child protection activists and conservatives, Henson’s photographs are repulsive because they conflict with their values and belief. Likewise, he asserts that the viewer could also overlook the erotic intention even though it is present in the photographer’s works. Art is too protean a creation to be understood and appreciated in the way that the artists want us to. A splatter of paints on a canvas can be perceived as art or trash by different people – just as Henson’s photographs can be artistic or pornographic to different viewers. Paraphrasing Stanley’s words, the true intention of a photographer and his works is ‘undiscoverable’, just as the true meaning of a photograph can never be proven. So unless we are able to read people’s mind, imparting wild guess into the judgement of an artist’s works is paranoiac.
Nudity and Framing: Classifying Art, Pornography, Information and Ambiguity, a research paper by Beth A. Eck published in the Sociological Forum, Vol. 16. No 4, December 2001 highlights the importance of the context in which naked images reside. There are the familiar and the unfamiliar contexts. John Macdonald reported in his article Snapshot of a small-minded people (SMH, Arts & Entertainment, 31 May-1-June, 2008) that 65, 000 people visited Henson’s exhibition of similar images at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2005 without any complaints. Based on Eck’s research, the art gallery is a bounded environment with a narrow audience. Nudes are common in such venue and visitors have expected to see them. Images in this context are, therefore, identified as art. But when the portrait of a naked 12-year-old girl was on the cover of the invitation to Henson’s 2008 exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, ‘its meaning and interpretation are then subject to negotiation’. This is also the case of a nude 6-year-old girl featured on the cover of Arts Monthly Australia in July 2008. When nudity resides in a less-bounded environment with a broader audience e.g. newsstand and is commodified, for example, on a magazine cover, the appropriateness of its placement becomes debatable.
If Henson is to be made a scapegoat to deter other artists from expressing art through the bodies of naked children, there are many ways to skin a cat. Richard Murnane, a reader from The Sydney Morning Herald questioned the meaning that Henson was trying to communicate through his photographs of nude child models. In his abovementioned article, Stanley provides several reasons for photographers to photograph nude minors:
… to portray the minor’s innocence and vulnerability, to affirm the minor’s sexuality, or to celebrate the emergence of the minor into majority. The photographer may also wish to explore his or her interpersonal dialogue with their subject as a parent, teacher, nurturer, or friend, or to comment on the social construction of sexuality or the development of gender identity.
I doubt Henson will waste his breathe anymore; his explanation is going to be rebutted anyway. From the recent uproar, the anti-Henson camp is clearly still suspicious of his intention behind the photographs. I hope the police here will not go down the path that the U.S. Federal Police took in the raiding of Sturges’ home and studio in the 1990s.
Creativity is encouraged in the studies of art. When students are told that the sky is the limit, surely it means that art should not have boundary to its expression and style in its truest form. Artists are constantly seeking breakthrough in their creation – the Sydney Biennale 2008 is an archetype of modern art evolution. Unless law is broken, unconventional art per se that might appear offensive to some viewers should not be denied of its place in a mainstream society.
Let’s not overlook that while the moral watchdogs are attacking Henson, the child models whom they have been fighting to protect from exploitation are now exposed in the limelight and exploited by the media. And before more people are implicated into the Henson’s case, I urge the media to allow it to die a natural death. Meanwhile, I have this to say to Henson: “Hang on there, mate. Like you said “if you believe you’ve done nothing wrong…you can draw a tremendous amount of strength from that””.
The dust had finally settled. Henson broke the silence he’d maintained at the onset of his saga in May. The consequence of his action exemplified the adage that some things are better left unsaid. Political leaders, academics and parents screamed blue murder at his latest revelation that he scouted his models in a primary school with the consent of the principal. As a foreigner living in Sydney, I sympathize with Henson for the way that Australia has been belittling their mate’s 30-year artistic career.
The proliferation of pedophiles has kept moral watchdogs busy sniffing out any wolves in sheep’s clothing. In the U.S., renowned photographers Jock Sturges and Robert Mapplethorpe were accused of child pornography. Like Henson, the lack of evidence resulted in unsuccessful prosecution of their works. Gone are the days when photographs of naked babies by Anne Geddes are viewed innocently by the public and the media. The harangue on child nudity has become so heated that even parents who take candid shots of their kids playing in the bathtub or running around naked in the garden are under fire in the discussion board, Arts Vs Porn of the popular networking site, Facebook.In Henson’s case, art experts have shared their opinions but the moral crusaders refused to be convinced. I am not a fan of Henson. I am not aroused by the portrait of the naked 12-year old girl featured in Good Weekend. I am also unable to appreciate its underlying beauty. BUT I am definite that it is not pornography. If I have children and Henson would like to photograph them naked, I will say no. I will say the same to movie directors, TV producers and modeling agents. My decline will have nothing to do with nudity; I just do not want my child to be exposed to the adult working world at a young age.
All the hullabaloos around Henson have portrayed, if not implied, Henson is a child pornographer who endangers children’s safety. Otherwise, why would be a visit to St. Kilda Park Primary by an acclaimed photographer permitted and accompanied by its principal to look for model “send a shudder through people’s spines” as Julia Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister claimed? I agree that schools should not be a conduit for commercial purposes but according to David Marr’s report, concessions have been granted to television producers, filmmakers, artists and modeling agencies to scout for talents in schools (SMH, 6 October 2008). Why the double standard now? Henson’s visit to the school had the principal’s permission; he did not approach the children directly; the principal contacted the parents whose children Henson wanted to photograph; if the parents are agreeable, the principal then provided Henson’s contact to them. What protocol had the principal and Henson not followed? Filling in the paper works, perhaps? Was it because he was not just looking for models but nude models that made his expedition tawdry? Or was it his tainted reputation since May that caused the peculiar attention on him? If it was Steven Spielberg’s visit to any Australian primary school looking for the next Dakota Fanning or Daniel Radcliffe, I believe the media coverage would be different and therefore the response. I’m sure parents will not be “revolted” and “horrified” as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd thought and Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull would not think that children are jeopardized in any way.
I come from Singapore. Our government and its people are largely conservative and nudity is heavily censored in any expressed form. Last year, our homegrown-turned-international fashion photographer, Leslie Kee held a Superstar exhibition in Singapore. Some of his photographs of Asian nude male celebrities with pubic hair and genitals clearly visible were deemed unsuitable for local consumption by our censorship authority. But our political leaders did not speak ill of Kee’s photographs and our police did not remove those nude photos – Kee removed them. It is sad in Henson’s case that the right to freedom of speech was not exercised with prudence in the judgement of an Australian artist who’d make Australia proud internationally. If I were him, I’d be terribly disappointed with my country.
The verdict from art experts on Henson’s photographs was ignored; the consent of the models’ parents was rebuked. But the day when authorities had reached a consensus that Henson’s photographs are not pornographic, he is in the eyes of the law not a criminal. In that aspect, he should not be singled out but treated equally like other professionals who have scouted for talents in schools. Obviously, Henson believes that what he’d done was nothing wrong. However, the only wrong is that he’d misplaced his faith in a community who see him as a vulture preying on rabbits in a school garden. Henson is in a position where the law of defamation is hard to invoke. The fact that it is hard for Henson’s detractors to prove that his photographs are pornographic also makes it hard for Henson to prove otherwise. However, Henson has an impeccable record of his achievement to demonstrate that his photographs are recognised locally and internationally as art and not pornography.
Lawrence Stanley, an attorney specializing in entertainment and obscenity law argues in his article Art and “Pervasion”: Censoring Images of Nude Children, that whether erotic intention subsists in a photographer’s works depends on the viewer’s intentions, feelings and experience. To child protection activists and conservatives, Henson’s photographs are repulsive because they conflict with their values and belief. Likewise, he asserts that the viewer could also overlook the erotic intention even though it is present in the photographer’s works. Art is too protean a creation to be understood and appreciated in the way that the artists want us to. A splatter of paints on a canvas can be perceived as art or trash by different people – just as Henson’s photographs can be artistic or pornographic to different viewers. Paraphrasing Stanley’s words, the true intention of a photographer and his works is ‘undiscoverable’, just as the true meaning of a photograph can never be proven. So unless we are able to read people’s mind, imparting wild guess into the judgement of an artist’s works is paranoiac.
Nudity and Framing: Classifying Art, Pornography, Information and Ambiguity, a research paper by Beth A. Eck published in the Sociological Forum, Vol. 16. No 4, December 2001 highlights the importance of the context in which naked images reside. There are the familiar and the unfamiliar contexts. John Macdonald reported in his article Snapshot of a small-minded people (SMH, Arts & Entertainment, 31 May-1-June, 2008) that 65, 000 people visited Henson’s exhibition of similar images at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2005 without any complaints. Based on Eck’s research, the art gallery is a bounded environment with a narrow audience. Nudes are common in such venue and visitors have expected to see them. Images in this context are, therefore, identified as art. But when the portrait of a naked 12-year-old girl was on the cover of the invitation to Henson’s 2008 exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, ‘its meaning and interpretation are then subject to negotiation’. This is also the case of a nude 6-year-old girl featured on the cover of Arts Monthly Australia in July 2008. When nudity resides in a less-bounded environment with a broader audience e.g. newsstand and is commodified, for example, on a magazine cover, the appropriateness of its placement becomes debatable.
If Henson is to be made a scapegoat to deter other artists from expressing art through the bodies of naked children, there are many ways to skin a cat. Richard Murnane, a reader from The Sydney Morning Herald questioned the meaning that Henson was trying to communicate through his photographs of nude child models. In his abovementioned article, Stanley provides several reasons for photographers to photograph nude minors:
… to portray the minor’s innocence and vulnerability, to affirm the minor’s sexuality, or to celebrate the emergence of the minor into majority. The photographer may also wish to explore his or her interpersonal dialogue with their subject as a parent, teacher, nurturer, or friend, or to comment on the social construction of sexuality or the development of gender identity.
I doubt Henson will waste his breathe anymore; his explanation is going to be rebutted anyway. From the recent uproar, the anti-Henson camp is clearly still suspicious of his intention behind the photographs. I hope the police here will not go down the path that the U.S. Federal Police took in the raiding of Sturges’ home and studio in the 1990s.
Creativity is encouraged in the studies of art. When students are told that the sky is the limit, surely it means that art should not have boundary to its expression and style in its truest form. Artists are constantly seeking breakthrough in their creation – the Sydney Biennale 2008 is an archetype of modern art evolution. Unless law is broken, unconventional art per se that might appear offensive to some viewers should not be denied of its place in a mainstream society.
Let’s not overlook that while the moral watchdogs are attacking Henson, the child models whom they have been fighting to protect from exploitation are now exposed in the limelight and exploited by the media. And before more people are implicated into the Henson’s case, I urge the media to allow it to die a natural death. Meanwhile, I have this to say to Henson: “Hang on there, mate. Like you said “if you believe you’ve done nothing wrong…you can draw a tremendous amount of strength from that””.