Comments on Still Life With Cat: It's not about the children

Thankyou for your sensible article, as the issue h...

2008-10-11T14:57:00.000+10:30

Thankyou for your sensible article, as the issue has once again been commandeered by those who've missed the point entirely.

Marr is also "fair game" because he's rather adept at highlighting hypocrisy (from 'His Masters Voice'):

"After a decade, Australia is desensitised to John Howard. So why doesn't Labor rally the nation to fight Canberra's bullying in the name of free speech? Because the party's heart isn't in it and Australians have only the patchiest record of becoming passionate about great abstractions - even the greatest of them, liberty."

Thank you so much for that! A really great post.

2008-10-09T12:35:00.000+10:30

Thank you so much for that! A really great post.

bill hensons art is not just about showing a young...

2008-10-09T11:58:00.000+10:30

bill hensons art is not just about showing a young persons naked body in certain sexual poses. it is about showing the uncertainty and the discomfort that almost every teenager goes through. he depicts characters that every person who remembers their childhood can understand. and lets face it. as much as the general public would like to ignore it, children are sexual beings. the pictures are not meant to be fluffy bunny rabbits hopping about in the sunshine. they are about focusing the observer on one thing. the pure emotion that is occurring in the person. and as Australian kids are maturing more and more early is can not be expected for Henson to be achieving what he is with people over the age of 18. it would be untruthful. Sally Mann, an American photographer, was 'slammed' for the same sort of thing in the early 90s. except she was photographing her own children. this was uncalled for as she would go through all her photographs of her children WITH her children and they would decide together if they would go on exhibition. when one of Sally Mann's photos of her youngest daughter virginia was put in an american magazine with black strips over her 5 or 6 year old "private parts" she asked, 'what is wrong with my body?' she would not even take a bath naked according to Mann. a persons culture does not necessarily protect a person. experiences make us who we are. Bill Henson's models are fully informed about the whole process. As such the government and media cannot expect to judge and take away. the prime minister should be more fully informed about the images before he expresses his opinion.

More so the second time around that the first, the...

2008-10-09T07:11:00.000+10:30

More so the second time around that the first, the mainstream media seems to be assuming that 'everyone' is outraged about Bill Henson, when they are not. There does not appear to be the same indignation closer to the controversy i.e. St Kilda School. Culture in Australia is a tenuous business. The art community needs to be really careful because the consequences of losing this debate are far reaching indeed.

I have spoken to a few photographers who have given up photographing children because of the immediate innuendo. The ones I have spoken to say that it has been like this now for about 5 years. Some fear that all images of children will be considered dangerous in the next 5.

I fear this can only result in fetishizing the image of a child even more. I am almost certain of it. Changing the culture because of a perverted few seems muddle headed to me. Time for more discussion, time for the Australian arts community to not get complacent, time to not drop the ball.

Great post, Pav.Tangentially related: re your prev...

2008-10-08T18:01:00.000+10:30

Great post, Pav.

Tangentially related: re your previous post about being a bit burnt out by writing replies to idiots: I think it does have educative value, because unfortunately many of the idiots' ideas are memes which have great traction out in the Talkback and tabloid conversations, and your replies are very lucid and logically constructed.

This post perfectly sums up exactly what's going o...

2008-10-08T13:50:00.000+10:30

This post perfectly sums up exactly what's going on with this nonsense, Ms Cat. (I feel particularly qualified to comment. I was molested as a child; the man (our Catholic priest) is still in prison.) Depicting and reflecting the anguish of adolescence are exactly the jobs that artists are supposed to be doing. Parents are supposed to be protecting and teaching their children against actual harm, which is usually hiding in plain sight. This furore is only distracting both artists and parents from their proper jobs.