Art Magazine Flames Henson Debate

As the fuss over the Henson Photo exhibition seemed destined to slip quietly away, an art magazine restarts it with a cover devoted to the photo of a naked young girl.

The Police returned Bill Henson’s works to the gallery and decide not to charge the photographer over the images of children. They had better things to do as a nationwide swoop netted scores of computers, allegedly containing images classified as child abuse.

This highlights the underlying problem, much of it only recently coming to light. Another symptom is the planned demonstration during the Pope’s upcoming visit to Australia over the allegations that local Cardinal Pell tried to cover up incidences of child abuse within the Catholic Church. Into this contentious environment, Art Monthly magazine decides to promote the public display of images of naked children as a protest against the treatment of Henson.

This is just adds to difficulties facing photographers, already targeted as scapegoats for the failures of security and intelligence organizations over the fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and terrorist attacks inspired by Afghanistan based al-Qaida all around the world, most notably the destruction of the World Trade Center.

In an effort to give the impression of doing something photographers openly and very visibly practicing their art are being harassed and demonized by government messages warning of terrorist threats.

The increasing public awareness of the prevalence of child abuse, mainly in religious and government organizations has created an atmosphere of fear and paranoia over publicly photographing children. This has degenerated in to the ridiculous situation of cases where parents are prevented from photographing their own children playing sport or performing on stage, creating a generation with lost childhood memories.

Photographers do not need someone reinforcing the myth that serious photographers are a bunch of perverts, or terrorists, mainly interested in naked children. The genre of candid street photography practiced by Henri Cartier–Bresson and many others is under threat.