if this is going to decend to personalities i will lock it as it is achieveing nothing.
if you have something to add to the debate itself, feel free. if not, dont bother please.
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if this is going to decend to personalities i will lock it as it is achieveing nothing.
if you have something to add to the debate itself, feel free. if not, dont bother please.
I regret I have to have 50c each way. Those from art backgrounds who posted here seem to be close to how I feel about it. I have seen the main image of the 13 year old girl and seen other work by the artist and it I am sure the motivation was constructively artistic rather than trying to shock or confront.
Yet Art is not a permission for a free for all. I don't think he should have taken those shots and if he took them a long while ago then then the gallery should not have hung them and had more respect for prevailing community attitudes. I believe the artist, who deserves the respect he gets for his body of work, was wrong to use an underage model because she was not in a position to give informed consent. Her parents did her a disservice too.
Personally I think using the photo for the invitation was more offensive than taking the shot.
And you know there a 18 year old + waif like models out there and he could have taken an identical photo pretty much. He seemed to think authenticity was more important than the child's welfare and the prevailing community attitudes and this is where he made a moral or ethical mistep in my opinion.
As to the people here who posted that artists weren't useful to society, well they are right, ... if you discount making life worth living.
Declaration: I work in an arts organisation, for and with artists and this discussion is taking place in the offices studios and corridors and FYI they are not all of one mind and they don't think every value we hold can be thrown out the window in the name of Art.
I thought, meh, arty wierdo's have all sorts of bizarre ideas, who really cares, but when you see some of his other works as posted elsewhere, it gets a bit concerning
http://www.pavementmagazine.com/henson_boygirl2.jpg
http://www.pavementmagazine.com/henson_car2.jpg
http://www.pavementmagazine.com/billhenson_embrace2.jpg
It didn't take too long for everybody's favourite expat to pipe up about the matter - Through a lens darkly | theage.com.au.
Unfortunately not as controversial as her other columns (she's for certain my fav. columnist), she actually seems to present a healthy discussion in this one.
Nice one Germaine!
Germaine Greer used to be good value but she has become very batty lately. You're right though, this article is surprisingly measured.
Camille Paglia is much more interesting, she is as interesting as you can get without being about Landrovers.
This thread is getting way to metrosexual for my liking, I'm going to look at my County for the next 5 mins to bloken up a bit. Touchy bloody girly disco drivers
This is the version of that idea that I thought was pretty clever.Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesH
Someone who was trying to get some funding for the arts in America was asked, "Will that expenditure help defend America?"
His reply was, "No, but it will help make it worth defending."
I have no doubt the story is apocryphal, but I like the idea.
'cept for the fact that James and Simon and I drive 'fenders.Quote:
Originally Posted by dobbo
oh, and I've just got back in from cutting a load of firewood, too, with one of those girly, metrosexual chainsaw thingies :p
............but then I am off to Yoga for one of my thrice weekly sessions in less than an hours time. ;)
Driving a Defender is like yoga, pilates, transcendental meditation, and going to an art gallery all at the one time.Quote:
Originally Posted by rick130
Nothing blurs the lines between art and pornography like looking at a Defender. I bet I know what he means by "bloken up a bit";)
I've watched this thread with some interest particularly in that I've observed some people here who on other occasions have walked very close to the edge of the rules of conduct of this forum. These same people have suggested that a man whose demonstrated abilities as an artist have earned him a living and a reputation for excellence in his chosen field should be pilloried for doing likewise.
And you will say that here no harm is done by pushing the limits here..and I will say what harm has Bill Henson done?
A greater harm will be done by stifling freedom of speech and expression when no malice is intended or indeed harm done.
I saw a doco on internet freedom in China. Try googling "Dalai Lama" in China and the freedoms we take for granted are curtailed.
It will be the courts and not the police who finally decide whether the artist, the displayers and or the guardians will be punished according to our law. If we don't like the law then we need our elected representatives to change it. Beware.
I liked this letter to the editor of the SMH:
Quote:
With a foot in both camps, I have watched with interest as this sorry Bill Henson episode has unfolded. I am in a position, perhaps unique in this farce, of having been a member of the NSW Police Force for 34 years and, for the most part concurrently, proprietor of a commercial exhibiting gallery for more than 25 years.
I am gobsmacked and bitterly disappointed that a police force, which is far better than the one I joined all those years ago and far better educated, still fails to see when it has been ambushed by the pursed-lipped paragons of public morality; those zealots who can't separate nudity from sexuality and who rely on an obsequious police to do their bidding in glorious ignorance. Let's face it; most police would not know their Ansel Adams from their elbow.
Debate is one thing, criminal sanctions are another. Debate should be welcomed - criminal sanctions stifle any opportunity for debate.
Henson's art has nothing to do with exploitation or pedophilia, but enough has been said about that by those more qualified than I.
Not one of the pedophiles I arrested and prosecuted advertised their vile workings. They operated under the coward's cloak of darkness and familiarity. Not for them the arc lights of a legitimate gallery - more the deeper crevices of the internet or the well-thumbed pages of their sordid juvenilia and other paraphernalia.
That senior police fail to utilise their discretion to uphold the independence of a profession I still hold dear, setting themselves up again to be pilloried for ill-informed actions that must surely fail, is a bitter pill for me.
Having worked with scarce resources, I shake my head at the waste portrayed by television images of police seizing crates of artworks, and wonder to what better use their expertise might be applied. Child protection, perhaps?
Ill-informed comment and motherhood statements from political leaders that further cast the burden on police are regrettable.
To ensure that public disquiet is addressed in the future and that the police do not continue to undo their normally laudable work, perhaps those same political leaders might consider a mechanism where pious complaints can be referred to censorship arbiters.
In the meantime, I commend Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, for standing tall when others have lacked the backbone to do the same.
In my various command positions, I would not have sanctioned the actions being taken by police. I would also have no hesitation in exhibiting Henson's work.
In time, this whole inane episode will appear pretty dumb, but the damage to Henson and his subjects and lost opportunities for professional policing are inestimable.
Alan Leek (retired superintendent of police) Breewood Galleries, Richmond