Uncomfortable Encounters Between Art, Law, and Images of Children

Abstract

In 2008 Australian artist Bill Henson exhibited a series of photographs that included a naked young girl. One image in particular created controversy and attracted the wrath of media, politicians, and a selection of the public. The police removed the artworks from public view and the then Australian Prime Minister called the photographs “revolting”. Henson’s art was labelled as child pornography. This incident led to changes to legislation that would have a significant impact on artists and contemporary art.

The thesis posits that the way we see and encounter images of children is socially constructed and affected by our experiences of the world. Through interviews with artists and art industry representatives, the thesis argues that uncomfortable encounters between art and law have converged around images of children. Such images are now often viewed through a paedophilic lens by very different spectators, leading to the gradual erasure of children, and in particular their bodies, from Australian contemporary art. Further, through content analysis of 11 research images of children from art and advertising, and interviews about these images with legal practitioners, the thesis argues that there is no clear distinction between images of children in art and how child pornography is legally defined. While legal practitioners expressed differing opinions as to what may constitute child pornography, child abuse material or child exploitation material, they agreed that when all the circumstances of the production of the artworks were considered, none of the research images met the legal bar to warrant prosecution. Finally, the research argues that there is no clear answer to the question of when and how art becomes labelled as child pornography. Rather there is a complex and fraught web of politically charged, socio-legal, and aesthetic concerns that potentially place images of children in art, and those that produce them, within the orbit of the criminal justice system.