Bill Henson speaks out

Two years after the media furore broke out over Bill Henson’s photographs, the artist himself has finally spoken out about the controversy that surrounds his work. Last week, he presented a lecture for the Melbourne Art Foundation at Federation Square, hitting out against authorities who attempt to stifle artistic freedom through censorship. Art, he says, has always pushed boundaries, and it is the responsibility of artists to challenge perceptions, and of politicians to allow such discussions to be available to the public.

The bizarre thing about the whole scandal surrounding Bill Henson is that his work has been famous- and greatly admired- for a long time. His haunting and shadowy photographs have always been studied to death in high school art classes, and received with great acclaim by both critics and the public alike. His use of light and shade to create a deeply intimate atmosphere in his images is both poignant and chilling, and even his subject matter- including girls on the cusp of puberty, grappling with the complexities of their emerging sexuality and changing bodies- has generally been accepted as an uncomfortable but valid artistic exploration.

It was only in 2008 that the problems started. Seemingly out of nowhere, an image of a naked 12-year-old girl was reported as child pornography, and a selection of his photographs due to be exhibited at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney were seized by the police.

Personally, I’ve always felt this was completely ridiculous. I know it’s a very contentious area and everyone is entitled to their opinions, but through all the studying of the boundaries between pornography and art and the implications on society etc that I’ve done (how I love Melbourne Uni!), I really believe that the determining factor that makes something either art or porn is the intention behind it. And Bill Henson’s intention is not to sexualise children for any perverse, fetishised purpose, but to explore the transition from innocence to experience, and the awkwardness of that age that we all go through, and therefore can all relate to. Part of the power of his work is the fact that this subject area is so taboo- people are scared to talk about the sexuality of young teenagers, and it’s easy to forget that this is an exploration of our own experiences of sexual awakening as well. It’s relevant to all of us.

Henson argues that stifling any talk of this most basic, essentially human experience of coming of age is more dangerous than the possible paedophiliac implications.

‘We have bans on depicting the human body… and anything that so much as imagines child abuse,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it clear that this way madness lies? Surely the last thing we should bequeath to child welfare is a regime of pandemic fear.’

He continued to berate politicians for allowing censorship to happen, for letting hysteria overtake the value of art and of human expression. ‘Democracy, for heaven’s sakes, is there to make the experience of art available, potentially, for the greatest possible number,’ he said.

‘The duty of our politicians when it comes to art is not to deny the distinctiveness of art – still less to scapegoat and demonise the artist, confusing as the picture may sometimes get – but to make art available to every member of society regardless of how well off they are or where they went to school.

‘Art can seem like a force of nature that’s beyond anyone’s control and is therefore always potentially disturbing. The ability to appear transgressive and radically unreasonable is part of the cloud of unknowing that comes with the territory…If you want to preserve the innocence of a child’s eye… then give that child the riches of what civilisation has produced.

‘Without the moral truth of art we have nothing,” he said. ‘It’s when we throw that away that we fail our children.’