Art and obscenity in Oz

28 May 2008 | Comment, News and features

The censorship of an exhibition in Sydney says more about the infantilising impulse of the authorities than it does about art, says Binoy Kampmark

‘A barrier of illiterate policemen and officers stands between the tender Australian mind and what they imagine to be subversive literature’
HG Wells

Art exhibitions can be a hazardous business, especially in Australia. Australia was, at one time, banning more art and literature coming in than going out. The only thing the authorities did not do was burn books and slice canvasses. In terms of ‘western’ democracies, only Ireland pipped Australia to the post of conservative, censoring hysteria.

The work of photographic artist Bill Henson has been added to this registry of ‘indecencies’ that have troubled the Australian conscience. Twenty Henson photographs featuring ‘naked children aged 12 and 13′ were confiscated on 22 May from the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Sydney.

The police are proving rather enthusiastic in prosecuting the case. Victoria’s Assistant Commissioner Gary Jamieson, fancying himself as budding art critic, promises to ‘go through the process of evaluating those works’.

Galleries are being hounded into removing pictures by the new moralists. Some are digging in for the moral onslaught. The Monash Gallery of Art is backing Henson, who, in the words of its director, Jason Smith, ‘has consistently explored human conditions of youth, and examined a poignant moment between adolescence and adulthood’.
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