Overcoming Mental Illness

So there I was wandering the streets of Melbourne, as I do, quite often, now that I’m back and I glance at the front page of The Age (the local newspaper) to see one of my favourite photographer’s names glancing back at me.

Controversy in the world of art, yet again!

And I stood there, dumbfounded, as I read the article…thinking, ‘What in the fracking hell is this world coming to?’

This is the image:

Image by BILL HENSON

Now I’m not all that knowledgeable on art - I’ve never studied it, I just enjoy it.

Maybe it’s just me, but when I look at this image I don’t think of pornography. I look at the image and see a beautifully composed photograph, a photograph with hidden depth and detail. A beautiful composition of light and focus all working together to create a work of art.

Maybe it’s just me but I have seen hundreds upon (most likely, very nearly thousands) of images similar to this in my life time. Whatever city I am in I visit as many art galleries as I can to see beautifully painted works of art depicting all manner of people, personas, events, desires, passions and whims.

So many brushstrokes have been thrown onto canvas to create images like this over the centuries that you can only really assume that the furour over this image is that - SHOCK - it’s a photograph. And photography isn’t art, is it? HELL NO! Photography of a naked body is PORN. It has always been PORN. It will always be PORN! No two ways about it, right?

This is PORN:

Image by GUY BOURDIN

This is PORN:

Image by SAM HASKINS

And this is PORN:

Image by ALVA BERNADINE

Or is it?

It’s really not up to me to decide. It’s not up to anyone to decide. Art it art. That’s the point. Some people like some things, others despise them with a fiery passion. Now I don’t think a shark preserved in formaldehyde is art, but it still takes up gallery space, most of the junk I’ve seen in “modern art” galleries for meisn’t art. That’s porn for the shark fiends or arrogant don’t know what else to do with their lives so I’m just gonna throw a black tile on a white wall and yay! fiends. Isn’t it?

Why all the furore over this image. You see I haven’t mentioned yet that the model was 13, and although her parents were present (according to the articles I’ve read) and although she gave consent, because she was below the legal age of consent then not only is the photographer a paedophile, but anyone who thinks this photo isn’t porn is a paedophile. Does this mean that anyone who has painted a picture of an underage girl is a paedophile (think of all those people through the ages to have done this!) or more extreme - does this mean that any parent who has photographed their child in the bath or on the toilet and then showed it in public is parading and endorsing paedophilia?

If thinking this photo is not porn makes me a paedophile.  I guess I’m a paedophile. (I’m not by the way! I’m just trying to make a point, just to be on the safe side)

This photo, to me, is a beautifully rendered image. It is evocative, emotional and powerful in ways a lot of art isn’t.

At least the good thing with this incident, this dilemma, is that it is getting the masses talking about art. It is no longer a subject for the elite, but for the wider population.

So what do you think: art of porn. It’s up to you. In the end, everything is always up to you!