I see nothing “sexual” about alot of these photo’s, if “child pornography” is defined as depictions of minors of a vulnerable nature then there goes: Baby Food ads, diaper ads, any clothing ad where a child shows any amount of skin, the preset photo’s in the frames such as Michael’s Arts and Crafts that show upskirt shots of young girls underwear… let us not forget the pictures in sales papers of young girls in bathing suits for places such as Wal-Mart… some of this photographs do show nudity, but far less than you would see in an anatomy book… so I guess pediatrician’s are out of luck while they are in medical school, no wait… their all perverts too, I mean, by these standards they must be, right? Or Gynocologists that touch and stare at the genitals of young woman everyday they “must” all be pedophiles…

The only thing provacative that I see about any of these pieces of art is the instinctual response I have to be disgusted in regards to societies hypocricies.

Are any of these photographs showing minors engaging in sexual activity? No

Are any of these photographs showing minors in lewd sexual like positions baring their genitalia? No

I believe that anyone… ANYONE who views these photo’s as “child pornography” should maybe step back and think on whether or not THEY are the pedophiles? Twisting artwork with their warped minds and indescent thoughts in perverse ways… I mean really… whats next? Burning books? Or how about we go around the world and snuff out every spark of creativity and individuallity, where prey tell do you think that will lead us? Society has already walked down that dark path.

Don’t crucify a brilliant artist because you aren’t right in the head, the artist didn’t intend for others to view these photo’s in a sexual manner, for crying out loud… Molly Cyrus has shown more skin than the picture up top and it sickened me to have to see that plastered all over my homepage in the news… anything happened to the photographer who took those pics? Her father who was onset and witnessed it? Yahoo for spreading it all over the world? So why the double standard?

BTW in my humble yet probably correct opinion a girl like the one henson used while young seems to me she already needs to know a few things about sex before she gets too curious and begins asking questions to the wrong people and getting the worse answers.

I was about the age she was when I started asking the wrong people. and getting the wrong answers. my mother says that I couldn’t support Bill Henson and his work if I knew anything about sexual abuse. Sadly, I know more than I should. one of the reasons I appreciate his work is because it conjures up memories of that time – but unlike so very many things not in a Bad Way. his work reminds me of a future unwritten. where bad choices are as yet unmade, that cusp of precious innocence where we think we know everything.

hmmm.. maybe there is a longer post in this…

BUT… who is in fault of that?
the author of the image or whoever has a mental sickness?

let me put a similar scenario.
Mr X. makes kitchen knifes at his company.
is he responsably of the bad use a murderer did of the tool he made? I hope no.

true. some people would prefer to “protect” their children from being put on show. and I’m sure Henson didn’t use those people children to pose on his pictures. he asked both the children and their parents if it was ok.

the child may not be able to consent since she is not mature enough. the parents may not be able to consent against the child’s will.

I’m not a lawyer (thanks god) but from my humble view point I fail to see any problem in taking pictures of a child either dressed or nude if both the child and the parents agree.

you may argue that the pics are ilegal under I don’t care what country laws. I won’t say they are legal. I say they should be. if not then maybe the law is wrong and needs to be revised. this kind of thing happens you know. the people that makes laws are mere humans and can be wrong.

BTW in my humble yet probably correct opinion a girl like the one henson used while young seems to me she already needs to know a few things about sex before she gets too curious and begins asking questions to the wrong people and getting the worse answers.

but over everything else it can be said about those pics… I fail completely to see what a normal person sees in them that could be considered PORN. in fact I fail to see anything sexual on them.

The fact is there are people in our community who would use these images for sexual reference. That some of us would prefer to protect children from being put on show for these people is a good motive.

To suggest the motivation to protect these kids is because we who do so are really perverts is juvenile but more so it is a cheap retort, a substitute for content.

That some are more concerned to have their right to see a child going through stages of development than they are for protecting the child is a demonstration that serving ego is more important than the children.

Yet interestingly it is the tamer of the shots posted here. Why not post something more controversial? Of course we all know the real answer.

The serial offending by all parties involved in photographing a naked thirteen year-old girl(notwithstanding parental consent, no mitigation under the UN Charter for the Rights of the Child), exhibiting that photograph for sale ($25K for a single image from an edition), then selecting that photo (i.e. from several other non-figurative or ‘landscape’ images comprising the balance of the show) to spruik the exhibition via both hard copy and email/the internet was unequivocally abusive and in violation of the rights of children to be protected from exploitation by adults, no matter who they are, or where they are, and no matter what parlous condition state and commonwealth law in Australia happened to be in at the time.

I was able to copy and print the image at the top of this page. That makes this website morally if not now legally complicit in the internet dissemination of an image of a vulnerable child – irrespective of what the Classification Board has been politically pressured into free-passing.

Consenting adults can do what they like, but it is an obscenity for a powerful adult to exploit a child, to place a child at risk. Henson has groomed these children for his own purposes. His aesthetic intentions might surely have been achieved with children over 18, given the capacities of genuine artists to represent and to symbolize. To scorn those who wish to protect vulnerable children from exploitation by the powerful as zealots, wowsers and philistines is to miss the point and to be at least attitudinally complicit in institutional child abuse.

Children do not know their own minds and are vulnerable to persuasion, coercion and the self-interested neglect of adults, which includes the imprimatur of national galleries. I saw the show in question (twice) and I am familiar with Henson’s oeuvre. He is a derivative mediocrity with pots of money, power, and an art world/market who have eagerly provided his aesthetic rationales for him for years. His not inconsiderable talents and skills are in these instances in service to his sexual interests.’Mnemosyne’ contains child pornography. Henson plays with the paedophilic gaze as if it were mere peccadillo and cinematic romantic transgression. It is not. Notwithstanding his proclivities,he does not derive these images from memory and imagination as a painter or sculptor or even filmaker might. His artistic and moral failure is encapsulated by his invocation of “necessity” for his photographing actual naked under-age children to explicate psychological cliches about adolescent experience.

At the very least Henson exploits an apparent lack of appropriate boundaries in an ‘incestuous’ art world. Anna Schwartz and Roslyn Oxley stated publically that they were happy to have their daughters photographed by Henson, admitting to a kind of cosy business arrangement that would not pass muster anywhere else in the corporate world irrespective of its now obviously dubious nature. This storm broke solely because of increasing community awareness and intolerance of child abuse, and it may well be the case that his May ’08 exhibition was his last act of ‘boundary riding’ in this country at least.

And it is child pornography in London, similarly one of your magazines is on a flagged list for the UK.

I think that may turn out to be an intel operation. We had a series of child pornography convictions lkinked to brown wrapper imports (nudism).

( buy it and go on a search warrant list)

I’ve no doubt, Alison Croggon will tell me Caravaggio would truss up Japanese schoolgirls and that the Vatican has a huge painting of a trussed up schoolgirl prominently displayed somewhere.

Also, trussing up Japanese schoolgirls is not sexual etc. and only a sick pervert wowser would see anything pornographic etc.

I can do Croggon by remote these days.

Gregory Carlin