In reply to Steel's comment: "So a parent and child who consent to modelling for art is "child labour" that is "exploitative"? This premise more than anything shows you are a hardcore christian/socialist/fascist."

It is my understanding that a parent cannot legally 'consent' for a child to pose nude.

This makes sense, because if it were legal, the financial incentives could easily override the parent's duty of care to the child. Anyone could hire out their children in return for money or favours.

Having a child is not the same thing as owning them. You are responsible for them, but you do not have the right to do anything you like with them.

Further, Steele, you elsewhere criticise someone for arguing 'ad hominem', but you resort to an ad hominem attack yourself in the above comment "shows you are a hardcore christian/socialist/fascist".

Heya Ludwig,

I don't think it's okay for any adult, male or female, to use naked underage kids for anything.

I am not saying he is a bad photographer, his landscapes are actually good, even these vile portraits are artistically valid. I and other artists I have spoken with have intensely resented him (Henson) for the use/abuse of naked children way before this particular exhibition. This is not a new debate at all.

What if it were not an artist but a salesman making money and fame from naked children. Would that be okay…. If not, why not?
Do his supporters support the 12 or 14 year old child runway models or padded bras for sale in the K-Mart for undeveloped girls? Why is this so different?

The assumption of some people that artists are above the rest of us spiritually or somehow wiser is misguided. I am wondering if this is why people are supporting this, maybe some mistakenly believe it is more profound or maybe somehow *right* because an artist did it.

Check this out, killing animals for art: (mice)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/13/1071125716675.html?oneclick=true

Some times things are wrong and some people are creeps.

Anyway, take it easy
Meredith

HOW EXACTLY DID THE MODEL GET "ABUSED"? (meredith/bennet) The model and her parents are perfectly happy with the result and have defended the artist.

Did you read her opinion and the opinion of her parents? Stop demonising and harassing them. They blame people like you for abuse.

Furthermore naked children have appeared in art for a long time, and this is indeed a new debate: Henson has been free from harassment for 25 years or so.

As for consent, Miss Bennett:

Miss Bennet>"It is my understanding that a parent cannot legally 'consent' for a child to pose nude."

Why not? Will "Because?" be your answer?

>"This makes sense, because if it were legal, the financial incentives could easily override the parent's duty of care to the child. Anyone could hire out their children in return for money or favours."

Farmers across Australia make their children work for them for profit and parents 'put them to hard labour' cleaning their rooms and so on. So your scenario is irrelevant and also duplicitous: i doubt you care a damn about these farmers or parents abusing their children with hard labour.

>"Having a child is not the same thing as owning them. You are responsible for them, but you do not have the right to do anything you like with them."

And you have even *less* right. As does the government of Australia.

Besides, since all you women here support murdering children while they are living in the mother's womb, before birth, and support the mutilation of thousands of male babies at birth, I find your selective concern for the model almost hilarious... in both it's hypocrisy and pettiness.

Meredith, I don’t think nudity per se should matter at all. It is the exploitation of kids that should matter…. and only where there is tangible harm to the children involved, or the likelihood of it.

Using children for one’s own ends in a benign way should not be frowned upon. Where children are used in a Kmart catalogue or in TV commercial or by ABC Learning Centres, Mattel, the Wiggles or Anne Geddes, as succinctly argued by jpw2040 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7463#115292, we should have no problem.

Similarly, Henson’s or Sally Mann’s photos should not concern us, simply because they contain nudity. Nude children have been depicted in art throughout the history of art!

Artists should be free to produce a very wide range of material, for as long as no one is harmed or exploited and the necessary consent is gained…and animals aren’t killed simply to produce it (which really is extremely sick).

But it needs to be censored, as per movies and magazines.

What is displayable in an art gallery should not automatically be reproducible in a newspaper.

I think that there is nothing wrong whatsoever with Henson’s art hanging in an art gallery, with a warning of nude content. They should have an ‘M’ category I guess or perhaps a ‘G’, because the nudity is so benign… which would still make them viewable by children.

But as for them appearing in newspapers with it all hangin out; NO! Definitely not, under our current understanding of what is acceptable. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7463#115291

PS I appreciate the your friendly demeanour. Cheers

In London, he'd be in jail. Gary Glitter didn't get a free pass for being a national treasure.

Regardless of what Alison says, the material is banned as child pornography in other jurisdictions.

I would remind you that two naked youngsters in a bath tub surrounded by empty Moet bottles wasn't sexual either according to the same classification board in Oz that gave Bill's revolting child porn a clean bill of health!

Alison Croggon also doesn't know very much about art-law either.

If you're shifting stuff about, you can't ship child pornography, (which is what Bill's stuff is) via a country that has crimialized that material, and that includes London, regardless what Ms Alison 'Censorship Croggon has to say about it.

One can't readily accept much of what these people say, they lack integrity, they're just not very honest.

With me, you get what it says on the tin, I concede that Oz has apparently legalized Bill's revolting material, but, the SOA 2003, doesn't allow Bill to go near London with his child pornography.

(Which is what it is there)

He's under a cloud in Great Britain as a person who likes taking illegal (for the UK) pictures of naked little kids. That's Bill's profitable little bizness. Naked boys genitalia stored out back for special customers, non-sexualized of course (as per Oz).

In the UK, one goes to jail for that kind of gallery work. And despite what Alison was saying on her censored blog, the decency test is the one that works for the Protection of Children Act and the SOA 2003. So, if it is about 'porn' I would advise takijg anything Alison says with a bucket of salt.

In Regina v. Graham-Kerr, Stocker L.J. said that the appropriate test in the case of the Protection of Children Act was that as stated in R. v. Stamford [1972] 2 QB 391, which uses the formula ‘recognised standards of propriety.’

This, and the use of the word ‘impropriety’ by Lord Parker, point to the essential elements of indecency being offence caused, and inappropriateness, rather than that any amount of shock or disgust be caused in those forced to see it.