Controversial Australian photographer Bill Henson’s art opening in Sydney, Australia was shut down by police last Thurdday after complaints about photos featuring nude preteens and teenagers. 20 photos were seized and the police plan to interview the children and their parents. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called the photos “absolutely revolting.”

The dark subject matter of Henson’s photographs often include half-nude children in disturbing, sometimes suggestive poses in low light and amid sweeping landscapes. Some call his work pretentious while others find it compelling and meaningful. He’s had photographs in galleries around the world for at least 15 years featuring the same subject matter. It’s only recently that anyone has begun to draw attention to his work and accuse him of being exploitive of children.

Cate Blanchett and 42 other prominent Australians have signed a letter questioning the police raid of the gallery and wondering what implications this may have for the future of artists in the country:

Henson, 52, a renowned artist whose work is displayed in galleries around the world, has not spoken publicly since the controversy erupted.

But his supporters have rallied around him. Prominent members of the arts community, including actress Cate Blanchett, and politicians have decried the police actions as censorship.

“The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists is no way to build a creative Australia and does untold damage to our cultural reputation,” Blanchett and 42 others said in an open letter to the prime minister released Tuesday. Other signatories included writer Peter Goldsworthy, playwright Michael Gow and filmmaker Ana Kokkinos.

“The intention of the art is not to titillate or to gratify perverse sexual desires, but rather to make the viewer consider the fragility, beauty, mystery and inviolability of the human body,” the letter said.

Henson’s work, known for its use of light and dark shading, encompasses a wide range of subjects _ landscapes, cloudscapes, suburban and rural life, young people and old people.

“They’re all vehicles for a whole set of feelings to do with what it means to be in transition,” Judy Annear, senior curator for photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, told the AP. “That’s why he has often photographed young people, because they are the most obvious to be in transition.”

In 2004-05, her gallery held a major retrospective of the last 30 years of Henson’s work. More than 65,000 people viewed the exhibit _ and not a single person complained.

“A debate is good but it needs to be rational,” Annear said. “There’s a lot of emotional heat in this one.”

She has seen the latest exhibit and calls it “the most still, the most classical, the most formal” of Henson’s work.

[AP report as found on The Huffington Post]

You can see the photo of the 13 year-old girl topless (NSFW and you may feel guilty about looking at it, it’s up to your perspective) on the site for Australian newspaper The Age.

The photo captures a kind of vulnerability in the subject, and when I look at it I feel guilty and protective of the girl, which is exactly what Blanchett is saying. Other photos I’ve found (NSFW - scroll to the bottom right) do seem exploitive and I feel uncomfortable looking at them, but again that’s probably the point. I wish I took an art history or appreciation class in college so I could discuss this with more background. As it is I don’t know how I feel about it. Not all of Hensen’s photographs even include children and it is only the most controversial which have sparked debate.

An Australian politician, Malcolm Turnball, is quoted at the end of the AP article as saying “I think we have a culture of great artistic freedom in this country and I don’t believe the vice squad’s role is to go into art galleries.”

http://www.celeb*tchy.com/12003/cate_blanchett_defends_controversial_aus...