Prejudices stripped bare


Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun Columnist

June, 2008

THERE must be excellent reasons to let an artist strip and photograph a 13-year-old girl so rich men can hang pictures of her bared breasts over their beds.

There must be - for why have so many seemingly cultured people been so hot to defend Bill Henson?

But here is the odd thing. In their stampede to justify Henson's right to make sexually charged pictures of naked children they've given us none.

In fact, ever since police last week knocked on the door of the Sydney gallery that was about to show the acclaimed Melbourne photographer's latest works, I've read only excuses for excuses from Hansen's apologists.

It's as if the tribe of opening night habitues feel they should stick up for these pictures of budding bare-breasted 13-year-olds without quite knowing why. Their brains can't justify what mere habit insists they must, and in this collision of reason with prejudice they've bruised themselves badly. Observe a few of the worst:

Age art critic Robert Nelson: "Cases of censorship are damaging to a country's reputation overseas."

Really? In fact, there would not be a country that does not censor.

Even our own critics of censorship turn out almost always not to actually be against a censor's snip after all. Would they approve of snuff movies? Of plays glorifying rape? Posters exulting in the murder of Muslims?

This case is in reality not about the right to censor (or, more accurately here, of the public's right to merely damn), but where to draw the line.

As for Nelson's twitters about what foreigners may think of us, note both his cultural cringe and his arrogance in assuming other countries bulge with people just like him. I'm sure most people overseas are actually like most here: they'd worry if we let artists strip 13-year-olds and display them nude.

Judy Annear, Art Gallery of NSW curator: "Art and pornography are entirely separate things."

No, they're not. Pornography can be art, which is why we have the novels of Henry Miller and Michel Houellebecq, the memoirs of Frank Harris and Casanova, the films of Russ Meyer and Bertolucci, or well-thumbed classics such as the Kama Sutra and The Adventures of Fanny Hill.

Betty Churcher, former National Gallery of Australia director: "There is absolutely no suggestion of pornography in these photographs."

There is indeed, or there wouldn't be so many people wanting Henson's hide. Who is to say their judgment of these pictures as pornographic is wrong, and Churcher's right? After all, don't artists now say that their audiences ultimately decide for themselves on their works' meaning?

And, while Churcher may not see anything erotic in Henson's pictures, even the one of a naked young girl being held back, exposed, by a naked boy and girl, I suspect many of Henson's admirers are denying in a crisis what they'd admit to over a wine.

Take arts presenter Leo Schofield, who before this furore told Henson in an interview on the Ovation channel his pictures were of "high eroticism" - a description Hansen didn't dispute.

Adds critic Robert Nelson: "I . . . have noted the parallel between his images and pornography. The sense of a powerful male presence of the photographer and a disempowered youngster as model has to be faced. I find the pictures a bit creepy."

Indeed, Henson has noted the hanging habits of his clients: "I might meet people who have had, for many years, a very intense relationship with one of my pictures hanging on their wall, above their bed . . ."

If he photographed not naked girls but cows, I doubt his works would sell half as well, or hang over so many beds.

Barrister Brian Walters, of Free Speech Victoria: "I think it would be extreme to call it pornography. Pornography is intended for the purposes of sexual gratification."

This again is just dodging the issue.

Imagine that Henson were to finally speak and confess that, yes, he did actually photograph naked girls just to pander to perverts. What then of Walters' argument? The very same pictures he defends as good art would suddenly become bad pornography, just on Henson's say-so.

That's absurd. Surely we should judge the pictures, then, not so much by the intention of the artist but by the effect on their audience.

Age writer Michelle Grattan objects: "In normal circumstances would (Henson's pictures) ever be seen by more than a handful of people?"

This ignores four things. First, if stripping and photographing a mere child is wrong, it's wrong regardless if the pictures are seen by many or a few.

Second, the "handful of people" Grattan describes are actually people of more cultural influence than most, which is why Henson's work hangs even in the High Court. What they choose to admire and patronise is not insignificant and private.

Third, Henson's pictures, even by Grattan's admission, are in fact seen not by just "a handful of people" but are "displayed in leading galleries".

Fourth, thanks to this controversy, these pictures have exploded out of the galleries, being described in media, shown in The Age and seen by thousands who clicked on the internet links. They are now extremely public.

Grattan again: "In a society replete with sexual images in television shows, advertising and books, and the dividing line between childhood and adulthood decidedly and increasingly blurred, are these pictures likely to be seriously shocking or potentially damaging?"

Well, from the furious public reaction, the answer is yes, they are shocking. Just look, Michelle: shocked people, who do judge these pictures as potentially damaging, legitimising the idea that even 13-year-olds are ripe pickings. Oh, and that "everyone-else-is-doing-it" excuse is drummed out of most people in their childhood.

Age writer Larissa Dubecki: "I wonder how the 13-year-old girl feels about the fact that she -- with her parents' consent -- unwittingly posed for a man now accused of being a child pornographer. Maybe she should turn to fashion modelling instead, where trussed up in a miniskirt and stilettos in impersonation of a 21-year-old -- and thereby safe for men to ogle -- she'd be lauded."

Actually, parents can consent to plenty of things that are bad for children, and allowing a 13-year-old daughter to be shown naked to the world through the internet is one.

Just as weak is the claim this girl would be "lauded" if she'd modelled for a fashion label rather than an artist.

First, if she were indeed "trussed up in a miniskirt" she wouldn't be as naked as Henson had her. Second, even the Australian Fashion Week won't hire any models under 16. Are artists less important than designers, that we should excuse them more?

Playwright Michael Gow: "Among the many cliches endorsed at the 2020 Summit was the one about art . . . being provocative and challenging. Now that some art has provoked, what has happened? The Prime Minister who invited us to Canberra has questioned the abilities and credentials of a major Australian artist."

Pardon? If you provoke, don't you demand a reaction? What Gow wants is not the freedom of artists to provoke, but no freedom for the public to respond. How hypocritical.

Sydney Morning Herald critic John McDonald: "Why are (Henson's teen models) naked? Well, Truth is naked.

Huh? Then McDonald's arguments are a lie, because I swear he typed them out while dressed. But see how desperate arguments for Henson have become, and how stupid.

Attention fellow arts lovers: didn't artists at Kevin Rudd's ideas summit demand we take them seriously?

Well, here is the public taking art very seriously indeed, judging that pictures like Henson's have a cultural effect well beyond the walls of some chic gallery or collector's bedroom.

This is no time for the arts mafia to shriek that, on second thoughts, art is theirs alone - to be defined only by them, viewed only by them, felt only by them, policed only by them.

If they want to defend Henson, there is only one morally admirable way to do so: to argue that the benefits of letting an artist show naked girls aroused to their new sexuality causes more good than harm, whether to the models or to other girls who'll be watched with newly aroused eyes.

Let them argue this while acknowledging some democratic truths too many have been dodging.

List them: art is defined by its audience, art can't be contained in galleries, art is best judged by its effects, and artists are fellow citizens, with more influence than most in creating the culture in which many of us are trying to raise our own daughters in safety and respect.

For artists, the idea of having a public beyond the elites should be a thrill. Let them live up to that responsibility.

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