For almost the past two weeks, the Australian media has been full of the clash of ideas about some new works from photographic artist Bill Henson, though overseas, the media has not shared in the frenzy. Indeed it was Eurovision song contest - 10; Henson - nil, most elsewhere on the planet.
Bill Henson has appeared on ARTS alive once or twice, and the present works are quite consistent with the issues he's been exploring for two decades or more. His images have long featured adolescent boys and girls - dramatically lit, in studio or in landscape, sometime as portraits, as often as montages, in which the young human forms are vulnerable, at risk, and exposed mercilessly to our gaze.
The images disturb many people with their intensity and power; and intensity and power are hallmarks of art at its best. When we look at these works, are we remembering our own adolescence? Or are we looking at the adolescence our society has for our children; a society where youth is sexualised for private profit at every turn? Do we see a fearful a message in Henson's art and, feeling fear, want to kill the messenger rather than hear the message?
Two opposing opinions have fought for the high ground; those who claim a higher authority for artistic expression, as part of our concept of freedom of speech, and rejection of state-controlled censorship; and those who see evidence in the works of the exploitation of the young, some models are only 12 or 13 years of age and are, according to one reading of our laws, incapable of giving informed consent to being photographed, either directly or through the agency of their parents. Both sides see a potential for the misuse of the images by paedophiles but value the potential differently, but posting some images on the Internet could be seen as licensing that misuse.
It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder alone; the maker's intention, if there is a maker, has nothing to do with our response to some object, some sight. Bull dogs, buildings and sunsets can all be beautiful. Pornography, on the other hand, is quite a different matter: maker and beholder are joined in an illicit contract to exploit the subject of the images for pleasure and profit, for the soulless gratification of each, caring little or nothing for the damage they inflict on the subjects. And in the present matter of these Henson's photographs: what is more damaging to the young models, these subjects? Is it the attention and adulation of the arts community; the secret gaze of paedophiles; or the public humiliation of national leaders who branded their images as 'absolutely disgusting'?
At the time of recording this editorial no charges had been laid against any party. Laws are human inventions. It is in the public forum, not a court of law, that this debate should first be pursued.
(Responsibility for the Editorial comment is taken by Vincent O'Donnell, as producer of ARTS alive.)
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