Weighing in on the Bill Henson brouhaha

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since the last post. This blogging thing is going to be harder than I thought! Who has the time for this sort of thing? I’m limiting myself to writing about my art here. Of course I’m not going to have enough to write about if I only write about what I’m doing now (hence the entry on my Helen Lempriere application, rather than, say, getting into the exhibition, or actually winning the scholarship!), so I’m also going to be writing about past work, just so I can have images of my old stuff here. I used to have a website, but it was never updated, so at least this blog will have up-to-date info and images, but can also be a retrospective look at my art, too.

I thought for this post I’d weigh in on the Bill Henson controversy. For non-Sydney readers, it was a storm in a teacup that washed through the media and has since subsided. I did see a programme about it on SBS’ Insight last week, so thought I’d use it as an excuse to write about some of my own work in this area from the past! The controversy was sparked by right-wing nut job (or faux right-wing nut job - I think she just pretends for the money) Miranda Devine’s column on May 22. I’ve been interested in this debate for a couple of years because people get so worked up. There are clearly unconscious and irrational fears at work. I’m sure children have a better chance of going to Europe and being killed by a terrorist than they do of being molested (to paraphrase a famously dodgy statistic).

My work Picture This was created for a show called Risque at Kudos Gallery in 2001. I wanted to use these descriptions of pornography to make people have an image in their minds that they would not normally have, or to confront pornography that they would not normally see. The descriptions come from the President’s Commission on Pornography and Obscenity. The commissioners went out and bought pornography, then described it in the final report. I really can’t imagine this could happen today. I’m sure there’d be outrage that taxpayers’ money is used to buy pornography, and then to have it available for anyone to read about! I think the interesting thing about Henson’s work is not the aesthetic qualities or the allusion to classical art, or whatever else someone might use to justify the photos of naked children, but the fact that it’s provoking the kind of debate it has: Are children, or their parents on their behalf, able to properly consent to having these photos taken? Are naked photos of children (or adults for that matter) necessarily pornographic? Does looking at such photos lead to people molesting children? Should such images be banned? How do we as a society think about and deal with children’s sexuality?

Unfortunately people like Hetty “Won’t somebody think of the children?” Johnston of Bravehearts seem blinded by their own psychodramas that they’ve lost all ability to think rationally on the issue. The media certainly doesn’t help, pouring petrol onto these minor blazes that flare up. Another work that I made for a Kudos show is Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Boys So Different, So Appealing? (of course referencing the title of Richard Hamilton’s famous collage)

It consists of close-up shots of Japanese students I knew when I lived in Japan. There is nothing sexual about the photos, just snapshots, but the title instantly evokes paedophilic desire. The work was meant to draw attention to the way that paedophiles (or indeed any paraphiliacs) can use images for purposes other than those for which they were intended (for example, collecting advertisements of children in pyjamas, or as David Marr mentioned on Insight, foot fetishists watching The Sound of Music for the scenes where the von Trapps run around in bare feet!). (See the full series here)

So, in regard to the Bill Henson works, I think that yes, they can be seen as sexualised images of children, but so what? There are also many other meanings that people can bring to them, and none of those readings affect the children in the photos. They weren’t coerced into being photographed, or forced to do anything they didn’t want to do. They’re not shown in any compromising positions, they’re just naked. I would never take similar photos because it seems like far too much trouble - too many people to deal with, too many legal issues, so many possibilities for well-meaning-but-ignorant people to cause a fuss.

Paedophiles looking for legal photos of naked children should shop in art stores. There are books full of them. Check out Larry Clark; Gilbert and George’s ‘80s works featuring disaffected East-End yoof;Edward Weston’s photos of his son Neil; Robert Mapplethorpe’s photo of the naked little boy on the chair (JesseMcBride) , or the little girl with no underpants; Sally Mann’s photos of her kids; Jock Sturges’ photos, etc. Hetty Johnston and those like her have a lot of work ahead of them if they want to rid the world of such images.