Contents and Credits

ARTWRITE ISSUE 40

Chris Bajic, Alex Barber, Armando Chant, Sophia de Mestre, Andre Hayter, Chen Huang, Kirsten Jaeger, Caroline Kha, Hyun Soo Kim, Clare Lawrence, Mimi Leith, Wenhong Li, Yufei Liang, Shu Low, Millie McMahon, Jane Menzies, Carrie Mulford, Christian Ponce-Reyes, Ling Shan, Daniel Williams, Yanni Zhao

Acknowledgements and responsibilities

Proofing: Christian Ponce Reyes + Andre Hayter + Alex Barber

PDF Version Designers: Daniel Williams + Clare Lawrence

Contents and copyright coordination: Chris Bajic + Caroline Kha

Image Controller: Hyun Soo Kim

Letter Editors: Sophia de Mestre + Mimi Leith

Short Bits Editors: Armando Chant + Jane Menzies

Children’s Editors: Shu Low + Alex Barber

SUBEDITORS

Alex Barber

Chris Bajic

Armando Chant

Andre Hayter

Chen Huang

Kirsten Jaeger

Caroline Kha

Clare Lawrence

Mimi Leith

Yufei Liang

Shu Low

Millie McMahon

Sophia de Mestre

Jane Menzies

Carrie Mulford

Ling Shan

Li Wenhong

Yanni Zhao

This issue of Artwrite is the collective effort of students studying the Master of Art Administration in the College of Fine Arts, UNSW working under the direction of Associate Professor Joanna Mendelssohn.

CONTENTS

Major Articles

Contemporary Indigenous Photographers by Armando Chant

Pirate to Copywrite by Andre Hayter

Only Women Bleed and Local Girl Comes Home by Caroline Kha

Morals and the Moral High Ground: Why the Bill Henson Scandal Happened by Mimi Leith

A Journey Through Sound – Panos Couros by Shu Low

The Culture Wars by Millie McMahon

Shedding Light on Art : The Approach of Jonathan Jones by Jane Menzies

Tasmanian Landscape Artist Richard Wastell and His Approach to Landscape Painting by Sophia de Mestre

Forget Artwrite Whats Artwrong: Contemporary Art In the Age of Terror by Daniel Williams

Criminologist? Artist! An Interview With Janet Chan by Yanni Zhao

No Words to Waste

Against the Grain, Sounds of the Silenced and Gilt by Shu Low

Blood Money by Chris Bajic

Peta Hinton, ‘Ponder’ by Sophia de Mestre

Laura Jones by Millie McMahon

Nick Djordjevic by Hyun Soo Kim

Sam Doctor, Where Night Falls All Day Long by Alex Barber

Section Editors: Armando Chant + Jane Menzies

Writing From the Inside

Our Future Was Ours by Chen Huang

Jasper Knight by Kirsten Jaeger

Imagine That by Clare Lawrence

A Journey To The Dreamscape by Yufei Liang

Anna Pogossova by Carrie Mulford

The China House: A New Way to Display by Li Wenhong

Section Editors: Shu Low + Alex Barber

Letters

A Revolution With No Revolt? By Kirsten Jaeger

The Moral Divide by Millie McMahon

If it’s Good Enough For Banks, Its Good Enough For Artists by Andre Hayter

Art Education – A Thing of The Past? by Caroline Kha

Section Editors: Sophia de Mestre + Mimi Leith

Posted by joannamendelssohn on Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:09
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Criminologist? Artist! – An Interview with Janet Chan

Yanni Zhao

Where it all started

Despite being a Professor of Criminology, Janet Chan always wanted to make art. Although none of her family members were involved in the arts, even when she was a teenager, she always enjoyed painting and drawing. Throughout her adult life Chan went to art classes, mostly at Sydney’s National Art School where she studied life drawing and portraiture, not for academic credit but for pleasure. In the year 2000, Chan decided it was the time to take art more seriously. She wanted to study art professionally. She was admitted to the Master of Art program at COFA on the basis of her background and portfolio. This enabled her to concentrate on painting and drawing. After she completed her Master of Art, Chan realized that her love and passion of painting were still not satisfied. She then enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program, which gave her an opportunity to do what she really wanted to do from the beginning.

All about Surveillance

When Chan was studying the Master of Art, she started developing the concept of her work. At the time she was interested in surveillance, which came from her research in Criminology. The whole idea was extremely fascinating. Privacy, CCTV (closed-circuit television), security; these are currently worldwide concerns. Chan was very interested in how those issues can be explored in art. She became fascinated with the digital mode when she first took a course in digital media. Her first assignment was to construct a series of images at Sydney Airport, early in the morning. She chose to base her project on the X-raying of luggage. Given the tight security of airports, it was not possible to take such images directly. As a result, Chan went on the Internet to search for resources. Here she found lots of pictures of things discovered in X-rays of luggage. She then used Photoshop to make up her own fictional objects. She started creating stories around the bags. One of them had children’s toys and a plastic gun in it. She wanted to focus on the ambiguous nature of innocence and suspicion. The item appearing in the image could be very innocent, just kid’s stuff, but it could also be a weapon of terrorism. In a world where terrorism is arousing more and more panic, people seem to be resigned to the fact that innocence is being nibbled away by suspicion under the name of national security. The base line of privacy is slowly being corroded by the public fear that we lack guarantees of safety. Security rules are set up with the aim of protecting people from terrorism but instead they force everyone to become public and traceable in this dangerous world.

Within her painting Chan continued to explore the idea of surveillance. Under the guidance of her teacher, Gary Carsley who had a strong influence on her, she printed the X- ray images on canvas and then painted on top of them to create interesting effects. Body scanning was another topic that interested her. She painted a series of X-ray works of the human body when she discovered that travellers’ bodies could actually be seen through as they walked through airport scanners. She painted other symbols on the body just to illustrate how people might have all sorts of cultural, religious and political inscriptions in their body that have got nothing to do with security. She started becoming really interested in using digital work because of the convenience and flexibility of working digitally.

In exploring the objects of surveillance, Chan also initiated a project on ‘suspicious parcels’. The idea was to leave a sealed brown paper package somewhere on the street to see what people would do and videotape their reactions. She originally wanted to do this experiment in the university using the CCTV, but the legal advice was that she had to get permission from all the people she recorded on tape. Suspicious parcels could also cause real panic and lead to the involvement of police and emergency services. She realized that much of this work was beset with legal and ethical difficulties. She had to find another way completing her experimental work.

If it is impossible to record instantly, there is always a trace to follow

Instead of pursuing the surveillance theme as originally planned, Chan turned to the use of fingerprints, a tool of identification. At first, following the artist Chuck Close, she tried to paint a picture using her index of finger dipped in an ink pad. But she gave up after her first painting because her finger became very sore. She decided to paint digitally by scanning her own fingerprints into the computer. In this way, she returned to the original meaning of the fingerprint as the physical evidence, an individual’s identifying signature. For a period, Chan painted pictures of still lives, but put her own fingerprints on the work. These works looked at first glance just like ordinary still life paintings, but when looked at more carefully, the surface of the objects showed traces of fingerprints. The unveiled fingerprints implied the existence of people who had touched the items. The still life paintings were like silent documentaries of traces of humanity. People routinely leave their traces - traces of their personal characteristics - without even being aware of them.

As Chan experimented with the use of fingerprints, she bought a ‘fingerprinting kit’ from a website{http://www.crimescene.com/}. She started to use fingerprint powder and sticky tapes to lift her fingerprints from different objects, like a crime scene investigator would. Various interesting textured effects were discovered and she became fascinated with collecting patterns, not only of the lifted fingerprint she started with, but also foot prints on sand.

Building up mountains, building up cases

After collecting volumes of interesting marks, Chan started using the patterns to paint. The first impression she had of the traces was that they looked very much like charcoal or ink drawings. The very first set of fingerprints lifted from an object looked a lot like mountains. That inspired her to think of mountains as the theme of her work. She used the marks as what she called ‘trace palettes’, depending on the color, the texture, the tones, she used Photoshop to touch the palettes and then paint the traces as pigments on a photograph of a mountain that she had taken. It was almost exactly the same process as painting with a brush and a palette of paints on canvas. Compared with the other digital artists she was looking at, for example, Jason Salavon, Johannes Franzen and Gary Carsley, she thought that her process was more like painting. The digital working mode allowed parts of work to be erased, as a painter sometimes does in scraping paint off the canvas. Through this process, Chan explored the whole idea of what painting is or can be in the digital age. The whole series became a project of its own which often happens with art. ‘You started with something but you end up doing something quite different’, she said.

Yosemite from the series Mounting Evidence (2008), digital print with archival ink on paper (60x170cm)

Chan used mountains to symbolize the ideal of justice. Mountains are also symbols of achievement and civilization. In Chinese culture, they are often ‘sacred places where believers pay pilgrimage to seek health and longevity and where scholars and intellectuals seek self-improvement and enlightenment’(http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/galleries/cofaspace/exhibitions/mountingevidencextracesofthingstocome/index.html). The meaning of mountains in traditional Chinese painting is that they are majestic, ‘fascinating, awe-inspiring and spiritual realms beyond the reach of most ordinary people’ — just like the Western Justice System. The way that Chan used these traces to build up these mountains, the way she ‘manipulated proofs of where things have been’; has ‘created a fantasy of how things can appear when taken out of context’. To her, it was very much how a prosecutor and a court would use evidence to build up a case against a person. What Chan is questioning in her works is the justice system. Usually what the prosecution find are traces, not only traces of criminals, but also traces of irrelevant innocent people. Fragments of evidence are collected, investigated, analysed and modified. In the process of investigating and analysing the evidence, it is possible that the traces can be misplaced, contaminated or lost. But finally, pieces of evidence are always presented as a coherent story in the court. ‘It always looks very good, it always looks very convincing – the mountains looks like those perfect stories or cases, but they don’t necessarily mean the truth’.

Seeking a balance between political meaning and aesthetic

Although Chan does not like to paint things just to be decorative, she also does not want her works to be crudely political either. She was interested in conceptual issues, such as surveillance, traces, evidences, the whole idea of proof and the ambiguity of guilt and innocence. ‘If you found someone’s traces or DNA somewhere, does that mean the person had committed a crime? Those ideas are very difficult to convey’, she said, ‘Yet art is not like social science: you are not working analytically or logically, sometimes you have to let the aesthetic take care of itself’.

Janet Chan, Professor of Criminology, is now seeing herself increasingly as an artist.

Posted by joannamendelssohn on Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:24
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the culture wars

millie mcmahon

‘Art is one of those things about which people like to have an opinion but feel they needn’t have any knowledge’ (Geczy 2008, p.9)

This is a line from Adam Geczy’s recent piece in the July edition of Art Monthly Australia. He is, naturally, making a comment on the recent Bill Henson controversy. The debate was played out on a public stage and involved many people, including many who were not usually interested in art world happenings. Consequently it became a hotly contested topic across Australia, particularly in Sydney.

This is not a new phenomenon; debates between the art world and the wider community continuously resurface over time and place. The curious aspect of this was that it was caused by Bill Henson. Only three and a half years ago, in January 2005, the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) opened a thirty-year survey exhibition of Bill Henson’s photography. According to Judy Annear (2008, p.50), senior curator of photography at the AGNSW, the exhibition was seen by 65,000 people over three months. It then travelled to the National Gallery of Victoria where it was seen by another 50,000 people.

The exhibition broke all records for a contemporary solo exhibition in Australia by an artist not then 50 years old. Many of the artworks showed adolescents, naked and clothed, yet there was no editing, no censorship of content and no complaints were lodged. How did Henson’s 2008 show at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, a much smaller and less publicised exhibition, become the latest episode in the ongoing Culture Wars?

The term Culture Wars has a wealth of meanings depending on the time, place and the particular cultural and political topic in question. When I refer to the Culture Wars here I am restricting it to the context of western contemporary art since 1990. The term essentially refers to debates over conflicting ideas and values within the cultural sphere, which involve a large cross-section of society.

A prime case study, to set our particular scene, was the controversy of 1989 in the United States over Andreas Serrano’s Piss Christ. This work, a colour photograph of a crucifix submerged in Serrano’s urine, sparked a public outcry when it was publicly exhibited. In the centre of the debate was right-wing Senator Jesse Helms, who used National Endowment of the Arts (NEA)-sponsored Serrano and Piss Christ as the crux of his fight against state and federal sponsorship of the arts. His vigourous campaign gathered much political and public support, their case being presented to the United States Senate in May 1989 (Van Camp 1997). As a result the NEA’s budget was cut and all artists had to agree not to create indecent or offensive art before receiving government funding.

It was a significant moment in the history of contemporary art; the art world saw itself opposed to a government and society that wanted to restrict the definition of art and its freedom of expression. A generation of artists realized that they could fight back, that they had the power to offend and push their audience and so the grunge movement began. A major element of abject art practice was the exploration of how and why people were offended by Piss Christ.

The general consensus was that audiences tend to respond to artworks that contain abject matter, such as bodily fluids, overt sexuality and soiled objects, affectively. In other words, their first response is a primal, emotional response (Taylor 1993). The more shocking the artwork, the harder it is, or the more unwilling people are, to think about the artwork on levels beyond the visual. Even though Serrano publicly acknowledged the influence of his own South American Catholic heritage, Piss Christ offended the people who could not see beyond their own puritan religious perspective wherein Christ was holy, pure and righteous.

We jump forward two decades and nothing seems to have changed. Artworks and artists come along every so often and highlight these same weaknesses in our supposed progressive, tolerant and liberal western society. When looking with the benefit of hindsight at previous Culture Wars events, it is clear that the exploration of certain topics in art tends to show these flaws. The contentious natures of religion and sexuality are well-documented throughout history; the conflicts they have caused have been across all spheres of life, not just the art world.

Nevertheless, they have been the primary focus of many controversial contemporary artworks. Given that art is both a product and reflection of the context it is produced within, it is unsurprising that religion and sexuality are such central themes when the major divisive issues of contemporary society have been AIDS, homosexuality, pornography, racial equality and feminism.

How does this help us though, to understand the recent madness around Henson? Feminist artists and grunge artists like Serrano often purposely tried to shock and provoke their audience, but Bill Henson does not belong to either of these groups. Henson is one of Australia’s most celebrated artists; he is internationally successful and was our representative at the 1995 Venice Biennale. Over his long career, his interest has been in creating photographs that are ‘incredibly beautiful, based on shade, dark and the sensuality of shadow’ (Mendelssohn 2008 Unleashed).

For thirty-odd years, Henson has photographed a range of subject matter and has applied this same style for the young and old, nature and objects. In the recent furore however, Henson’s intentions were completely ignored. Instead there was a fundamentalist attack; ‘nakedness is always sexual, and photographers always exploit their subjects; therefore photographs of naked children are always exploitative child pornography’ (Ferris 2008, p.5). Why does nudity suddenly mean obscenity?

In the current climate of anxiety regarding children, the media, always appreciating public debate, played a significant role in this debacle. Miranda Devine’s discussion of the sexualisation of children in her Sydney Morning Herald column on 22 May 2008 can be seen as the starting point (McDonald 2008, p.50). She used the invitation to the opening of Henson’s exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, which showed the now-infamous photograph of the bare-chested teenage girl, to illustrate her point. 2GB radio then invited Devine on-air to discuss further her views on the topic. Within days it was the front-page and leading-news-headline, starring politicians, state police and children’s rights activists.

The involvement and encouragement of the media had enormous repercussions. As a result of the photographs being described as ‘pornographic’ and the contact details of the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery being broadcast on the radio, the gallery was threatened, their website crashed, the opening of the exhibition was cancelled, a number of art institutions were raided and many of Henson’s works were seized by police.(McDonald 2008, p.50).

By encouraging protest and action against Henson and the gallery, the media ensured that the public did not look beyond the subject matter of the photographs. The perpetrator was clearly labelled and they were not required to make an informed decision. Even the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd joined in. Based on blurry copies of the photographs, which did not do the artworks justice in terms of colour, scale and context, he was able to judge them ‘absolutely revolting’ (McDonald 2008, p.50) on Channel 7’s Sunrise program, for the whole nation to hear.

That fact that Henson could be labelled a paedophile so quickly speaks of a larger cultural phenomenon. Thanks to the overwhelming presence of advertising in our society, the sexual or dark subtext is easily and immediately read in any image (Mendelssohn 2008 Unleashed). The public fear of child molestation is justified, in this case though, their concern was misplaced.

There was no balance to the debate. When any of Henson’s defenders were given the chance to speak, they were shouted down by the likes of Bravehearts spokeswoman Hetty Johnston who told the Sydney Morning Herald the photographs ‘are clearly illegal child pornography images, it’s not about art at all’ (Ko 2008, p.67). Henson himself, as a quiet older male, all too easily fitted the public profile for a child molester, and his refusal to apologise or make changes to his artistic practice probably did not help his case.

The Rose Bay Police announced on 23 May that charges would be made under both the NSW and Commonwealth Crimes Act. For a case to be proven under the Crimes Act you need to be able to establish an intention and an act. Since Henson’s intention was solely to produce a moving work of art, the police did not proceed with their case and his artworks were returned to the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery (Ko 2008, p.67). It was reassuring to see the law side with reason. Nevertheless, even without substance, these kinds of accusations can have damaging and lasting effects, not just on Henson and Roslyn Oxley9, but on the art community and Australia’s cultural reputation.

Some have questioned whether the same amount of attention would have been given to the artworks if they had been paintings. The answer is no; photography was a factor. The art world legitimately defended Henson as a talented and respected photographer, able to recognize that his work was not crude, it was beautiful. In the words of Annear (2008, p.50) ‘for an artist to be in command of such simplicity is a remarkable thing and something to be celebrated.’

Some people however, seem to be stuck on the assumption that photographs are more real than paintings, that they document reality. While photography in general does continue to close the gap between reality and representation, allowing people to capture the reality of their own world, photography as art is a different story. For artists, photography is about composition; they direct the image, they are not bystanders. A large part of Henson’s artistic talent lies in the careful composition of his artworks, everything is precise and engineered to create a fantasy scene (Mendelssohn 2008 Unleashed).

The people who pose for Henson are not posing as themselves; they are models, acting as human manifestations of certain concepts and emotions. People who judge his photographs as pornography miss that he has managed to capture the hope, angst and vulnerability of adolescence. Even if you disagree and think they are tactless and out of touch, this does not make him criminal (Armstrong 2008 p.53). While it is possible a paedophile may use Henson’s work for pleasure, the work itself is not paedophilia. It must be acknowledged that even though art may have potential to do harm, the next logical step is not the persecution and imprisonment of the artist (Brook 2008, p.15).

One of the major criticisms of Henson’s photographs was the availability of the images on the internet, where they could be taken out of context and used in the wrong way. It is true that the internet has increased the accessibility and longevity of bad information as well as good. It is prudent to exercise caution when it comes to the internet, given its lack of moral and lawful policing. Reasonable restraint however, should not give way to paranoia and hysteria as it did with Henson’s artworks.

According to Ferris and Jolly (2008, p.6), if the media or figures such as Hetty Johnston had done their research, they would have discovered there is no evidence that images like Henson’s increase paedophile behaviour. In addition his works do not show sexual acts, as is typical of pornographic images, and over three decades no Henson models have ever reported trauma as a result of posing for him.

As is typical of the Culture Wars, the major issues to grapple with are those of censorship and ethics. Historically speaking, Australia has a long tradition of censorship, particularly in regard to the arts (Mendelssohn 2008 New Matilda ). While it is understandable that child welfare activists and law enforcement officers have reservations towards nudity in the name of art, according to the law, this does not make Henson’s photographs pornographic images. Imagination is the only way his images can be construed as harmful and imagination is something that is beyond lawful control.

Restricting artistic freedom would have no effect on the criminals that actually harm children; children would be no safer and creativity would be crippled (Annear 2008, p.50). All the people who vilified Henson should realise that the Henson affair was actually harmful. It was a waste of the time and resources of the NSW Police Department, which could have been devoted to stopping real criminal activity. If they are truly committed to child protection, they should redirect their energies into more effective methods.

The other unresolved question raised by the Culture Wars is ‘what is art?’ The frustrating, yet fantastic thing is that there is no definitive definition. This does not mean it should not be asked; on the contrary, it is important that the debate continues. The most alarming aspect of the Henson saga was that people like Hetty Johnston do not seem to see social and cultural benefit of art. Armstrong wrote ‘art is not now central to our culture and impacts on that culture only in the basest of ways’ (2008, p.53).

It is critical for the Australian community, where the art community is relatively small, to stop being ‘timid and intolerant’ (O’Riordan 2008, p.3) and realise that art is part of a larger conversation; artists may often provoke and push boundaries, and society may do the same back. What society cannot do is kill the conversation, or, worse still, kill the art. A world without open dialogue and artistic expression would be bleak indeed.

Bill Henson, Untitled #39, 2007/08, HL SH12 N18 type C photograph,
127×180cm,
edition 1/5 .

Image courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.

further reading

Annear, J 2008, ‘Fear of the Dark’, Art & Australia, vol. 46, no. 1, spring, p. 50.

Armstrong, J 2008, ‘What is Art, Really?’, Art & Australia, vol. 46, no. 1, spring, pp. 51-53.

Brook, D 2008, ‘Art and (not or) Pornography’, Art Monthly Australia, issue 211, July, p. 15.

Ferris, D & Jolly M 2008, ‘Collateral Damage’, Art Monthly Australia, issue 211, July, pp. 5-7.

Geczy, A 2008, ‘Humbert or Humbug?’, Art Monthly Australia, issue 211, July, pp. 9-13.

Ko, H 2008, ‘News-Sydney’, Art Asia Pacific, no. 59, July/August, p. 67.

McDonald, J 2008, ‘The Bill Henson Fiasco’, Art World, issue 4, August/September, pp. 50-51.

Mendelssohn, J 2008, ‘Bill Henson's Images not Paedophilia’, ABC Unleashed, 23 May 2008.

Mendelssohn, J 2005, ‘Borderlining and Sedition’, New Matilda, created 14 December 2005.

O’Riordan, M. 2008, ‘To Dream a Child’, Art Monthly Australia, issue 211, July, p. 3.

Taylor, S. 1993, ‘A Phobic Object: Abjection in Contemporary Art’, In J Ben Levi, C Rouser, L C Jones & S Taylor (eds), Abject Art: Repulsion and Desire in American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, pp. 59-84.

Van Camp, J 2007, ‘Comments on A. Serrano’, Congessional Record, Senate- May 18, 1989, updated 22 November 1997.

Posted by joannamendelssohn on Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:20
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morals and the moral high ground: why the bill henson scandal happened

mimi leith

The following story and its aftermath echoed across the whole of Australia, and even gained international notoriety. On the 23rd of May 2008, police seized a number of photographs by renowned Australian photographer Bill Henson from Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Paddington, NSW. Opening night of the exhibition, scheduled for the 22nd of May, was shut down by police. Media reports stated that police were acting in response to ‘numerous complaints’ (‘Police seize naked teen photos’, 1).

On the morning of the 22nd, Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine used the opening of the Henson exhibition as a platform to discuss the protection of children from exploitation and pornography, stating:

‘The effort over many decades by various groups - artists, perverts, academics, libertarians, the media and advertising industries, respectable corporations and the porn industry - to smash taboos of previous generations and define down community standards, has successfully eroded the special protection once afforded childhood (Devine, 1).’

Devine’s remarks, in combination with a slow news day on talkback radio, saw a scandal born.

Hetty Johnson from the child protection agency Bravehearts led the crusade against Henson ‘At the end of the day, these are images of naked young girls – that's illegal and it's inappropriate’ (‘Art community defends naked teen photo exhibition,’1). Malcolm Turnbull came out in Henson’s defence. The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was handed a copy of the exhibition invitation on Channel 7’s Sunrise and asked to comment. Rudd labelled the photographs revolting and claimed they had ‘no artistic merit’ (Art community defends naked teen photo exhibition, 1), a dangerous move considering he had never actually seen them. Suddenly everyone had an opinion on either Henson, the police, the art world, the implications of politicians passing judgment on society, or perhaps all of the above.

For a few weeks, the whole country was swept up in this debate, rendering Henson arguably the most talked about Australian photographer ever. Countless editorials were written, internet discussion pages bombarded, talkback radio swamped.

A few weeks later, after police had thoroughly investigated Henson’s photography (a search that saw the police investigate Henson collections at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, as well as the Art Gallery of New South Wales), the photographs were deemed to not be pornography, and the exhibition was shown for a few brief weeks. As is the nature of scandal, Henson is now no longer front page news and mainstream Australia are happily no longer talking about art but getting on with their lives.

While the heat has cooled, there still remains a certain degree of unease about the scandal and its resolution on both sides of the camp. I’m sure Hetty Johnston’s troops remain steadfast in their cause, and the protection of children from genuine exploitation is an issue that deserves and needs attention and constant monitoring. On the ‘other side’ of the debate the treatment of Henson by the police, the Prime Minister and large sections of the media is still a point of indignation and disbelief. While the debate on both sides has been thrashed, it is still unclear why such an episode has occurred. Has something within the work triggered a reaction with society? Or has something within society changed that suddenly affords Henson such intense scrutiny? If only in an attempt to make meaning of this mess, these questions warrant examination.

Firstly, it is worth examining the factors behind this scandal, and whether any of them could have been a trigger. Henson’s work is by no means new, even by contemporary art standards. For example, Henson was exhibited at the Australia Pavilion at the 46th Venice Biennale in 1995 (‘Bill Henson, artist profile’, 1). Twenty years earlier his work was exhibited in a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (1). The subject matter of his 2008 show at Roslyn Oxley did not mark a new direction for him either. It was a further probing into the themes he has long examined. That is, arguably, universal ideas concerning the troubling transition that all human beings make from childhood to adulthood, how this experience can be isolating, frightening and sometimes, enlightening.

So Henson’s subject matter is not a new idea. Nor is the portrayal of the naked human form in art, be it adult or child ‘As a subject for art, the nude is essentially Western, emerging in Greece before the 5th century BC’ (Rodgers, 1). I wondered if there was some connection between the fact that these images are so readily available in digital form, and if that contributed to people’s sensitivity about their subject matter. That was until I realised images of Henson’s work have been available online since the National Library of Australia launched the Picture Australia website, a digital archive of all the works of art held in the national galleries in Australia. This was ten years ago in 1998 (‘History’, 1).

There is resounding evidence that it is not the work that has changed. There hasn’t been a sudden jump in Henson’s popularity or visibility (until the scandal that is), and the general public have had the same ability to access his work, in our major public institutions and online, for a reasonable amount of time.

While it does seem to be the project of certain artists to provoke discussion and controversy, whether this is for intellectual reasons, or to simply drum up publicity, one cannot place Henson in this group. Henson chose not to engage with the media or comment on his photographs while they were being investigated, and in fact has not publicly commented at all. Henson’s reply, offered in the form of a speech at the opening night of Picture Paradise: Asia-Pacific photography 1840s to 1940s at the National Gallery of Australia is evidence of true humility.

It must be concluded then, that it is society that has changed. The furore over Henson is not a reflection of his work, the technique or style used, subject matter, intent, themes or its models, but a reflection of the current social climate of fear and suspicion. What is surprising is that this climate has emerged alongside a new Labor government. After more than a decade of being left in the wilderness, Kevin Rudd’s inclusion of the arts as a national priority at the 2020 summit gave artists everywhere cause for hope, (Perkin, 1). Surely this move on behalf of Rudd was based on a deep and thoughtful understanding of just how important the arts are to society. Surely this was not just an empty gesture or a nicely packaged symbol to hand to the arts world, without having to wade too deeply into the possible politics of a commitment to the arts. Unfortunately it seems this way. If Kevin Rudd did have a firm grasp on just how important the arts are to society, then surely he would know better than to engage in the debate the way he did. Furthermore, he would certainly know that to criticise anything, be it a legal memo, a piece of policy or a work or art without having actually seen it, is not just disrespectful to the person who produced it, is flawed political practice.

Interestingly, the Federal minister for the arts, Peter Garrett, stayed well away from the Henson controversy. He did not speak up in support or Henson’s work. Garrett obviously felt that it was not his place as a politician to comment. Also, once the Prime Minister’s words had gained momentum and visibility, it placed Garrett in a difficult position. There was no unproblematic way for him to lend his stature to either side of the debate. It is not the task of politicians to explain the world to its citizens. Governments need to provide legal boundaries and frameworks as well as practical infrastructure, but must not start regulating what it deems to be the morality and ethics of a society. With proper education and exposure to ideas, a society should do this itself.

It is the task of artists, more than anyone, to explore and define moral guidelines. The project of art is not just to depict society as it sees it. It does not simply reflect or mimic. It is the representation of society, or the world as the artist sees it that is the vehicle for its exploration. It is in this gap, that is, between society and the way that artists represent it, that the possibility for social interrogation and therefore change and progress occurs.

Speaking about photographs in particular, but with relevance to the art world in general Henson himself said ‘what we should treasure most in these photographs is not the information they yield but the mysteries they reveal. What they give us is a place from which we can question our habitual longing for a world where everyone is always aligned in the way we want’ (Henson, 3).

Great art is not ‘easy.’ The fact that it shocks, disturbs, arrests, distorts and provokes is what makes it great. Why is it that Australian society suddenly wants to be protected from this challenge? Galleries are becoming increasingly aware of this. Staff are trained to handle complaints and many galleries are littered with warning signs asking parents to exercise discretion with guiding children through exhibitions. Are the galleries not giving the general public enough credit? Are they forcing this on their public? Or is it the result of a general movement towards the unthreatening and banal? Whether it is the galleries or the public, this trend is worrying. Throughout the controversy, certain galleries spoke up in support of Henson, while others chose to stay well away from the debate. For example, Judy Annear, senior curator at the Art Gallery of NSW stated, ‘His work, in my opinion and in the opinion of my colleagues... is [that it is] unfortunate if people confuse it with pornography, (‘Art community defends naked teen photo exhibition’, 1). The National Gallery of Australia was notably quiet, but voiced their support for Henson in another way, quietly inviting him to deliver the opening address at an exhibition that contained images of naked children in it, (Wilson, 1).

Why does society suddenly need to be protected from the challenge of engaging with art? As David Malouf so beautifully writes, the appreciation of art is a process, something that is worked at, that doesn’t come instantly, but that requires a specific kind of effort on behalf of the viewer:

The sort of intense concentration on the part of a writer or visual artist or composer that goes into a work of art is reproduced in the reader, or viewer, or listener, as attention – that deep interaction with a work and slow response to its difficulties (or, in some cases, its deep simplicity) that allow us to say we have experienced and understood it, taken it in. (Malouf, 1)

Are the pressures and concerns of living in contemporary Australian society, rising interest rates, climate change and the mounting cost of fuel and food so great that people just can’t take any more challenges? Are they so overwhelmed with merely existing that they need to be protected from the challenges thrown down by artists?

In the speech he delivered at the opening of Picture paradise: Asia-Pacific photography 1840s to 1940s, Henson made no overt reference to his own work and its recent interpretations by the media and general public. Instead he cautioned against passing hasty judgment on things that we don’t understand. Instead of running away from what troubles us, he asked for a deeper engagement with these things, for an attempt to understand them:

And we destroy each other by ignoring the distances between us. Nothing kills the thing we love quite so perfectly as our assumption that we always know what’s best, what is right for someone else, whether it’s another person or another culture. (Henson, 3)

Perhaps it is this lesson that can be taken from this scandal. This episode has prompted debate and an examination of ideas. One just hopes that this examination is not superficial, but that it actually leads to a deeper understanding of what it is about in these photographs that people find so troubling. After all, as Henson himself states, that is the project of great art:

There are signs and there are contradictions of signs. The greatness of art comes from the ambiguities, which is another way of saying it stops us from knowing what to think. It redeems us from a world of moralism and opinionation and claptrap. It stops us in our tracks as we are formulating the truths we think we believe in. It stops us and makes us wonder, (Henson, 4).

Further Reading

‘Art community defends naked teen photo exhibition’. 23nd May 2008. ABC News. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/23/2253585.htm. Accessed 24th September
‘Bill Henson’. Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/18/Bill_Henson/profile/. Accessed 24th September.
Devine, Miranda. 22nd May 2008. ‘Moral backlash over sexing up of our children’. The Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/moral-backlash-over-sexing-up-of-our-children/2008/05/21/1211182891875.html. Accessed 24th September. 
Fuery, Kelli. 4th August 2008. ‘Eye of beholder’. The Australian. www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23804895-16947,00.html. Accessed 5th August 2008.
Henson, Bill. 10th July 2008. ‘Opening night Picture Paradise: Asia-Pacific photography 1840s -1940s’. National Gallery of Australia. www.abc.net.au/news/opinion/speeches/files/20080710billhenson.pdf. Accessed 9th September 2008.
‘History’. Picture Australia. http://www.pictureaustralia.org/about/history.html. Accessed 24th September 2008.
Malouf, David. August 23rd 2008. ‘Eros art of our humanity’. The Australian. www.theaustraliannews.com.au/story/0,,23878759-26063,00.html. Accessed 9th September 2008.
Perkin, Corrie. 5th August 2008 . ‘The rise of the art police’. The Australian. www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24006221-5013571,00.html. Accessed 5th August 2008.  
‘Police seize naked teen photos’. 23rd May 2008. ABC News. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/23/2253720.htm. Accessed 24th September. 
Wilson, Ashleigh. 4th August 2008. ‘Bill Henson shifts focus to art’s many truths’. The Australian. www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24001984-5013571,00.html. Accessed 5th August 2008.

Posted by joannamendelssohn on Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:02
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