OK, bush. So the real problem here – the causal origin, in other words - comes from child protection campaigners, vice cops, and politicians identifying themselves with the same? Interesting too how yourself and similarly inclined tend to assign specific personalities to the “problem” as you see it: “bad Hetty Johnston...bad Franca Arena...hysterical Rudd/Nelson/Iemma” etc., as with some various degrees of name-calling and other vitriol for myself and Bronwyn, for example.

In your vaguely defined passion yourself, Lev and steely do not even concede the potential justifications for opposing Henson's work, despite extensive reasoned argumentation based on concerns for morality, jurisprudence, aesthetics, ideology and child welfare. Thus, your responses rely overwhelmingly on dismissal (“absurd”, and “i can't understand what you're saying” as Buncle used in a related thread), hostility (repeated claims that “moralist opposition is sick... hysterical... fool... stupid... disgraceful... nasty”, much upper-case yelling), and other inversions about relevancy and the very notion of “child abuse” (censors' alleged harm to Henson models supposedly “scrutinized as pornographers”, etc.). Extraordinarily spectacular, energetic aerobatics, whose psychopathology of consistently unbalanced response could reasonably cause some casual visiting readers to conclude that OLO had actually uncovered a real spiders' nest.

Yes, “Salo” is indeed offensive, but no “buts” or “ifs”: offending viewers' sensibilities was key to Pasolini's mission there. And I'm still unsure whether “Salo” should escape a ban, even though I'm one of that film's most ardent supporters. Our legalistic criteria for defining and justifying “obscenity” seem so under-developed that I agree “Salo” probably fails our society's simple, established tests of moral acceptability. However, I believe Henson's use of naked children and his aesthetic make his art far less morally acceptable, and much less justifiable. I perceive that this paradoxical circumstance exposes serious legal and administrative shortcomings in our country's censorship process.

Bush, would you still describe Salo “offensive” - or more “tastefully middle class” - if Pasolini had sublimated Salo's abuse scenes and depicted abuse victims a la Henson's models, with Henson's focus on Botticelliesque adolescent “vulnerable beauty” in place of Pasolini's brutal clash of social realism with Baroque symmetry?

“After that it was Keystone Cops and moral hysterics”

CJ, odious Devine and Johnson may be, but I think that they were quite within their rights to express their views, as strongly they wished to, and to make a complaint to the police.

The police however, were not within their rights to take the action that they did, in shutting Henson down and confiscating material. They could have acted on the complaint without doing that.

I don’t hold even the strongest and seemingly loopiest views against anyone, and I’ll uphold everyone’s right to free expression of their opinions, and their right to make a complaint. It is police the action that is the really rotten part of this whole affair. As I explained on another thread (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1831#37671), we just CANNOT tolerate a policing regime like this.

mil-oberserver,

1) you address your post to me, but refer to all manner of posters from god knows where. i'll do my best to find and respond to the criticisms of me.

2) people are allowed to react to henson's photographs. i'm allowed to react to their reactions. their reactions were absurd. and hysterical.

3) are there good reasons for objecting to henson's photos? no, i don't think so. certainly not in the thuggish manner that was done. but there are understandable reasons. people are confused and uncomfortable with sexuality, especially budding, adolescent sexuality. but that's an argument for care and self-reflection, not burning torches.

someone (CJ?) linked to a brilliant funny column by emma tom (the australian?). it said it wonderfully well.

4) hetty johnston was important. she's a known quantity. her job is to look for victims. is she allowed to complain to the cops? of course! but she has almost no credibility. and the police have no credibility for giving her so much credibility. they have come out looking like idiotic wowsers, and rightfully so.

once again, think of henson's models. all evidence suggests that henson has MUCH more concern for his models than hetty does. and, all evidence suggests that the models agree with this.

5) don't make "salo" into a straw man. i thought you brought in salo as an example of great art. i replied that the henson case was never about the greatness of his art. are there tough issues of censorship of art? of course. i don't think salo is that tough, but there's a tough line somewhere.

but henson wasn't tough. it was trivial.

Bronwyn: "This exhibition was always going to be a news story and Henson would have known that."

Sorry, Bronwyn, I must add my voice to the chorus pointing out that that is completely untrue. Henson represented Australia at the Venice Biennale, he had a major retrospective at the AGNSW, he has sold worldwide etc etc etc for thirty years using, occasionally, naked models under sixteen. The police received just three complaints about this most recent show. Why do you think Henson would have know what was coming?

"I stand by my comment."

Sure, but please back it up. You talk about a growing unease in the art world. Can you be specific about this unease? For years, both arty types and public intellectuals have pointed out Henson's work is uneasy and difficult. Yet it was continually lauded throughout those years. Why do you speak of a "growing" uneasiness? I have spoken to several people in the art world who disagree with this.

Bronwyn: "How can any society honestly condone children being photographed naked in the viewing interests of the art world elite and yet condemn the collection of clearly dubious photos of naked children on home computers?"

Because society — not just the elite, but people in general — are, or should learn to be, intelligent consumers of art, and emotionally and sexually sophisticated enough to discriminate between art and porn. If we honestly cannot discriminate between art and porn — and, it seems, the NSW Police CAN do so, thank god — then god help us. If we cannot, we cannot protect our children from real threats.

cont

cont...

"Not only does Henson's work have parallels to the ugly trend of Internet child pornography, but it also has strong echoes of the corporate world's equally ugly and damaging exploitation and premature sexualization of children, evident in so much of the media and marketing aimed at this age group."

I know this will sound harsh, but I find this an ugly remark, and one that demonstrates a lack of understanding of Henson's art. The girl and boy in Henson's photographs were naked. Do you see any other parallel with internet child pornography than that? In which case, aren't you simply anti-any portrayal of underage nudity? What Henson seeks to do is DEcommodify childhood — to return it to a natural, uncanny and deeply intimate space. He does not sexualise children from an adult point of view — which I believe defines child pornography — he photographs them as they ARE, as adolescents, as people, as complex, interesting, difficult individuals. His work is the very opposite of the premature sexualisation of children — it is a weapon in the armory with which we defend ourselves against that disgusting intrusion.

Bronwyn: "I think it's totally disingenuous for his supporters to argue that art is art and that artistic freedom should come before all else. As with all freedoms, artistic freedom should carry an equal degree of responsibility"

Then, unfortunately, you have failed to understand the argument Henson's supporters have been making. Artistic freedom should never come before the safety of children. Henson's supporters, and the NSW police force, argue that his work does not constitute a breach of the responsibility you have charged it with.

Bush, I addressed you with the other two because of the similarities of your adjectival judgementalism, though steel and lev are more passionate and even hostile. A conspicuous irony here is that your latest response offers more of the same: further “judgements” (perhaps “labels” is more apt), nearly all unsubstantiated, against Johnston, police and myself. As your text reveals, it is for you “reacting to... reactions”, or an emotional and perceptional free jousting; it is still not a discursive analysis of the intellectual substance relevant to censorship, Henson, Salo, or to the various concerns, especially those related to child welfare, as voiced by Henson's opponents.

It is clear that many of Henson's opponents use sweeping, instinctive judgement to condemn outright his work and his supporters. But such is the corresponding, reactive expression from yourself, many art libertarians and – it would now also seem clear – more discreet and variously pathological pedo-aesthetes. Fire with fire may seem satisfying for you, but the tactic is inappropriate and counter-productive when dealing with dispassionate analysis. I note here that Vanilla's eulogization of Henson carries similarly uncritical description into oxymoron: "deeply intimate...not sexualise children from an adult point of view".

You avoided my hypothetical question about Salo's “offensiveness”. I thereby gather that you would actually approve of a Hensonized, cheezy “Salo”. If so, then that is truly disturbing.

Another irony is that you insinuate “fascism” in my position (“oberserver”). I have described for this forum, in considerable detail, the virtues of Pasolini's “Salo”, perhaps the most incisive and eloquent anti-fascist work of art ever created. I have highlighted too the fact that Nazi art (for example) was often pedophilic and actually “degenerate” by practical definition, with correpondingly unbalanced and hypocritical foundations of homoeroticism. We can be quite sure that true fascists contain a significant proportion of actual or potential Henson aficionados, comforted by the endorsement they perceive from Henson's aesthetic in their proclivity towards sexually exploitative dominance of society's defenceless; just as we can be sure they contain also an aloof gay elite that gain similar reassurance from say Mapplethorpe's photographic art.