Ludwig

'It is NOT acceptable for the police to have let the 2004 exhibition ride, only to greatly tarnish the reputation of Henson'

Your logic reads:

It is NOT acceptable for the police to have let the paedophile Priests be charged because of their upright reputation because they had got away with it before.

Face it, this man is dealing in deviancy. You may call it art. I agree with Mr Rudd for a change. Only sick hearts and minds want to exploit young children like this.

What are you suggesting Vanilla?

"You both seem confident in your artistic judgment. And yet as an "amateur student of art" (Pelican) and someone who's studied art for five years (Foxy), it's a bit weird that you don't know Bill Henson. He's VERY famous. I've never studied art beyond first year uni, but I love it and have tried to learn as much as I can in the past decade and I do go to exhibitions regularly, and I would have thought it would have been hard to ignore Henson in the last ten years."

Declaring that I am an "amatuer" would hardly suggest I am "confident in my artistic judgement" as you claim.

Why does a state of amateurishness immediately negate the right to make a comment about art. I also go to many exhibitions but would not claim that this makes me an expert just someone who appreciates other people's amazing talent and wish that mine could improve to the same standard. It is not also not unlikely that an amateur who leans mainly towards oils and charcoal might not be as well vested with knowledge of photographic art.

Regardless, Vanilla I thought this article was about Henson not about Foxy or my artistic knowledge. We should not be distracted - this thread was about Bill Henson's photographs of nude children.

I am at least willing to give the artist the benefit of the doubt regarding his intentions but it does not change the fact that these photos are highly inappropriate, of bad taste and do nothing to curb the current status quo of media/corporate using children in sexualised images to sell clothes, CDs (via video clips) etal.

I agree with pelican, I am willing to give the artist the benefit of the doubt regarding his intentions (re probably not a pedophile), although it does seem to me he was attempting to shock. That is why I mentioned Madge

Vaniilla, surely you can see that a 16 year old Venus is different to a 12 year old Venus? Our age of consent is 16 in this country. In other words we legally define a 16 year old as a sexual being competent to make decisions regrading their bodies. 12 is too young.

you say>> " The way I read Henson's work, he is presenting children as innocent but latent sexual beings. He's not presenting them AS sexual beings — they look childish, innocent" My point is why do we feel the need to sexualise 12 year olds, even latently?

Robert says >>"On the other hand we could get over our religiously inspired body taboo's and develop healthier attitudes to the body."

Are you suggesting that naked pictures of children on a pedophiles computer should be legal? Because it sounds that way to me. Are we prudes because we object to the sexualisation of children? Because if so i would be happy to wear the label. Indeed i find it extremely unhealthy that people are interested in looking at a 12 year old naked .

Don't attempt to lump this in with some peoples prudish distaste for nakedness of any kind. We are talking about young kids here. They need our protection not exploitation, whatever the aim.

I would like to know whether those who support these pictures ( not those who support the artist ) would be comfortable having their own 12 year old, 9 year old or 6 year old child photographed in this way. Since age is clearly not the issue to the supporters.

Would all those foaming at the mouth with rage at the temerity of an established artist’s TASTEFUL depictions of nude children, please assign some discernment and priority with your disapproval.

The advertising industry, in its quest for your dollars, continues unabated to sexualise our children every single day, yet here you all are disparaging someone who has more talent in his little finger than any advertising executive or editor of magazines.

Consider the following:

“In 2006, the retail chain Tesco launched the Peekaboo Pole Dancing Kit, a play set designed to help young girls "unleash the sex kitten inside."
Perturbed parents, voicing concern that their 5-year-olds might be too young to engage in sex work, lobbied to have the product pulled. Tesco removed the play set from the toy section but kept it on the market...

... you can't keep kids in a bubble forever. As they get older, they're going to be exposed to these things, and the most helpful thing that anyone can do is talk about what's going on in the media with children and offering them ways to maintain distance and be critical of these representations and understanding the selling intentions behind them and all of those things.”

The full article is at:

http://www.alternet.org/sex/85977/?page=entire

And I beg you all to read it before casting any more aspersions on Bill Henson. At least place your rage squarely where it belongs.

If Henson has achieved anything with his exhibition it is that we are still embarrassed by our own bodies and sexuality and really need to grow up.

Pelican,
I have offended you and I apologise. To clarify, I guess I thought that by suggesting Henson’s “talent would better be served using another outlet”, you came across as confident in your ability to judge his talent. Henson’s range is narrow — he is so consumed by a particular low-lit haunted netherworld that it is hard to imagine what other outlet (I assume you mean of subject matter rather than medium) you expect him to find. I also found “he appears to have some artistic talent” rather condescending. It’s like saying Patrick White appears to have some literary talent. I guess it’s my opinion that if you’re going to damn with faint praise or redirect his life’s work you really need to know your stuff. I hope I haven’t further offended you, but do you see my point?

But, back to Henson, you say, “...these photos are highly inappropriate, of bad taste and do nothing to curb the current status quo of media/corporate using children in sexualised images to sell clothes, CDs (via video clips)”

But is “appropriate” appropriate in the art world? Shouldn’t art be brave, take risks, challenge? And what is “bad taste”? Henson’s work is beautiful to look at and respectful of its subjects (or do you disagree?) collected by galleries worldwide — why “bad taste”? And why on earth should Henson help curb the hideous corporate trick of sexualising children to sell products? What’s it got to do with him?

These are genuine questions, if you can be bothered answering them.

Meanwhile, Foxy, sorry, I know I’m fresh from admonishing you on the “Empirical God?” thread, but I’m now going to do it again here and say that I see you’ve cut and pasted some of your post from this editorial: http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/05/24/11549_editorial-news.html

With much respect, I think you should observe copyright laws and attribute your sources properly if you are quoting word for word. That is, stick quote marks around them and let us know where they’re from. We want to hear what YOU think, not others.

Dear Vanilla,

Yes, I did cut and paste from the source that you mentioned because it was what I actually thought and being late at night and feeling extremely tired I took the liberty to use something I agreed with.
I had just come from from a very large entertaining lunch, and had too much wine. So, my apologies. It does not alter the fact of my views on the subject however.

You my dear, need to get over the fact that no everyone is going to agree with you on certain topics and stop your rather heavy handiness with people of opposing views at times. As Pelican pointed out - our knowledge of Art does not necessarily make us experts - but it also
doesn't make us ignorant - simply because we're not familiar with
Bill Heson's work. Neither Pelican nor I were judging the artistic merit of what Heson does - we were merely expressing our understanding of why some people would have considerable unease concerning the ages of his subject matter, the fact that they were children and the form in which they were being presented - naked.

You did ask what we thought and we tried to answer you in whatever form we could at the time - I apologise for not having supplied you with a bibliography (or footnotes) of my sources used. I'll try not to let it happen again. Perhaps I'll avoid your threads altogether in the future!