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Controversial exhibition set to reopen


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It's OK (in fact it's desirable) to post a brief quote from published articles, just to let people know what they are about:

 

"NSW police have seized 20 of 41 photographs from the exhibition with the intention of launching criminal proceedings under the Child Protection Act"

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And here we go again. Isn't it the old David Hamilton/Jock Sturges/Sally Mann (and recently) Nan Goldin debate all over again?

 

I only know Bill Hensons work fron the book Lux et Nox and I find it very beautiful. That book does not contain images as those that are under investigation in this case (I think).

 

It will never be an easy one to nail, it IS after all important to protect children from exploitation AND it is important to protect an artists freedom to produce work.

 

In cases like these there will always be some overzealous member of the public who will make that call to the police. Everytime and no artist, certainly af Bill Hensons status and intellegence (I presume), will be unaware of this. The gallery owner will certainly have known that this could happen...so it is a conscious decision on everyones part to court the controversy. They will get the press, Bill Hensons work will rise in value, it'll probably cost him headache and expensive lawyers and may or may not cause him some form of penalty. I am not sure any of the above mentioned artist were ever punished, but I am sure they all hated the process. I hope there will be a sensible judge who will make an effort to find out if any children were ACTUALLY exploited and rule accordingly. I hope Bill Henson will continue to produce great work if his is found innocent and I hope these types of cases will not prevent artists from producing great work.

 

I am of now to see the Sally Mann exhibition here in Copenhagen, an exhibition containing the image "The Three Graces" an image which Sally Mann has said, will not be included in the exhibition elsewhere than Copenhagen as she is finished with all the controversy (and no member of the Danish public has mad 'that call'). It would have been terrible if the controversy around her work "Immediate Family" had put an end to her carreer...that would have been a terrible loss.

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For some of us it is not here we go again, some of us have never heard of these others.

This is all I know and should not be judged because of it, not everyone went to an art school or pretended to be artsy. Some of us have only dealt with the real world and confronted this issue 3 days ago.

Don't presume we are all sick of it, if you are don't respond, a fresh aproach might be of use to someone.

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Hi David.

 

Forgive me if I have offended you, but I have no idea what you are talking about. My comment was in response to the article in the link. I noticed your comment above about losing your temper but I couldn't see what it was in reference of, so assumed it was not related to this thread...

 

The debate comes every few years when artists depict children and teenagers nude. A member of the public reports the exhibition/book to the police and the authorities clamp down, confiscate prints, negatives, upturn darkrooms, archives and investigate...usually no charges are made and in most cases the confiscated material is returned. I seem to have read that Jock Sturges (who depicts naturists in southern France...mostly female, mostly very young) never got his negatives back, but I am unsure. Mister Sturges was briefly a member of this community, but was quickly ousted by Site Management for showing his controversial work, a great shame, he would have been quite valuable to this community. If you look him up on Photo.net you can read some of his very clever and interesting comments on other members images.

 

If you want to know more about these issues I am sure you can look these artists up on Wikipedia and get a thorough introduction. The artists to look up is: David Hamilton, Sally Mann, Jock Sturges and Nan Goldin (she only got in trouble over one image in an exhibition in the UK recently).

 

By the way. The Sally Mann exhibition was great! There was a short film interview with her where she commented on her image The Three Graces which show her and her two daughters posing nude as the three graces, but peeing. A very funny and whimsical image. She said that she had shown the image to a guy who was a lawyer for Playboy for years and he had adviced her not to exhibit it, not to sell it, not to ship it, basically to bury the image... Too bad, it's a good image and of course completely harmless. See it here: http://tuber.underskog.no/cache/image/29753_570x.jpg

 

If you are anywhere Copenhagen this summer, the exhibition is on until September 20th at the Royal Library and worth a visit.

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Hi Anders,

 

No you have not offended me just this issue, I will not go into details but my loss of temper when I posted a comment repeatedly about this has lost me posting rights, no big deal in the sceme of things.

 

What it has shown me though is that the gap between artistic and non artistic people is too great for me to comprhend and I am giving up on trying to understand artists, I have too strong an opinion on some issues to want to bother.

I am staying true to my decency levels and not attempting to understand those of others with hidden agendas!.

Thanks for your links but I will not be researching this issue, I will probably implode!

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