Art Censorship in Australia

A photograph of a partly naked prepubescent girl by internationally renowned photographer Jan Saudek was removed from the Ballarat International Foto Biennale on the eve of its opening.

Biennale director Jeff Moorfoot said he understood a woman went to the Orwellian sounding Office of the Child Safety Commissioner, Tourism Victoria and the local council to complain that the 1995 Saudek work, Black Sheep & White Crow , which she had seen in an ad promoting the exhibition in Art Almanac, depicted a mother prostituting her child.

Moorfoot said the council and tourism agency warned him that a controversy surrounding the image could imperil funding, even though Saudek's works were in a separate room with a warning at the door that they contained adult content.

Moorfoot said: No one's said 'take the work off the wall or else'.   [...BUT... they said] 'if this goes to the ministerial level, chances are we won't fund the next festival'.

Australia is planning on forcing artists who create images of nude children to pay a fee of $500 per image to have them classified by the government as genuine art and not child pornography.

The removal of the so-called artistic purpose defense is one part of across-the-board changes to child pornography laws announced by Attorney-General John Hatzistergos that were spurred nearly two years ago by the case of artist Bill Henson, whose photo exhibit featuring images of naked children sparked intense debate throughout the country. Despite being later approved by the classification board, the case highlighted the need for more clarity with respect to images of child sexual abuse.

The new definition will encompass what is termed child abuse material, said Hatzistergos. That means it covers depictions that reasonable persons would, in all the circumstances, regard offensive.

Those depictions, he said, would include where the person is a child who is a victim [of] cruelty, physical abuse, the child is engaged or is apparently engaged in a sexual pose or sexual activity. It also will apply when the child is in the presence of someone engaging in any of these activities or where the private parts of the person [who] appears to be a child are shown.

After her exhibition was closed and her house raided by police, the Archibald Prize-winning artist Cherry Hood made a pivotal decision. She would no longer depict nude children but would concentrate on portraits instead. About a decade on, she has never returned to the subject that provoked the police action.

The works were of naked girls aged about four upwards, onto which she painted penises. They were a comment on gender stereotyping, a theme that has long concerned Hood. All the images of girls were photographs in freely available publications.

Her case is outlined in The Art Censorship Guide , just published by the National Association for the Visual Arts. It is a reminder that action against artists has a long history in Australia.

But Hood's decision to change her art practice is one many artists are facing in the wake of the Bill Henson controversy, according to NAVA's executive director, Tamara Winikoff. The introduction a year ago of Australia Council guidelines for working with children has increased the pressure on artists to steer away from contentious subjects.

It's meant that people who may not have taken any notice have now become self-conscious, Winikoff says. It means that the critical role that art can play is being silenced.

NAVA's guide argues that the visual arts are the prime target for censors and zealots. It provides information about threats to artistic freedom and how to deal with them, outlining the existing laws, the role of key bodies including the Classification Board, and provides advice on what to do if the police call.

The 100-page guide encourages artists to speak up if a work is censored or restricted or if an artist is intimidated.

No Australian artist has been found guilty of exploiting or harming children within their art practice as far as NAVA is aware. Existing laws are adequate and the Australia Council guidelines are having a chilling effect on the making and distributing of images of children, Winikoff says: Perfectly legitimate images of children are disappearing from the public domain because everybody is too nervous, she says.

Australian painters and photographers will no longer be able to rely on a defence of artistic merit defence under an overhaul of child pornography laws.

Nearly two years after police raided Melbourne artist Bill Henson's contentious exhibition, the Government will legislate to force artists to account for their works.

A working party set up by the Government in the wake of the May, 2008, controversy over Henson's child exhibits has recommended the artistic-merit defence be struck out.

The group, comprising Department of Public Prosecutions, police and Legal Aid representatives, was instructed to draw a clear line between pornography and art.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that New South Wales Attorney-General John Hatzistergos strongly supports the move, and the Government is expected to legislate when parliament resumes next month.

Henson triggered one of the most intense debates in the art world when he featured an image of a naked 12-year-old girl on the invitation to an exhibition of his work at Sydney's Roslyn Oxley Gallery. Police shut down the exhibition and seized 32 of Henson's pictures, but Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, QC, declined to prosecute Henson.

Hatzistergos said the proposed laws would cover the production, distribution and possession of child pornography: The fact that it is art cannot be used as a defence. The report recommends that once such material has been found to be unlawfully pornographic, whether or not it is intended to be art is irrelevant, he said.

The working party, headed by District Court judge Peter Berman, also examined the use of photographs depicting nudity in a news context. Hatzistergos said the new laws would ensure the rights of photographers to publish pictures - such as the iconic Vietnam war photograph of a nine-year-old girl running naked on a street after being burned by napalm - would not be infringed.

The Government will seek feedback from victims' groups, the artistic community and media before putting the recommendations to Cabinet.

The working party has also recommended the law be changed so jury members, prosecutors and court staff are able to view only a sample of images during the trial process.

Watching the smouldering ruins of the Henson bonfire in the past few months, I've had reason to recall the old ambassador's wisdom. The transition from Howard to Rudd has seen not much change from the social caution of the old era. The liberals inside Labor are almost as embattled as they were inside the Coalition. That Rudd is, as we were warned, very, very conservative involves more than maintaining the American alliance. It also means continuing to promise fearful Australians protection from the excesses of art, film, television and now, above all, the internet.

As the year drags to a close, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is fine-tuning a regime of internet censorship unique in the democratic world. Under direction from Rudd, the Australia Council is drafting protocols that will tie in bureaucratic knots any artist dealing with children and present extraordinary obstacles to their work being put on the net. And the nation's attorneys-general are roaming the outskirts of censorship law to try to crack down on images of naked children. Kevin Rudd's Australia is in a funk over art and kids.

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Art Monthly Australia , the magazine criticised by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last year for carrying a photo of a nude schoolgirl on its cover, has published more naked images to test the Government's guidelines aimed at protecting children.

But editor Maurice O'Riordan said the three pictures of nude girls had been found to comply with the Australia Council's children in art protocols, even though they were starker than last year's image.

The protocols demand that naked images of children be considered by the Classification Board to ensure they are not obscene. Anyone who photographs children needs parental permission before the pictures can be exhibited and must declare the photographs did not involve exploitation of the subject.

The full-frontal photographs - taken from an American book and exhibition, The Century Project , by Frank Cordelle - are used to illustrate a review of David Marr's book, The Henson Case , about last year's controversy over a Sydney exhibition by photographer Bill Henson that included images of pubescent girls.

Both the Henson photographs and the image used by Art Monthly Australia last year - a photograph by Polixeni Papapetrou of her six-year-old daughter, Olympia - were given an unrestricted rating by the classification board.

O'Riordan described Papapetrou's photograph as more demure because of the lighting than Cordelle's images in the latest edition, which he said were more suited to a documentary: It was important for us to test the protocols because we are funded by the Australia Council. He had not considered putting Cordelle's photographs on the cover because he said even the arts community appeared divided over the use of Papapetrou's image.

Anyone who photographs children will need the permission of the parents before the pictures can be exhibited.

The ruling is included in sweeping guidelines released by the Australia Council designed to protect children in the aftermath of the Bill Henson controversy.

The six-page document also requires artists who work with naked children to ensure that their parents understand the nature of the artwork. Artists must also have a commitment from parents that they will supervise the naked child.

But missing from the draft guidelines is any mechanism for policing them.

A key visual arts organisation has described elements of the draft protocols as unworkable. The executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, Tamara Winikoff, said requiring artists who work with children to obtain parental permission was restrictive: That's problematic particularly for people like documentary photographers who work in the street. At the moment there are no restrictions on taking crowd photographs or photographs of people in the street without their permission … This would impose a very, very unreasonable restriction.

The guidelines say images of nude or partly nude children taken over the past 25 years may need to be reviewed by the Classification Board before they can go on view.

Where there is no law to enforce them, the protocols will work as a minimum standard and a reminder to everyone that they must obey the law.

They will affect all projects funded by the Australia Council. From January 1, artists must adhere to the protocols if they want a grant from the Government's peak arts funding body.

The council is seeking comments on the draft protocols by November 27 and will publish the final guidelines on December 31

The New South Wales Government says it will introduce tough new sex-crime laws, and may strip artists of a defence against child-porn allegations, in line with recommendations of a NSW Sentencing Council report.

NSW Attorney General John Hatzistergos today said the Government would introduce a raft of changes recommended by the council.

Commissioned in September last year and chaired by retired Supreme Court judge James Wood, the council's report into the state's sex crime laws will now be used as a gold standard for new legislation to be introduced this year, Hatzistergos said.

In the wake of the Bill Henson scandal, an artistic purpose defence to charges of child pornography should be removed, the Sentencing Council said.

Stressing the reform had nothing to do with the Henson case, Hatzistergos said removing the defence would only apply to work that depicts children as the victim of torture, or physical and sexual abuse.

The child nudity so controversial in Henson's work would not be affected by such a reform, he said.

The council has recommended the introduction of a number of new offences, including voyeurism and inciting a person to commit a sexual offence.

NSW opposition leader Barry O'Farrell supported abolishing the artistic purpose defence.

In a move that could reignite the divisive children-in-art scare, a photograph by artist Bill Henson of a naked girl has been reproduced on the internet and in an art auction catalogue.

Auction house Lawson-Menzies has displayed the work, Untitled 1985/86, in publicity for the sale in two weeks.

The photograph depicts a naked girl, apparently a teenager but whose age is unknown, lying on sheets, her legs parted. The girl appears to be sleeping. Henson created the work in 1985-86 and it was exhibited in 1989.

The National Gallery of Victoria and the Albury Regional Art Gallery are believed to own works from the same series.

Lawson-Menzies' national head of art Tim Abdallah said last night the photograph belonged to a Melbourne collector who had decided to sell.

The director of the National Association for the Visual Arts [NAVA], Tamara Winikoff, said: Bill Henson's work has been assessed by the Classification Board on the basis of community complaints and the board agreed it was perfectly fine to be seen by the general community and it didn't break the law. That should be the end of it.

NAVA is currently working on an arts censorship guide to clarify people's rights and responsibilities. The Australia Council is also developing a set of protocols to address the depiction of children in art works, exhibitions and publications that receive government funding. The protocols will be in place by January 1 next year, and adherence to them will be a condition of receiving Australia Council funding.

Fallout from the Bill Henson controversy has prompted book publisher Thames & Hudson to seek a classification from the federal Government for a proposed monograph on the artist.

It is understood that on July 23 the Classification Board received a submission from the publisher in relation to a reprint of the 2003 book Lux et Nox , produced by Swiss publisher Scala.

The 5000 copies of the original 192-page edition sold within 12 months. For the past 18 months, Thames & Hudson has been planning a reprint.

It is believed the publisher and the artist were close to finalising the project when police raided a Sydney gallery in May and confiscated several Henson works.

Two weeks ago, the board ruled the July issue of Art Monthly Australia warranted unrestricted classification, but advised that readers would need a mature perspective.

Despite that outcome, Thames & Hudson remained uneasy about its forthcoming publication. A spokesman for the publisher declined to comment yesterday. Industry sources say the intense debate prompted the publisher to tread carefully.

Henson's spokesman declined to comment, but it is understood that the artist and publisher agreed to submit the book to the Classification Board.

The submission of a book that has already been published has prompted concern in some quarters of a new era of censorship.

Australia's censorship laws are set be reviewed following the furore over photographs of naked children depicted in art.

Attorney-General John Hatzistergos has written to ministers responsible for censorship urging them to take action.

Recent events have highlighted how concerned the community is about how children are represented in artworks and publications, Minister for Community Services Kevin Greene said: Where there is a concern that an image of a child has been obtained inappropriately, or is displayed or publicised inappropriately, then some parts of the community want to see measures put in place that protect children.

Greene will bring the subject up at a meeting of state and federal community services ministers: I agree with the Attorney-General that the community would benefit from greater clarity and consistency in the rating of the display and publication of artworks. I am not an art expert, but I am a father, and I am a member of a community that wants to see protection given not just to children, but to the notion of what childhood is.

He said the public outrage following exposure of the Henson photos and the ensuing Art Monthly revealed the depth of concern.

Federal censors have delivered a slap to critics of Art Monthly Australia when they effectively cleared the magazine's July issue, with its cover of a naked five-year-old girl.

The Classification Board said the edition - including three illustrated essays on the Bill Henson row - warranted unrestricted classification.

In a sign of the heat generated by condemnation of the cover image from Kevin Rudd down, the board advised that readers would need a mature pespective.

The ruling was by majority, with a minority believing the cover and other illustrations were likely to cause offence and required classification.

In a report to editor Maurice O'Riordan, the board said the publication can be accommodated in the unrestricted classification as it is considered to be a bona fide arts publication which is addressing serious issues of interest and concern.

A girl who posed nude as a six-year-old is defending the use of the photograph on the front cover of an arts magazine.

Now 11 years old, Olympia Nelson says she has no problems with the photo her mother, Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou, took of her when she was six.

The photo is on the front cover of this month's Art Monthly magazine, and the New South Wales Government is referring the magazine to the Classification Board.

Martyn Jolly is the co-author of an article on the controversy that is published in the same edition of Art Monthly. He is also the head of photography and media arts at the Australian National University. He says the magazine had a duty to reignite the debate over children in art: I guess if you're the editor of a magazine which is meant to be reporting on Australia on a month-by-month basis and this has been the biggest thing in Australian art for a long time, you'd be [neglecting] your duty if you didn't actually discuss the debate .

The Federal Government says the Australia Council will now be asked to draw up a set of protocols on the representation of children in art.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he cannot stand the photo of a young naked girl published on the cover of an art magazine.

Art Monthly Australia says it put the six-year-old naked girl on its cover to protest against the censorship of nude children in art.

Rudd has told ABC1's Insiders program that the cover goes against the interests of protecting children: How can anyone assume that a little child of six years old, eight, 10, 12, somehow is able to make that decision for themselves . I mean I don't think I can [assume that] - that's just my view and that's why frankly I can't stand this stuff.

The New South Wales Minister for Community Services wants the magazine referred to the Australian Classification Board.

An arts body will produce a censorship guide to clarify the laws about artistic freedom of expression. The National Association for the Visual Arts said yesterday it would develop a guide to better educate artists about the moral and legal limitations of artistic expression.

The move follows the recent uproar over photographer Bill Henson's use of nude children as models.

The guide will consider ethical issues, rights and responsibilities, explain the law, advise about public exposure of sensitive material and the most effective way to deal with complaints.

The National Gallery of Victoria's chairman, Allan Myers, said that while producing a guide was "sensible", it would be difficult to define the moral and legal limitations facing artists: That's why it's best to err on the side of freedom, I think.

Thursday 12th June 2008, 6-8pm
Foundation Hall
Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)
140 George Street
Sydney

Open to the public. Entry by donation (donations to cover costs of holding the forum).

The evening's proceedings will be introduced by Margaret Pomeranz, ABC TV film critic and President of Watch on Censorship. The discussions will be chaired by David Marr, lawyer, writer and journalist and Vice President of Watch on Censorship.

Panel Speakers:

• Ian Howard is an artist, Dean of the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW and Chair of the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA). He will provide an artist's perspective about his experience in testing the boundaries in relation to militarism and national security, self censorship, and the vagaries of audience interpretation.
• Gallery speaker (TBC), will offer the gallery perspective on art censorship discussing galleries as 'special' places, curatorial decision-making, dealing with sensitive subject matter, and dealing with complaints and threats.
• Hetty Johnston, is Executive Director and founder of Bravehearts Inc. which aims to engender child sexual assault prevention and protection strategies, advocate for understanding, promote increased education and research, and provide healing and support. Ms Johnston will give her views on the boundaries of public tolerance in relation to art and protection of the child.
• Julian Burnside QC, is a barrister, writer and President of Liberty Victoria, has acted pro bono in many human rights cases and is passionate about the arts. He will elaborate the law in relation to art censorship and how it is exercised, including the complexities of 'intention', 'context', 'reasonableness', public attitudes, protecting human rights and freedom of expression.
• Clive Hamilton, is a prolific writer and public commentator and immediate past Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He will comment on community standards and public moral codes, and the limits to freedom of expression.

Australian police will not prosecute one of Australia's leading artists for pornography following an investigation into an art exhibition that included photographs of naked children.

They announced today that they would not file charges after Australia's Classification Board, which rates films, videos, exhibitions and books, declared the images "mild and justified".

New South Wales Police said on Friday they had been advised by the director of public prosecutions there was no reasonable prospect of a successful conviction.

Matters involving the law and art are notoriously difficult and that is why police sought this advice, police commander Catherine Burn said in a statement: The advice given to us is that a successful prosecution was unlikely.

Update: Invitation Only

12th June 2008

Bill Henson's controversial photography exhibition went on display in Sydney last night. Three weeks after its original launch date, the Henson exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in inner Sydney opened its doors to invited collectors only.

A gallery spokesman said the exhibition included those images confiscated by police on May 22 following complaints about photographs of naked children.

An art gallery forced to remove pictures of naked girls by photographer Bill Henson says it will re-exhibit them in the future now that the Classification Board has rated his most contentious work as PG.

The Classification Board has ruled that a photograph of a naked girl, which Henson included on an invitation to his exhibition at the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Sydney, was "mild'' and safe for many children to view.

The picture, which kicked off the controversy surrounding the well-known artist's work, was deemed to be not sexualised to any degree and the image of breast nudity ... creates a viewing impact that is mild and justified by context.

An Albury Regional Art Gallery spokesman said the Henson works would not go back up immediately because the exhibition they were part of had finished.

They were part of a show called Proof of Age. That show was scheduled to finish last Friday, the spokesman said. He believed that the pictures would be back on the wall now if the Proof of Age exhibition was still running: I think they probably would in light of what's happened with the board and I think they will go up again because they are part of our collection .

Child welfare advocate Hetty Johnston, who made the original complaints to police about the Henson exhibition which resulted in works being seized, labelled the ruling "incomprehensible''.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he stands by his views that the Henson pictures were "absolutely revolting" but they should be independent of the law: I ... said what my views are as a parent, I don't budge from that. But I'm not about to go around and start dictating to the legal authorities what they should or should not do . Organisations like that are at arm's length from politicians. It's a matter for those bodies independently, including the legal authorities, to evaluate these matters and reach their own determination.

A bar in Melbourne has weighed into the controversial issue of child nudity in art by hosting an exhibition featuring photographs of naked children.

About 80 people turned up to an exhibition of 40 nude photographs of two 11-year-old boys held last night at the Loop Bar, an art space and bar in Melbourne’s CBD.

A spokesperson for the venue said two plain-clothed police officers attended the exhibition but did not see an issue with any of the work.

There were no problems in the end. We did it because we are a project art space and we like people to exhibit what they want to exhibit as long as the work meets certain guidelines , the spokesperson said.

Offsite: Growing condemnation of censorship of Australian artist Bill Henson

See full article from World Socialist Web Site by Richard Phillips

The unprecedented censorship of Bill Henson’s work and threats of child pornography charges against the widely-respected artist/photographer and the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery on May 22 sent shock waves through Australia’s artistic community. Although artists faced growing attacks on freedom of expression under the former Howard government, few were prepared for the latest assault and its encouragement by Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma.

A day after the raid Rudd told national television that Henson’s work was “absolutely revolting” and later declared that the law should take its course. Encouraged by these inflammatory remarks, police in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory widened their censorship operations and demanded that galleries and Internet sites take down Henson’s work or face prosecution under child pornography laws.

This assault on basic democratic rights has produced a wave of anger. Letters to the editor columns and Internet blogs of the corporate media have been swamped with protests. These include comments from artists, writers, former Henson models, victims of sexual abuse and even a former NSW police superintendent, defending Henson, denouncing the use of police and attacking Labor’s encouragement of this assault on basic democratic rights

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Police will attend an exhibition of nude photographs of 11-year-old boys which a Melbourne artist is staging tonight in Melbourne's CBD.

The artist, Victoria Larielle, says the exhibition is a protest at censorship of photographer Bill Henson's work: I felt really upset Bill has been persecuted so much by the Government and Australian people that don't understand art, perhaps,

Thirty to 40 images of two boys, now 17, will be displayed at Ms Larielle's exhibition, titled I am not a Pornographer, nor a Pedophile, but an Artist.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said police would attend to "look into" the exhibition, but what they had seen so far had given them no reason for concern.

The photos, taken in 2001, will be displayed at The Loop bar tonight.

Images declared "absolutely revolting" by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, at the height of the Bill Henson controversy have been cleared for general release.

Late last week the Classification Board swiftly assessed five Henson images taken from media websites and rated them all "G" or "very mild". Some or all of the images are partly censored with black bars covering nipples and genitals. The assessment followed a complaint about images on media websites after NSW police closed his Sydney exhibition on May 23. The main complaint is said to involve a slide show of seized photographs on The Daily Telegraph's website.

Last Thursday, the Minister for Home Affairs, Bob Debus, said images from media websites has been referred to the Classification Board. They were cleared the same day. An internet censorship expert Irene Graham told the Herald: The fact that the Classification Board has become involved in this and then worked so quickly to reach its verdict is a sign of just how politically sensitive the Henson issue has become.

The Henson complaint is the first to be cleared absolutely by the board, which is is expected to release a full report on each of the five images today.

Rudd has also assessed the photos on the basis of images partly obscured with bars.

Uncensored Henson images are also being investigated by the authority following police complaints about the original photographs on the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery website. That website is hosted on a foreign server.