The recent furore over Bill Henson and, now, Polixeni Papapetrou about art censorship versus child exploitation has made certainly captured my thoughts.

Is nude child photography legitimate? Are there circumstances under which it is deemed ok? Or are we completely missing the point and it's a matter of perspective?

If those same photos of Olympia Nelson had appeared on another website or in "another" magazine then you could be arrested for viewing them ... but because they were in Art Monthly magazine they are deemed artistic. Where are the boundaries?

The flip side is ... where do we draw the line of artistic censorship?

So, was the use of a 6 year old girl exploitative? Would it have been different if it were a 6 year old boy? A 14 year old?

Or has the government and policing community made a mountain out of a mole hill?

OLO has had this debate across many threads and articles.

There is nothing wrong with a naked person of any age. The only people with a problem have a specific agenda politically or are religious. Ironically, the religious commissioned naked art centuries ago. There is some sort of new puritanism going about like a disease.

The photographs were fully consented to and the models are more than happy and have defended the artist publicly. They have been greatly abused and harrassed by people like Hetty who damage people's lives with their vicious attacks on people who do not believe in their fascist views.

I was just about to submit a new general thread on this subject. But you beat me to it Corri. I’ll put it here, unaltered.

A photo of a nude six year-old girl appears on the cover of this month’s edition of Art Monthly Australia magazine. The editor says that this has been done “in the hope of restoring some dignity to the debate; to validate nudity and childhood as subjects for art” following the controversy over Bill Henson’s photos of a nude thirteen-year-old girl. See the photo and read the editorial here: http://www.artmonthly.org.au/

Ohmygoodness, how obscene!

Now wait a minute. What on earth could be in the slightest bit wrong with this innocent photo being presented in any magazine, or appearing on the cover?

It is harmless. Surely no one is going to view this as pornographic or fertile material for paedophiles.

Our illustrious prime minister condemns it. Shame on him. Measured criticism of it possibly being inappropriate might have been ok, but condemnation most definitely is not.

He has asked the Australia Council to develop a set of protocols to cover the portrayal of children in art.

Good! We need to know just what the go is. The boundaries need to be fixed.

But for as long as they are not fixed and a photo like this falls in a grey area (and in this case, a very light shade of grey), our PM surely is totally out of line in condemning it. Once the boundaries are fixed, and some magazine or artist infringes them, then and only then would our PM be in a position to condemn them.

So, there are three issues here;

the prospect of censorship or outright banning of photos of children that might have the slightest connotations of pornography or exploitation, in the public arena, or perhaps in any arena,

the inappropriate input of our PM (and NSW premier)

and the need for the boundaries of acceptability to be determined so that everyone knows where they stand with the law.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23979363-601,00.html, http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/artists/papapetrou/

There is absolutely nothing wrong with these images. They don't even show the "rude parts". This matter should have been settled with the recent Bill Henson episode, but some people don't understand nudiy does not equal sex.
Should I be thrown in jail because I've been at nudist venues where children were present? Of course not because this was not sexual. Likewise these pictures are not sexual.
Maybe I should be arrested for being in possession of encyclopedias showing Amazon girls walking through the Brazillian jungle naked.

Opinion on this matter shows that 60% think that child nudity is wrong, and 40% think it is acceptable. Those who think it's wrong maybe in the majority, but it's nowhere near high enough to ban such pictures. I think opinion would have to be close to 95% before a ban could even be considered.

It will be interesting to follow this particular topic. The little of it I've heard so far suggests that the pictures were taken and published as a statement about the Henson material. If so that does seem like this child has been used as a pawn for adults agenda's.

Child abusers may find the images sexual, I really don't think we should let society be driven by their views but I don't much like adults using children to make a statement if that is what has occurred. Are the photographer and publisher trying to provoke outrage and controversy using a child as the tool or is this just about the art?

R0bert