At what cost and to whom?

...on Hetty Johnston on Bill Henson...

This should have been posted almost a year ago. I can't explain why I overlooked it. But the point made below is still valid, so I am posting it now.

Here's a little background to the issue.

The photographer Bill Henson was to have an exhibition of his work in the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Sydney. The exhibition included photographs of naked children as young as 12 in a variety of poses. It was shut down by the police, acting on a complaint from a member of the public. There was public controversy in which Henson was vilified as a child pornographer, and hailed as a leading contemporary artist with an important point to make. The ABC's 7:30 Report assembled a panel of high profile commentators to debate the issue. Early in that debate Hetty Johnston, who was prosecuting the case against Henson's work, all but admitted that she hadn't actually seen any of the work. Hence the following.....

What a revealing moment, when Hetty Johnston all but admitted that she’s never seen a piece of Bill Henson’s artwork. On the 7:30 Report on Tuesday 27/5/08, the point was made by Anthony Bond that the critics of Henson’s work had never seen the work itself, and that they world almost certainly change their minds about it id they did. Johnson did not actually say that she had not seen Henson’s work. She said she disagreed with the point just made. Had she seen any of the work she would certainly not have lost the opportunity to say so. Here’s a transcript of the relevant section of the report:

ANTHONY BOND: I think he's been quite devastated actually by the fact that people have, some people, I'm glad to say actually the minority it now looks really quite aggressive about the subject matter. None of them have seen the show I might say. If they did I think they would probably feel differently.

HETTY JOHNSTON: I beg to differ. I think at the end of the day we're talking about images of 12 and 13-year-old children who are naked and that is a breach of the Crimes Act.

I beg to differ is an answer, but it is not an argument. So the first problem here is that the case for the prosecution of Bill Henson is assertion rather than reason-able proof.

Why does this matter? Well, because Anthony Bond may be right. If the critics of Henson’s work did see it, they might indeed change their mind, because they might actually get the point of it. And if there is a point, and if the point is not only worth making, but goes to the very essence of what it means to be human, then at what cost, and to whom, do the crusaders comfort themselves with their piety?

I tender my own experience in support of this position. I first became aware of Henson’s work when I was a high school teacher. Aware of is the important point here. I didn’t actually see any of it at the time. I merely heard about it. I decided on the spot that I would never put myself in a position where I could see his work, because if I never saw it, I could never be accused of liking it. Liking it could be used as evidence by enemies, real or potential (even imagined) of my unsuitability for the job I was doing. You know, anyone who liked pictures of naked teen agers would find naked teen ages attractive. That sort of thing. In other words, my initial reaction was about protecting myself. My reaction developed into the blanket assertion that naked teen agers should not be photographed. Simple as that. Therefore, without making any judgment about people who did otherwise, I would simply never look at that aspect of Henson’s work. This is not an uncommon moral stance. I believe, for example, that whales should not be hunted, therefore I am not interested in justifications of whaling, and I would certainly never knowingly eat whale meat. Were I to be told, however, that there is sound reason for certain people to hunt whales, I would want to know what that sound reasoning is so that I could make an informed judgment about it.

So now, let me apply that to the issue of the moment. Can it be said that there is never a sound reason for photographing naked teenagers? No. it may be necessary to do so to document a medical problem, or even as evidence in a legal case. The intention would make this different from photographing naked teenagers to perve on. Which establishes that such activity done for a constructive purpose would be justified. What possible constructive purpose could there be in photographing naked teenagers? I’ll come to that, but first I want to tell you how I came to view some of the work I said I would never look at.

The police raid on the Sydney gallery brought the issue to a head for me. People whose opinions I trust were angry. And people whose motives I suspect were strutting the moral “high ground”. I had to do what it took to be able to have an informed opinion. After hearing Hetty Johnston say she wasn’t going to let evidence get in the way of a crusade, I had no option but to watch a documentary about Henson’s work that was to be screened later that night. What I saw moved me profoundly.

Let me preface my remarks about the documentary and what it showed of Henson’s work by saying that as a teacher, my deepest regret was that I could do nothing about the way kids systematically went about diminishing their own lives by the choices they made. Drinking, smoking, trashing other people’s property and brutalising those physically weaker than themselves for their own entertainment was not only normal behaviour, but highly prized. There was an added irony, if that is the word, in the fact that people like me only deepened their resolve to damage themselves and others if we tried to get them to see the consequences of their choices. The real irony would be if someone “breaking the law” was able to do that in a way they could not ignore. So, back to that documentary.

What I saw of Henson’s work was, at the same time, mesmerisingly beautiful yet breath takingly distressing. As artefacts they are excellent to the highest degree. They compel attention. It is to what they direct attention that shocks.

When anyone at all, let alone a teenager, sees Henson’s work they are shocked – not at the fact that an adult has photographed naked teen agers, but that someone who cares has successfully held a mirror up to teenagers and has shown them how far their behaviour and attitude falls short of their potential.