Bill Henson Photos: Child Pornography or Art?

[BillyJoe]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/nude-show--charges-loom/2008/05/23/1211183065535.html

The controversial Sydney art exhibition by photographer Bill Henson is set to open to the public, despite looming criminal charges and the withdrawal of several works featuring naked young adolescents....police have seized 20 of 41 photographs from the exhibition and plan to launch criminal proceedings under the Child Protection Act.

The images angered a child protection group, which labelled the photos child pornography, but artists and gallery patrons viewed the shut-down as "censorship" of genuine art.

The link below contains one of the photographs, as well as a video containing more photographs of the nudes:
(All the photgraphs are censored, but it will give you a good idea of the short of photographs in the Bill Henson collection)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/24/2254653.htm?section=entertainment

If also contains a legal opinion:

"The Crimes Act requires two things - an intention and an act," he said.
"The Act is usually fairly easily established but if the intention is to produce a work of art and solely to produce a work of art, then I can not see how a crime has been committed."

For what it is worth, the first link above also contains an audio of our Prime Minister Mr. Rudd's view of the photographs:

...I think [these pictures] are revolting...I cannot see why we can't just allow our kids to have their childhood...

I'm just wondering what the effect is on the children depicted in the photographs when they hear their Prime Minister say that he thinks the pictures of their naked bodies are "revolting".



Her is another view about whether this is pornography or art:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/henson-a-whipping-boy/2008/05/23/1211183060448.html

Judy Annear, the senior curator of photography at the Art Gallery of NSW, curated a major Henson retrospective in 2004-2005 that included similar images and was viewed by 65,000 people with no complaints.

She said people were wrongly deflecting the current concern about pedophilia and child abuse onto his work.

"People should be focusing on the main game ... if it has to do with pedophilia and the abuse of children they need to be focusing on that.
"Bill's work isn't the problem here, it's just a convenient kind of whipping boy at this particular moment in time.

 

[slingblade]

"Nude" should not automatically equal "sexual."

 

[BillyJoe]

Here are a few links about the artist, Bill Henson:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/career-framed-by-controversy/2008/05/23/1211183097203.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/he-...udiences-decide/2008/05/21/1211182887495.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/its-a-triumph-of-the-philistines/2008/05/23/1211183097200.html



And here is an interesting quote from the artist himself:

Henson is happy to leave interpretation to audiences. "It's like when you're standing in front of a picture of a road, it really does take you off into another region. It's your road, not my road."

 

[bokonon]

While I'm sure pedophiles would be stimulated by such pictures, I don't consider them pornographic.

With the way attitudes have changed so much over the years, I've wondered if I risked prosecution by hanging on to my old David Hamilton books, but it looks like they're still legal.

 

[geni]

The Blind Faith album is still availible I assume?

The current hysteria over child pornography is causesing a number of problems. Particularly in releation to historic works.

 

[Chupacabras]

People go to great lengths to fight I.D. woo, but nobody is willing to fight the war about pedophilia woo, much less to defend photographer's rights.

 

[Nogbad]

This is not difficult - pornography is by definition depiction of sexual acts, Nudes are not pornography no matter what age the individual.

I understand that true paedophiles will gain pleasure from just about any picture of a child clothed or otherwise. Where do we draw the line? Do we withdraw children from all public representation in magazines, TV, advertising, movies? It oft times seems to me that pressure groups like the one mentioned in the OP are in danger of being too over the top (a pitfall that most pressure groups on just about any subject seem to fall into) By seeing danger in every corner they lose credibility and subsequently the ears of the public. In short their fevered over-reaction could prove ultimately counter-productive.

 

[Matthew Best]

This is not difficult - pornography is by definition depiction of sexual acts.

That's a definition of "pornography" I haven't seen before. Do you have a reference for it?

 

[Nogbad]

That's a definition of "pornography" I haven't seen before. Do you have a reference for it?

The words pornos and graphic mean simply pictures of fornicators or pictures of prostitutes (depending on how you translate pornos). The Greeks had no issue with the naked body and would not have used pornographic to describe a picture of a nude.

On a separate note I hadn't noticed that the pictures were of adolescent girls. Paedophilia in its true sense is a fascination with pre-pubescent children not adolescents.

 

[Matthew Best]

The words pornos and graphic mean simply pictures of fornicators or pictures of prostitutes (depending on how you translate pornos). The Greeks had no issue with the naked body and would not have used pornographic to describe a picture of a nude.

That's what I had always understood the derivation of the word "pornography" to be, but the derivation is not the same as the meaning.

Anyway, what you seem to be saying is that "pornography" originally meant pictures of naked people, but the Greeks can't have actually meant it to mean that, so it means something different. I can't quite get my head round that, I'm afraid.

 

[Nogbad]

That's what I had always understood the derivation of the word "pornography" to be, but the derivation is not the same as the meaning.

Anyway, what you seem to be saying is that "pornography" originally meant pictures of naked people, but the Greeks can't have actually meant it to mean that, so it means something different. I can't quite get my head round that, I'm afraid.

I am sorry if that is the impression I gave. I meant that the word originalyl meant the depiction of sexual acts as generally performed by prostitutes or people of loose morals (clothed or otherwise). The nude on the other hand was considered a thing of beauty in ancient Greece. Athletes raced nude and nudes adorned everyday pottery. The two were quite separate.

I do agree that words can come to mean many things and pornography can mean anything from a page three girl to people dressed up as chickens and doing it with a donkey. Use a word enough and it is possible to take ownership of it. Gay, for example, was either happy or a girl's name when I was a kid.

Paedophilia has lately come to rival the medieval cry of "witch". This is somewhat ironic as I think the term was originally coined by child molesters as their preferred word for themselves - all other phile words such as Francophile being a positive affirmation of a love of all things, in this example, French.

 

[Matthew Best]

I meant that the word originally meant the depiction of sexual acts as generally performed by prostitutes or people of loose morals (clothed or otherwise).

But your evidence for this meaning was that the constituent parts of the word "pornography" came from the Greek meaning prostitutes and pictures (I think graphos probably also includes writing as well). No mention of sexual acts there.

The nude on the other hand was considered a thing of beauty in ancient Greece. Athletes raced nude and nudes adorned everyday pottery. The two were quite separate.

Now what you seem to be implying is that "pornography" had a negative connotation even in ancient Greece. Is that true?

I realise that this is a bit of a tangential conversation to the original topic, and for that I apologise. I'm interested, though, and my knowledge of Greek (and ancient Greeks) is limited, so please indulge me with this final question.

 

[Nogbad]

But your evidence for this meaning was that the constituent parts of the word "pornography" came from the Greek meaning prostitutes and pictures (I think graphos probably also includes writing as well). No mention of sexual acts there.



Now what you seem to be implying is that "pornography" had a negative connotation even in ancient Greece. Is that true?

I realise that this is a bit of a tangential conversation to the original topic, and for that I apologise. I'm interested, though, and my knowledge of Greek (and ancient Greeks) is limited, so please indulge me with this final question.

I am mildly appalled my explanation was so opaque

I don't think pornography had quite the same meaning in Greece or even Rome as it does today. There was more humour (with no photographs it was all drawn) and often political satire and sex were combined. Erotic drawings were used to adorn brothels. The line between prostitution and some religious cults was also fine so it would be wrong to say it had wholly negative connotations. There were simply different spaces where different rules obtained. Some in ancient Greece were scandalised by the more extreme activities of certain cults but their views rarely prevailed uniformly.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

If that's child porn, than my grandmother owns child porn. She has a large art collection, and right in her dining room is a big painting by a Cuban artist depicting a bunch of kids playing on and around a raft, including one kid peeing into the lake.

 

[Quinn]

Having lived in Cincinnati during the infamous Robert Mapplethorpe scandal in the '80s, I'm extra prone to laugh at these kind of antics. (I remember all too well the news footage of lines around the block to get into the gallery, which, during normal times, was having a good day if they had half a dozen people in the place.)

So thanks to the "child protection group" that instigated this and made it newsworthy, untold thousands of people all over the world who otherwise would never have heard of this guy, will now look up his work and view the pictures in question. This kind of tactic was stupid enough back in the day, when you had to actually go to your local WaldenBooks to see Robert Mapplethorpe's work. But it's even more mind-bogglingly idiotic in the age of the interwebs, when you can have the offending images right on your screen within 30 seconds of reading about them -- probably along with the work of other "similar artists" that they would find equally offensive.

 

[Moochie]

Off topic, but I'm aware that the phrase, "back in the day," is being used a lot these days, particularly in the media. It's not a new phrase, but one that seems to have found greater currency lately.


M.

 

[Pardalis]

I don't find his pictures sexual, disturbing or immoral. I think they're quite beautiful.

 

[Rufo]

I agree with the Law Society President that the definition of pornography is not simple. The definition I use when talking about regular pornography is "media which is intended to produce sexual excitement", meaning that the difference between pornography and non-pornography is 100 % in the intent of the creator. If I take photographs of a shoe to provide sexually charged material for shoe fetishists, then that is pornography. If I take photographs of two peolpe enganging in sexual intercourse purely for informative use, then that is not pornography. Of course, this also means that anything can serve as pornography to someone with the proper sexual preferences, for which - obviously - the originator can not be held responsible.

However, when it comes to child pornography and to legal matters in general, the priorities are different. While there is a wish to uphold a taboo - which is great - the primary objective is to ensure that no children are harmed or taken advantage of. So the questions we should be asking ourselves are whether these children have been harmed by the process, and whether the artist has taken advantage of their inability to understand the situation.

In this case, I think it's relatively safe to say that no such thing has happened. I also do not think sexual excitement was in the authors intent, so I would not call this pornography in the first place.

By the way, why is this in the Religion and Philosophy section?

 

[Safe-Keeper]

This is Sally Mann over again - nudty = Child pornography. One must wonder if the people with their panties in a twist also condemn pictures of peoples' pets as bestiality, since the pets are not clothed.

One of them, however, struck me as disturbing, as it's clearly a portrayal of a sexual assault, and I don't know how old the models are. I've removed the pic since I suddenly remembered seeing (or at least I think I did) a rule against posting nudity here. I'll look up the rules and then perhaps post the pic again.

But all in all, I'm in support of the guy, and I'm one of those who hate prudes who project and think that just because they can't stand the image of a nude person, then kids obviously can't either. There are few things I hate hearing more than "think of the children" in a discussion on nudism.

I agree with the Law Society President that the definition of pornography is not simple. The definition I use when talking about regular pornography is "media which is intended to produce sexual excitement", meaning that the difference between pornography and non-pornography is 100 % in the intent of the creator. If I take photographs of a shoe to provide sexually charged material for shoe fetishists, then that is pornography. If I take photographs of two peolpe enganging in sexual intercourse purely for informative use, then that is not pornography. Of course, this also means that anything can serve as pornography to someone with the proper sexual preferences, for which - obviously - the originator can not be held responsible.

Ex-act-ly. Fetishists are an especially strange and troublesome area. I've seen "Just for fun" clips of pee accidents at YouTube be jumped by fetishists declaring them "hot". Which means that some girl, somewhere, suddenly realizes that what she thought was just a cute clip is being jacked off to by strangers.

...I think [these pictures] are revolting...I cannot see why we can't just allow our kids to have their childhood...

So if I take a pic of a nude child, I've magically transported that kid from innocence to puberty. Of course.

 

[kerikiwi]

Another, ignored but very important, concern is that of informed consent.
Not the consent of the parents of the children, but the consent of the children themselves.