Ill-advised Oz PM weighs into Art debate - International Social/Political

The exhibition featured carefully composed frames of nude teenagers, which have since been removed from public viewing pending a police investigation into whether or not the pictures constitute child porn.

I have not directly viewed the pictures in question but it is clear from images available on news sites that Henson’s pictures are far removed from signature, flat-lighted, ‘butcher shop’ porn images.

Henson’s lighting is tasteful and discreet, his images are clearly NOT pornographic yet conservative sections of the community are outraged -- the PM, sensing an opportunity, joined the fray, no doubt hoping to exploit the situation for every political point it may have to offer.

We note that comments (rants) made by the PM have just now been removed from the Public Broadcaster’s News Website; they were very compromising of the PM and reeked of hypocrisy and a misdirected attempt at media exploitation. Nevertheless, ample material remains on other sites that highlight the most 'obscene' aspect of this whole affair, but first a gentle reminder of the role of art in western society.

Western Art among other things is designed to prick the conscience of society when it is perceived to be entering very dangerous ‘territory.’ Henson hinted at this during an interview; he referred to the now famous image of a young nude Vietnamese girl escaping an American napalm attack during the illegal Vietnam war -- which resulted in three million innocent deaths! Are we beginning to ‘get the picture?’

Henson’s carefully composed images have no context in the frame, therefore the viewer is forced to accept the images in the current social context which includes illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, WHICH HAVE RESULTED IN THE MURDER OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN and other innocent human beings – are we beginning to understand the concept of OBSCENITY now?

In this context Henson has turned the tables on the flagrant hypocrisy and inverted moral ‘values’ of our society, which accepts without protestations the most heinous images of dead nude children in a WAR context but is outraged by (cleverly crafted tasteful) images of nude teenagers in a peaceful environment/context!

It should be noted that our media darling PM, Kevin Rudd, is a self-confessed ‘Christian’ (hypocrite) and conservative. Neither characteristic qualify him to ‘cast a stone’ at Henson.

Henson’s extremely successful exhibition has fulfilled one traditional artistic function -- to remind us of our values and in this case our BLINDNESS and brazen HYPOCRISY.

Unfortunately for the PM it also highlights him as a parochial (Pauline Hanson) Queenslander, failed Christian, and philistine.

Henson has dramatically and expertly reminded us of the current horrific world REALITY and our inverted values and hypocrisy and for that we should be EXTREMELY grateful.

Regardless of the grunts of philistines and murdering brutes, from all your fellow artists at Cleaves, we extend our congratulations on a job well done, Bill!

The exhibition proved to be a remarkable success in more ways than could be anticipated, even a Prime Minister was compromised and exposed for the brazen lying hypocrite and political opportunist that he is.

OBSCENITY is a dirty word Mr Rudd, take a good look in the mirror and reconsider your slavish, cowardly, policies with the mass murdering Americans! Bill Henson has ‘exposed’ YOU!

See link for some of Rudd’s comments; his plea to allow “kids to be kids” should be read in the context of his servility to America and the many thousands of INNOCENT CHILDREN killed in illegal wars that HE SUPPORTS!

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