Art And Porn

Kevin Rudd, Philistine

I normally just want to sail right by these kinds of reports, but I have to say something while I still have my freedom of expression. Call it an ethical responsibility as a practitioner in the arts.
First of all, Artist Bill Henson is about to be charged with Child Porn laws for his most recent exhibition.

NSW police have seized 20 of 41 photographs from Bill Henson's Sydney exhibition of adolescent girls with the intention of launching criminal proceedings under the Child Protection Act.

Police say charges will be laid under both the NSW and Commonwealth Crimes acts for publishing an indecent article.

The alleged Commonwealth offence relates to publishing some of the photographs on the internet.

The decision to launch a prosecution was made public by Rose Bay police commander, Superintendent Allan Sicard outside the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Paddington while detectives carried out a search.

Superintendent Sicard said police had taken possession of the Henson photographs that were due to go on public exhibition on Thursday night.

"Police at 3.30pm yesterday received a report from a concerned member of the public that an exhibition was occuring at this gallery,'' said Superintendent Sicard.

"Police attended the gallery yesterday and it was the agreed position between the gallery owners and police that the exhibition not go ahead last night.

"This morning police have attended the gallery and executed a search warrant and seized some items depicting a child under the age of 16 years in a sexual context.

"Police are investigating this matter and it is likely we will proceed to prosecution on the offence of publish an indecent article, under the crimes act.

"It is likely that a future court attendence notice will be issued for the offence upon the completion of the investigation.''

"The child depicted in the image is female. We believe that the child is 13 years of age. The information is that the child... is not a resident of New South Wales and we have referred liaison through our child sex crime unit to liaise with the state where the child is believed to live.''

Police would not say if they had interviewed Mr Henson, or where the child lives.

So, let's see now, the inbred-idiot-farmer-boys who cannot get other jobs, who are the NSW Police know Art when they see it, and they think this isn't Art, it's filthy child pornography?
Great.
Sack Edmund Capon now and let the Police Chief in charge of the AGNSW. Get a black marker and colour in all the genitals on display in the art gallery. There are reasons this doesn't happen, and it's mostly to do with common sense and social norms. There are expert curators and critics for these things, just as we don't put Mr. Capon in charge of the NSW Police. This isn't some artist who suddenly popped out of nowhere with this stuff. He's an established artist who has been working this field for years and years.

Isn't it the oldest ruse of wowser-ism to shout "I might not know art, but I know smut when I see it" and shout down objections on the grounds that you're secretly a communist or a pervert or a homosexual or something like that? Didn't we leave this kind of moronic discourse behind with the Howard Government?
But, No-o-o-o!
Our fearless Prime Minister Kevin Rudd weighs in saying he's "revolted".

"I find them absolutely revolting," he told the Nine Network.

"Kids deserve to have the innocence of their childhood protected. I have a very deep view of this. For God's sake, let's just allow kids to be kids.

"Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids."

*Ugh*. Where do we begin?

First off, Kevin Rudd has not seen the work of the artist. So he's going on second hand misinformation. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on his artistic tastes on this point (just for now, but I will take him to task in point four), but it has to be said, the over-riding moralist concern in his utterances is not a sign of somebody who understands the position of an artist in society. Art is going to challenge your sensibilities Prime Minister, and you've surely got to be ready for it.

Secondly, he presumes that the work of art is sexual and therefore is pornography; as if there were only two possibilities!
This is the part that reveals Kevin Rudd's greatest misunderstanding of sexuality itself. Just because there is naked-ness it does not immediately equal cheap provocative voyeuristic sexual imagery. Sex is deservedly one of the greater mysteries in life that we must tangle with and wrestle with against and through our existence. Just because there is a nude girl does not make it child porn. His professed revulsion says more about Kevin Rudd than the works of art themselves.

Thirdly, we always get this when a work of art goes against the prevailing moral wind of society. Anybody remember 'Piss Christ'? While I haven't seen Bill Henson's work either, I can well imagine that Henson's work actually poses a tremendous question against moral certitude that the mainstream society wants. What if a thirteen year old girl was indeed sexual? It's not unheard of in history. There are plenty of instances where woman have been married off at such young ages in history. It's just that today, we pretend that onset of our sexual beings is much later.

A figure no less than Gandhi for instance married a 13 year old when he himself was 13, and had children. The famous anecdote is of Gandhi having sex with his wife at the time of his father's death; something for which he beat himself up over. We certainly don't judge Gandhi negatively for this fact, but I think Mr Rudd would - and again, that says more about Mr. Rudd's own pathetic prejudices, more than anything else.

The fact of the matter is, sexuality itself is an incredibly motile, bendy, tricky, difficult subject. It's nice if we could deal with sexuality by decree, but it just isn't so. Just scanning the SMH headlines on the same day we have this story for instance where a school teacher was jailed for having sex with his student.

David Barry Quinn, 33, of Croydon, pleaded guilty in the County Court in late April to four counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16 under his care, supervision or authority between August 7 and September 4, 2004.

In sentencing today, Judge Frances Millane said Quinn had committed a serious breach of trust.

"The victim was infatuated with you ... at the time she was a child nearly half your age and because of her infatuation with you ... she was no doubt extremely vulnerable."

She said Quinn had sex with the year 9 student from his geography class after she initiated an SMS flirtation.

"If you ever just want to fool around, text me, I'm all for it," one message from the 15-year-old girl read.

"It seems very very wrong but I do enjoy your company," a message from Quinn to the victim said.

Quinn acted on the invitation and arranged to pick up the girl, who cannot be named, from her part-time job one Saturday. They went back to his house and had sex, Judge Millane said. They then went to see a movie and Quinn then took the girl back to his house and had sex with her again.

On another occasion she stayed the night at his house.

Judge Millane said an aggravating factor in the case was Quinn's attempt to hide the relationship by making an agreement with the victim to deny the affair if it was discovered.

"Not content with the sexual corruption of this student, I am told you sought to enter into an agreement with her that if your relationship is discovered you would both deny the relationship."

The girl told a workmate of the affair and the school principal was notified. But both Quinn and the victim denied the relationship and the inquiry was dropped, she said.

At the plea hearing Tim Sowden, Quinn's lawyer, said the victim had obsessively pursued Quinn and he found it hard to resist her persistent advances.

Mr Sowden told the court Quinn regretted his actions greatly and knew what he had done was wrong.

You can just feel the judge, the lawyers, the defendant, all squirming in their chairs because a 15 year old girl wanted it badly, and went and got it. Isn't this exactly how the lyrics to 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' go?

Young teacher, the subject
Of schoolgirl fantasy
She wants him so badly
Knows what she wants to be
Inside her there's longing
This girls an open page
Book marking - she's so close now
This girl is half his age

Dont stand, dont stand so
Dont stand so close to me

Should we express our revulsion as Kevin Rudd, round up Vladimir Nabokov, Stanley Kubrick, Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland and start prosecuting them for child porn? Clearly not. In fact, the so-called 'sexualisation' in Mr. Henson's work isn't remotely about sex itself. It's not like he's busily thrusting dildos and Drilldos into a thirteen year old girl. They're nudes. Not exploitative images.

Let me make this clear: I don't approve of this teacher doing what he did, but I accept it happens, and happens often, and that it is one of the quandaries of our society because sexuality poses such a destructive question to our so-called moral integrity. It's not easy stuff. It's the stuff that makes the book and both movie versions of 'Lolita' great art, as well as Sting a great song writer. It is not inconceivable that Bill Henson has produced great art. To condemn his work, sight-unseen, is nothing but philistinism.

The sad part is, I really thought we left this kind of crap behind with the Howard Government. Clearly, not.

Fourthly, if indeed it is his artistic opinion that they are devoid of artistic merit, then he should express them in those terms, as his personal take. To judge from the office of the Prime Minister calls into question whether he should be anywhere near the arts portfolio, as he is most likely out of step with most artists, curators, and audiences.

And the best clue to the intensely painterly quality of Henson's genius, the least distracting way of getting a grip on it because both the ripeness and the exultation of the girls (or the sense of portent or ruin which sometimes afflict his figures can be disturbing is the way he can make some rusty old ruin of a landscape in urban or suburban Australia look like a place where some unearthly spirit blows as it will.

Of course there are legitimate concerns about the ways in which kids can be pushed prematurely into a hyperconsciousness of sex, but we should hardly blame this on a major visual artist simply because his art fills us with a kind of awe because of the way it plays on both the capacity for sexual intensity and the disturbing apprehension of beauty in someone alarmingly young.

The great paintings of the Renaissance do this and so does Shakespeare's Juliet (who happens in terms of our own culture to be underage) and through whom Shakespeare showed the massive power of passion in a girl who is forced tragically to make the transition from girlhood to womanhood too soon and is crushed by society and by circumstance.

But we should bear in mind that artists and writers do not create the world they express themselves in, however much their art reconfigures it in startling ways that reveal truths.

I'm glad I'm not alone in my outrage.
What really gets me is that this is not the kind of discussion I thought I would be having in Australia in 2008. It's as if 11 and a half years under the Howard Government has made us backwards cultural munchkins. If this is the best we're going to get from a Labor Prime Minister, Heaven help us all.