Personal Agenda's Cloud Sagacity:
For the past week Australia has been divided in to two camps.
The brouhaha began when internationally renowned photographer Bill Henson hung a public exhibition of his works, which contained several photographs of a naked thirteen-year-old girl.
Allegedly the girl in question and her parents gave consent.
The invitation cards to the exhibition, which were mailed out by the gallery, had one of the photos of the naked child on the front as a promotion to the event.
A recipient of the invitation made a complaint to authorities. Following this the Police raided the gallery on opening night and removed several of the photos as evidence and announced to the media that possible charges would be laid.
The Arts community are outraged and consider the removal of the photos as an attack on artistic freedom of expression.
The other camp, are calling the photos pornographic and the photographer a paedophile.
Clearly as an artist Bill Henson's objective is to be evocative and emotive, perhaps he even intended to offend the conventions of society.
I'm not advocating sensory deprivation by way of censorship;
Nudity has walked hand in hand with art for centuries and is a cornerstone of examining the human condition, not to mention that the human form is aesthetically pleasing.
However, I personally take exception to the use of minors in his works.
I think the arguements of both camps are fundamentally flawed.
If we srtip away the personal agendas of artistic nudity Vs porn and examine the facts what are we left with?
This; A thirteen-year-old girl has been directed by an adult male to remove her clothes; photos have been taken of her for the purpose of public display and commercial sale.
Whether someone is pro artistic freedon or not this issue does raise serious ethical questions.
Should there be one Law for the Arts community and another for the rest of the community?
Should the question of child/teen exploitation be exempt when we discuss art?
Should parents have a right to consent on their child's behalf to partake in this medium?
There is a lot to be recommended for the bohemian existence, but in this instance I think the Arts community have become intoxicated by mythology, Dionysus the Greek God of Wine has seeped into the conscience and overruled sagacity.
It will be interesting to see where this case goes, I'll do an update as it unfolds.
__________________________
- Claudia Santini's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Comments
Update:
The Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has announced no charges will be laid against Bill Henson. The DPP stated that a conviction would be unlikely under the current Laws.
Many people are now calling for urgent Law reform in this area.
United Nations; Convention on the Rights of the Child states; "Children are to be protected from abuse or exploitation and to have their privacy protected."
"Nations that ratify this international convention are bound by international Law."
(sourced at Wikipedia)
Australia is a singatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child; therefore I fail to see why this case could not be tested in a court of Law?
In an age where multimedia is increasingly encroaching globally on youth I think the reluctance of the DPP to pursue a criminal conviction here sends a bad message to the community.
The Internet has given birth to an international industry of pornographic child images, multimedia advertising pushes the sexualization of children/teens through magazines, television and product campaigns. In this climate it seems to me more important than ever to draw clear lines in the sand about what is acceptable commercial practice where minors are concerned.
Different Strokes
I think this is a situation where the "letter of the law" and "spirit of the law" conflict. Though under the letter of the law this could go to court, I think it would fail under the spirit of the law as it would be very hard to consider this "abuse or exploitation." Given the consent and that this was not pornographic in nature I think it would be very hard for them to pass it off as such and get a conviction. In these sort of situations where cases are going to the high courts it is the justices job to decide the case based on the spirit in which the law was written, not necessarily by comparing the letter to the case like a check list. Again I will stand by my comment that the use of a minor was unnecessary and this was most likely intended to cause an upset like this but I really don't see anything criminal in nature here.
I would have to agree
The thing that I think we need to be asking is, "Why a thirteen year old?" I am going to assume merely for the shock value. Though I can't really read his mind nor do I know of his previous works but I can't really come up with a logical reason why you would have to use a nude thirteen year old when you know full and well that it is illegal. This is the same as most other age regulations and has little to do with preserving innocence. Even though the parents consented that really does not mean a damn thing. I'm sure we all remember the parents who prayed over their diabetic child until she died. Parents are not always in their right mind. Wave a bit of cash, a little fame and recognition and I can guarantee that there are plenty of parents who would sell their child's dignity. As for the child consenting, again pretty meaningless. I'm sure you can remember a barrel worth of dumb shit that you did when you were thirteen that you wouldn't do today. Kids are not able to really grasp the gravity of their decisions at that age. Now I in no way support age limits on everything, in fact, I oppose most of them. But this one seems fair. Why do you need to photograph nude minors. There is no reason for it. So if you can come up with a good reason why you need to publicly display photos of nude minors post it, but I can't think of any.
Nude != naked, though humans are frequently both
First of all, in art, "nude" does not mean the same thing as "naked". Yes, the distinction is pretty subjective, but in general the former is considered more tasteful and far less shocking or titillating. Context is everything -- and that may be the one of the artist's points. There's no sharp, universal dividing line; if you disagree, I implore you to describe it.
Also, I do have to frame the issue differently than Dan. "Age" is just a number with only modest correlation to physical and mental maturity. If a 13-year-old can give birth, is she a woman? Why not? What about if she can score a 1600 on the SAT? Or what if she has climbed Mt. Everest and saved 100 elderly folks from a tragic nursing home fire? Is the arbitrary number more important than all of those possibilities combined?
If we're going to "lay the blame" (which is silly, IMHO), I think fault belongs on society for washing over millions with too broad a stroke, claiming ALL 13-year-olds are incapable of sound decisions. Don't get me wrong -- much of the time they ARE irresponsible, and I include my past self and friends in that -- but it's still a stereotype, and patently unfair.
Unfortunately, manageable policy means we *have* to stereotype. Schools and government just don't have the resources to address everything case-by-case. But I can't really fault the artist for recognizing this fundamental paradox. In fact, I think that's justification enough for the photographs.
And the girl isn't going to die from this. Worst, she might be ridiculed by peers. But I'm just not into the whole "blame the victim" ideology -- the ones doing the mocking should be called out for their immaturity. What if -- instead of the girl and her parents being lazy and stupid as any cynic would expect -- they're actually vastly smarter than you anticipate? I hope I'm not pretentious enough to rule out the possibility that their knowledge and taste far exceed mine, and that they made the decision with full cognizance.
I love Bacchus. People are
I love Bacchus.
People are naked. Children play naked until what age?