oneworldtalk

orange blossom · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1162 Location: Australia

Prime minister Kevin Rudd denounced Bill Henson's photography that "artistically" captured images of naked or scantily dressed children and teens as "absolutely revolting". The Federal Government believes the problem of the sexualisation of children in all forms of media needs to be addressed to protect children.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/move-to-protect-children/2008/05/25/1211653837337.html?oneclick=true

The Police's seizure of 20 of Henson's images from a gallery have met with outcry from the artistic circles, supporters of the photographer, the NSW Law society and parents of some children who were photographed.

Matt Henry, a Sydney art broker buys Henson's works. He paid more than $5000 for a photograph of a young girl sleeping. He defended the artist whose images of naked children have caused a furore, criticising Rudd's negative comments as "a sad indictment on Australian culture".

In the latest development, the Classification Board assessed that five Henson images taken from media websites and rated them all "G" or "very mild". Some or all of the images are partly censored with black bars covering nipples and genitals.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/henson-images-cleared-for-general-release/2008/06/01/1212258645397.html

The issue has certainly caused deep divisions in Australian society over the value of art and morality. Indeed, it is a fine line separating the two conflicting ideals, whichever one chooses to believe in. However, when it comes to the crunch, do we want to pursue art for art's sake regardless of moral obligations to society? Passion for art should not impinge on the basic principles to maintain an orderly society.

Hetty Johnson from the child sexual assault advocacy group Bravehearts called on the art world to consider the community outrage. Everyone has a role to play in child protection.

There is no question about Henson's artistic talents. However, when his subjects are children, the works should be judged in a different light. There are many paedophiles out there would be emboldened by this episode. Why create avenues and opportunities to whet the appetities of exploitative adults who could now hide behind the veil of art. Art on public display is no longer neutral when it has the power to incite and excite the senses beyond society's checks and controls. When does art become pornography? The boundaries have clearly been crossed in this case.

SMH picture - partial image taken from Henson's work

orange blossom · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1162 Location: Australia

Against the backdrop of massive arrests linked to an international child porn network, the censorship board's decision to clear Henson's photos for general release may have created a sense of contradiction.

More than 100 Australians have now been charged over the network, including 47 Queenslanders. An astounding revelation is that some are professionals including teachers and youth workers. One politician even suggested that they should "commit suicide". Some claimed innocence as net surfers who strayed into a porn site without prior intentions or knowledge what was in store.

The Classification Board has caved in to the artist lobby when it assessed five Henson images taken from media websites should be rated all "G" or "very mild", in contrast to the Prime Minister's earlier denounciation of the images as "absolutely revolting".

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/child-porn-more-arrests/2008/06/10/1212863629639.html

Operation Centurion was triggered after a legitimate European website was hacked into and 99 degrading and explicit images were placed on it.

In the 76 hours that the images were on the website, it received an extraordinary 12 million hits from almost 150,000 computers from 170 countries, including more than 2800 from Australia.

The AFP then narrowed that down to just over 1500 Australian IP computer addresses that downloaded the images.

The maximum sentence for possessing child pornography is 10 years.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/child-sex-abuse-centurions-shocking-fact-file/2008/06/05/1212258967845.html

orange blossom · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1162 Location: Australia

Children should be children. It began as dressing up for child beauty contests, teenage modelling, and things seem to be getting out hand when the laxed regulations are tolerant of sexualised teenage images. Commercial interests have no qualms about sacrificing teen innocence but the authorities are too meek to take tougher action inspite of concerns by parental groups. Defining the boundaries of acceptable norms would help to protect and nurture our kids into healthier individuals at this vulnerable stage of development.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/parenting/mps-baulk-at-rules-on-sexualisation/2008/06/26/1214472722046.html

Children are increasingly exposed to highly sexualised images, a Senate committee has found - but it has stopped short of calling for tougher government regulation, which has angered parent groups.

The issue has been thrown into the spotlight by controversies such as the publication of photos of the 15-year-old Disney star Miley Cyrus topless in the magazine Vanity Fair.

Although the committee rejected tighter standards on what television and advertisers can show, it recommended a national sex education program as a way to teach children about healthy relationships and to help them "deconstruct" sexualised images.

It singled out raunchy music videos and toys such as Bratz dolls, but said "it is the primary responsibility of parents to make decisions about what their children see, hear, read or purchase.

"These parental decisions can have a significant impact on the market for sexualising products and services."

The committee has also suggested that television networks consider a dedicated children's channel and that publishers of magazines such as Dolly and Girlfriend investigate putting content warnings on covers.

More than a third of the people who made private submissions to the inquiry identified themselves as parents or grandparents who were concerned that their children and grandchildren were being subject to sexualisation by the media.

A national sex education program would help children make sense of the images they saw, she said.

"People link the resilience of children to their education about relationships and sex. It's not saying education would fix exposure to images, but it would give help kids deal with them."

The advertising and media industry largely welcomed the report.

A spokesman for PBL Media, the owner of ACP Magazines, the publisher of Dolly, said: "We will have a look at whether we put any age-appropriate information on the covers." The peak body for commercial broadcasters, Free TV Australia, said in a statement that it believed there were already "clear protections" in place for both content and advertising. "We are confident that these are in line with community standards and do not sexualise children," it said.

orange blossom · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1162 Location: Australia

The battle continues. The pro-art lobby have upped the ante with a publicly funded magazine fighting back in defiance with the photo of a naked six year old girl on its cover page. Has the picture restored lost dignity, more like innocence lost.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/i-cant-stand-this-stuff/2008/07/06/1215282625714.html

Observer · Joined: 10 Oct 2007 Posts: 230 Location: Lah Lah Land

The fuss in Australia................

Art or abuse? Fury over image of naked girl

orange blossom · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1162 Location: Australia

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/naked-girl-offended-by-pm/2008/07/07/1215282805312.html

I really wonder if Olympia Nelson, now 11, really knew the significance of her picture meant to the protection of children and the public's interest. She was at the centre of the latest controversy over child nudity in art. This is a natural reaction of someone whose alter ego had been derided by the head of government. But Olympia is still a child and her views are understandably influenced by adults who are supportive of her appearing naked for arts sake.

Art Monthly Australia cover page carried Olympia's photo taken when she was six by her mother, Polixeni Papapetrou, a Melbourne photographer.

Both the government and opposition are in agreement that artists have gone overboard in the pursuit of art. This time round, they have repeatedly toyed with and flouted the ambiguity in the laws as well as moral issues.

Descartes · Joined: 29 Apr 2008 Posts: 36

This is a much debated topic, the art world versus its censors, by its own conventions the art world will seek to explore new boundaries, be it modern art, a revisionist impression of the multitude of ism within the art world but the public reaction is the key to the ongoing or outpouring of emotions.

Too often the public reaction only encourages the artist to seek greater publicity, seeking for recognition and fame within a very limited sphere. The opportunity to exploit and gain fame has been the motivating element within a great number of supposed radical and exploitive sensationalised images. The modern example is Tracey Emin, a brilliant publicist but a questionable artist.

This has been seen with the Mapplethorpe collection, http://www.mapplethorpe.org/selectedworks.html but the art world has accepted the sexuality of Mapplethorpe and the images he presented, his collection of flowers can be interpretative of having a greater sexual symbolism and imagery than his collection of Male and Female nudes.

The Mapplethorpe Collection contains explicit images and I can only say, Beware.

Art and art history has repeatedly used shock treatment to achieve recognition, the greater social awareness of Paedophiles has created closer scrutiny of all images of young people and the photographer but if limitation are placed on expression and false standards of acceptability with new and draconian parameters of artistic images we will lose the new and restrict the ability of artistic expression.

The nude on the front of the Art Monthly is tasteful and does not depict a radical sexual image any more than the Painting by Gainsborough of The Painter's Daughters, Margaret and Mary, Chasing Butterfly.

It is not the perception that is the primary concept but the intention. All too often the establisment will decry what was intended as an innocent image but perceived as have hidden symbolism.

orange blossom · Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 1162 Location: Australia

I'm not convinced that Henson is innocent and benevolent and pursuing art for purely art's sake.