How Perverse will this world get?
Charges expected over nude child photos
Police say they expect to lay charges after seizing more than 20 photographs from a controversial exhibition in Sydney that features images of naked 12- and 13-year-old girls.
Rose Bay Local Area Commander Allan Sicard said NSW Police expected to prosecute over the images by artist Bill Henson, which were to go on display at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Paddington on Thursday night.
The exhibition was shut down just before it was due to open.
"Police are investigating this matter and it is likely that we will proceed to prosecution on the offence of publish an indecent article under the Crimes Act," he told reporters.
"This morning police attended the gallery and executed a search warrant and seized several items depicting a child under the age of 16 years of age in a sexual context," Superintendent Sicard said.
Police believe the child is a 13-year-old girl, who is not from NSW. She is believed to be the subject in all the seized pictures.
Henson's exhibition consisted of 41 photographs in all.
"It's likely that a future court attendance notice will be issued ... upon the completion of investigation," Supt Sicard said.
He said commonwealth charges would be laid over the gallery's website and state charges over the photographs.
The photographs were reported to Rose Bay police on Thursday afternoon and gallery owners agreed not to open the exhibition just hours before it was scheduled.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd labelled the images as revolting, when asked to comment on Friday.
The Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery said on Thursday it would withdraw a number of works that have attracted controversy, and re-open without them.
"Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery will remain closed while the current exhibition is re-hung," it said in a statement.
The statement, jointly released by the gallery and Mr Henson himself, defended the photographer's reputation as an internationally acclaimed artist.
"Bill Henson is one of Australia's leading contemporary artists and is internationally respected," it said.
"His works are held in every leading art institution in Australia and are included in the collections of a number of the world's most prestigious art museums.
"The Art Gallery of New South Wales and the
National Gallery of Victoria have both recently held a retrospective of 30 years of the artist's work."
Critics of photographer Bill Henson are using his artwork as a "convenient whipping boy" for wider problems in society, a past curator of his work says.
Judy Annear, the senior curator of photography at the Art Gallery of NSW, curated a major Henson retrospective in 2004-2005 that included similar images and was viewed by 65,000 people with no complaints.
She said people were wrongly deflecting the current concern about paedophilia and child abuse onto his work.
Henson was a major artist who had been exhibiting nationally and internationally for the past 30 years and who represented Australia in the 1995 Biennale, Annear said.
"When we did a major retrospective of Bill's work ... 65,000 people saw that show in Sydney and we had not one single complaint," she said.
"The question has to be, why now and what actually does this furore have to do with Bill?
"People should be focusing on the main game ... if it has to do with paedophilia and the abuse of children they need to be focusing on that.
"Bill's work isn't the problem here, it's just a convenient kind of whipping boy at this particular moment in time.
"To take cheap shots at artists ... won't change whatever the problems are in our social fabric."
Annear said from her experience Henson always sought the permission of his young models and their parents before a shoot.
He found his models "all over the place", she said, including supermarkets, art openings and from personal friends and friends of friends.
Annear said she would never have worked with Henson if there was any concern about his motives or work practices.
"I couldn't work with Bill if I thought he was abusing children," she said.
Annear said despite the public backlash, artists like Henson needed to keep pushing the boundaries and should not be swayed by public opinion.
"The day art museums and artists decide that the only thing they can do is react to public opinion is the day that we are in the same scenario as people were in the 1930s in Germany," she said.
Ms Annear described the controversial images as beautiful and compared them to looking at an
ancient Greek vase.
"They're very beautiful, they're very, very still, they're very formal, they're very classical. They're a bit like looking an ancient Greek Attic vase," she said.
Granted, Australia is not the worst in many respects. But to defend this so called "art work" in which pre-teens were shown topless is a gross disrespect for the basic dignity that one should be allowed. The issue is not paedeophilia, nor is it of whether consent was given or not. It's the issue of whether it is right for pre-teens to be shown in such a manner and branded as art. It speaks of ethics and it is an issue of ethics.
But apart from that, what if there were paedophiles there who entered the gallery? So what if the subject was not from the state where the exhibition were to be held? That is not the point. The very fact that there is a distortion in what people view as permissible is slightly disturbing. "All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial."
Do the subjects even have the ability to comprehend how posing for such pictures could affect their future? When they go into school they could be labelled with many names and possibly, in future, they may be blacklisted for jobs due to their past. It may or may not happen, I'm not saying that it will. What I'm saying is that these "subjects" would not have the mental capacity to be able to see that far down the road. The guardians of these subjects (a.k.a. Mom & Dad) should have had the foresight to have seen that. There is always choice, there will always be decisions. Parents should have been better informed of what borders on tasteful and distasteful. Now, not only have you blacklisted your child, but yourself for allowing your own flesh and blood to enter into such a situation.
This rant will probably not achieve very much. But really, I was quite incredulous reading that article. Geez man...
-LIVESTRONG!-
Heads Up and Stay Strong
Be Proud
posted by survivorfreak at 2:30 AM
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