Bill Henson Part 5: When can children decide for themselves?

Some background

Regular readers of this blog know that I've written a number of posts about the photographic art of Bill Henson and the debate about the inappropriateness of using photographs of naked children for artistic purposes. You can follow the threads of the earlier debate and my critique here.

For overseas readers of this blog here is some brief background. Henson was at the centre of a major controversy caused by an art exhibition featuring his photographic work. He is a one of Australia's most famous living artists and has gained widespread international acclaim. However, in May this year the police were called to a gallery where his latest exhibition was to be opened. A number of members of the public had taken exception to images of naked children used for advertising the exhibition and some which were placed on the gallery website. Henson has for many years included photographs of young pubescent children in his work. In his own words he likes to express "..ideas about humanity and vulnerability and our sense of ourselves living inside our bodies and our bodies in space" and has been interested in the transition from childhood to adulthood (amongst other things). The police originally charged him and the gallery owners, but eventually the charges were dropped. However, interest in Henson and his art continues to attract comment and debate.

The latest twist to the controversy

Just when many of us had forgotten about Henson, he has broken his five month long silence with an interview in the Sydney Morning Herald (here). This was followed the day after by extracts from a book concerning the Henson case in the Herald's weekend magazine. The extracts are from a forthcoming book by David Marr, "The Henson Case". It took just hours for the first article and the extracts to cause further concern. In both the article and the extract Henson shared that "he has been invited into schools in his search for models". In his words "I went in there, had a look around at lunchtime, just wandered around while everyone was having their lunch....I saw this boy, and I saw this girl too actually, and I thought they would be great and the principal said, 'Fine, I will give the parents a ring and let you know'. So the ball is always in their court...."

One can only wonder why a school principal would allow an artist into a school to search for children who might be suitable for nude modelling without the consent of parents to be there for this purpose.

Curiously, Marr seems to have shared this detail in his forthcoming book (and in the extract) in an attempt to present Henson as a normal decent bloke who also happens to be a great artist. I have no reason to doubt that both these propositions might be correct. As my previous posts should indicate, I have never accused Henson of having wrong motives, and I have always acknowledged his ability as an artist. What I continue to question is his use of naked children as his subjects and the way that they are presented. The SMH article on Friday suggests that he still doesn't get this. I find it incredible that neither Marr nor Henson can grasp that your average parent would feel quite uncomfortable about someone visiting a school to look for appropriate models. But that's not why I've written this post, I'll leave this part of the debate to others. What I want to comment on is Henson and the child's parents approach to parenting.

The folly of children being able to make such choices

One of the clear themes of the David Marr extract is that parents are closely involved at all stages of Henson's work and that the children themselves make the final decision to pose or not to pose. The reference to visiting schools and the manner in which children were solicited as models also appears to be an attempt to rather naively suggest that parents are involved from the start.

On three occasions Marr uses quotes from Henson and the mother of the young girl referred to as "N" to make the point that it is the child who makes the final choice:

"They gain some strength because it's (i.e. posing for Henson) a big decision to make, and no one can really make it for them." Quote from Henson

"...We have always given our children a voice in our family and as an educator I know the value for kids to take responsibility and learn through authentic life experience. N is accustomed to making decisions, trusting her instincts and she certainly has a pretty good handle on what is right and what is wrong." Quote from the mother of the 12-year old girl "N" featured in naked poses.

"....we were a bit concerned about N's self esteem as she was at the tricky time in her life anticipating the horror of starting high school....this was an extremely stressful time for her. We felt that working with Bill would give her a bit of a boost and help her regain her confidence (and it did). Ultimately it was her decision........." Quote from the mother of the 12-year old girl "N".


The view that a twelve year-old not only can make such decisions, but should, reflects the lie of liberalism that humans and their children should be free, in John Locke’s terms, “…to order their Actions…as they think fit…without asking leave, or depending on the Will of any other Man”. The Fundamental Liberal Principle holds that any restriction on liberty must be justified, freedom to choose is always the default position.

Henson and the mother of N, like many parents immersed in a society that fails to question such ideas, have accepted the argument of philosophers like John Stuart Mill that one basis for endorsing freedom is by developing individuality and cultivating capacities ‘…it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings.’

The good life for the liberal philosopher is one that you freely choose. Such a life is characterised by a person developing his or her unique capacities as part of a plan for their life; this is still the most significant liberal ethic shaping the way some parents raise their children.

What follows from this thinking is that being a good parent is all about helping our children to make good choices themselves. Ultimately, they argue, the child must choose. Which like all ideas has some truth. Of course we want children and adults to be able to make good choices, but we cannot assume that if we allow total freedom to do so, that they will. The folly of applying this to a 12 year-old should be obvious. Yes, good parents encourage their children to make good choices, they help them to think through the rights and wrongs of any choices, as well as the consequences. There are many decisions for which we hope children might take early responsibility: Will I do my homework? Should I lie to my parents about why I was late home from school? Should I disobey my mum? But can, and should, a 12 year-old decide whether she should pose nude or not? I don't think so. Children should be helped to grow in their ability to make good choices in life, but at age 12 years parents need to be wise in deciding in which areas they will give them the freedom to choose.

We live in a society where there is a need to accept that one's choices are made in relation to other people. Our choices have an impact on other people. That's why there is great wisdom in the Bible's teaching that all are under the authority of others (see for example Ephesians 5:15-6:9). First and foremost, we are accountable to God. But we also are accountable and have responsibility to the state. Then we have various relationships with each other, some of which involve authority structures. Children are under the authority of their parents and parents in turn are responsible to teach their children, to take responsibility for them, to love and to care for them, and to help them make right choices. When they are young, or too immature to make the decision in question, then the parents must make the choice for them.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honour your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise— "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." (Ephesians 6:1-3)

Of course, this begs the question, what if parents make bad or wrong choices? If this happens, then it is our hope that the law will protect the child, and other children who might be impacted by the family's 'freedom' to choose. The whole 'Henson Case' shows that perhaps our laws need some strengthening.

God and the Artist - Trevor Hart talks online

Recently, Professor Trevor Hart presented the 2008 New College Lectures in Sydney at the University of New South Wales. I have already reported on his three excellent talks and have provided summaries on this blog (here). New College has now posted the MP3 files of all three lectures for free download. The links for all downloads are below.


Tuesday 2 September
The lunatic, the lover and the poet': divine copyright and the dangers of 'strong imagination'

MP3 Download of Lecture 1 here

Wednesday 3 September
The 'heart of man' and the 'mind of the maker': Tolkien and Sayers on imagination and human artistry

MP3 Download of Lecture 2 here

Thursday 4 September
Givenness, grace, and gratitude: creation, artistry and eucharist

MP3 Download of Lecture 3 here

God and the artist - Part 3

New College (the home of CASE) has an annual public lecture series, which I convene each year with two fellow Trustees Bishop Rob Forsyth and Professor Christine Alexander. The Lectures are in their 22nd year and this year occurred on the 2-5 September 2008. Their purpose is to bring together the college residents, University, Church and wider community to discuss significant issues of common concern. This year the theme is God and the Artist: Human creativity in theological perspective and our lecture is Professor Trevor Hart from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.


The third lecture delivered last night was:

“Givenness, grace and gratitude: creation, artistry and eucharist”

This post is my summary of what Professor had to say. While I have tried to faithfully report the summary of the lecture, and present his views (not necessarily mine), and I have used many direct quotes, any inaccuracies are my responsibility not those of Professor Hart. The asides in brackets are some of my reflections and questions.

Introduction

Professor Hart’s third lecture focussed again on the work of a few key scholars but asked broader and more complex questions than on any night, and for me (at least) it raised more questions than on previous nights. He started by suggesting that what is lacking in the Christian church’s ability to make sense of the arts and to see it as an important and relevant part of the human condition, “Is any positive theological evaluation of the arts and human artistry as something good and important in their own right.” He returned to Sayers in taking the discussion further and acknowledged some common ground in her lament that for centuries the church had not developed a proper Christian aesthetic that “…took seriously and engaged directly with core creedal claims of Christian faith in the world.” Of course while valiant, her attempt Professor Hart suggested failed in finding a way towards seeing the arts as something essential rather than peripheral to what it means to be human (Lecture 1 provided a critique of her attempt).

The rest of the lecture was devoted to Professor Hart taking us further in this direction. He used two writers to help him, C.S. Lewis and Rowan Williams.

C.S. Lewis - Not a ringing endorsement

C.S. Lewis he suggested offers at best “a fairly modest” defence of the place of the arts. He recounted how Lewis who after bringing a fairly ‘high culture’ view of the arts to his conversion to Christianity later in life, had to reconcile where he’d been in seeking almost to worship creative works, to knowing from the Scriptures that his chief end was to glorify God and enjoy him forever, not Mozart, indeed, not anything else. Lewis sought to find reasons from the Scriptures to support the active participation of Christians in the arts, and concluded that he could find little to support his view from the New Testament, and only a modest list of more general reasons to affirm the arts; reasons of pecuniary worth; their place as part of our engagement in the world as ‘salt and light’; their role in enjoyment; culture as a pre-evangelistic device; and one more way to glorify God (no more worthy than the way the charwoman did it, but no less). He suggested that it was a positive account of the place of art in the church, but not a ringing endorsement and not far on the path to a theology of the arts or a Christian aesthetic.

Rowan Williams -"Artistry as value added"

Next Professor Hart turned to Rowan William’s book “Grace and necessity: Reflections on Art and Love”. Williams he suggests offers a more positive account. Williams suggests that God created the world out of his goodness and gave to us a world pregnant with potential, brimming, teeming with as yet undisclosed possibilities and meanings….crying out for us not to stand back and appreciate its existing aesthetic charms like a viewer….but to roll up our sleeves, wade-in, and get our hands dirty in taking what God has given and bringing more to birth from its potential. This Professor Hart suggested is an “open givenness” one with boundaries, constraints and trajectories of possibility, but “leaving plenty for us to do in and with the world”.

Williams notion is of an ‘unfinished’ world but surely Scripture teaches that it is a world subject to decay that will be replaced with a new earth (as well as anew heaven) when Christ returns in his glory. [An Aside: For me this raised lots of questions, I need to read Williams to see how he derives his view from Scripture; his notion that there is a ‘finishing’ to do now with us as participants? How does he get from man’s place in Genesis as stewards of this world subject to God’s curse to one of adding to creation? How does he justify the notion of us taking the world as we find it and through working it “…hand it back enhanced, ‘improved upon’, adding value to it rather than devaluing it, granting it something more and something better than was there in the first place.” How do Rowan William's ideas sit with Tolkien’s notion of man as “sub-creators”? And how do we avoid the path that Sayers and others slide down towards a view of man as co-creators, where too much is assumed of mere humanity, mere specks of dust?]

Professor Hart then visited the work of Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, who writes of mankind as “partners in the work of creation”. [An Aside: Is this a bridge too far?] Professor Hart helpfully pointed out that such arguments (for him at least) must not go too far – “the enhancements or developments that we contribute can only ever be ones lying within the purview of God’s sovereign vision.” He continues “It’s not that God somehow needs us to do this, but that he chooses to make creative creatures whom he then calls to do it, fulfilling their own creaturely nature by their active engagement with a world the possibilities and richness of which are still unfolding and being fashioned, by human hands as well as by the movement of God’s Creative Spirit in the world.”

Artistry as obedience

Hart then moved to artistry as a form of obedience. He suggested that as a response to the divine call to human beings to work creatively with the world and to offer it back with value added, artistry is a form of obedience. In citing Williams he suggested that in obedience we are to respectfully and responsibly work with the creation God has given us, which respects the materials God has given us, and which “pursues an artistic vision in accordance with the shape and tenor of God’s own vision for the world, and those possibilities intrinsic within it which are for its blessing rather than distortions or abuses of it.”

[An aside: The notion of artistry as a form of obedience was helpful. For me this at least positions the intent of the artist as ideally aligned with God’s purposes. But this raised a question for me: how do we ensure that purposes and intent of man relate to the sovereign intent of God; and how easily are they misaligned, and what is the consequence? Surely, sin. This in itself helps me with my ongoing debate concerning Bill Henson’s photographic work – brilliant in technique but surely inappropriate in content and perhaps even in purpose. A struggle at this point – how far, in the light of Scripture, can we push this point? Are we not close to making Sayer’s mistake of suggesting that God needs us to be creative? Surely, no act of human creativity can impede or advance God’s sovereign Kingdom purposes. Scripture does guide us towards areas where God expects obedience from us, for example, in making his Son known, “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). But for me a question still to be answered is where in Scripture are we commended in obedience towards creative artistry? Lewis clearly struggled with this, hence his seemingly ‘soft’ justifications (e.g. art as work; art for evangelism etc). Can our creative efforts point others towards our Creator God; can they bring glory and honour to his name? I think so. I am sure that the musician and the artist can argue this case and I have argued myself for the role that literature can play here. But are they just helpful and good, or are they required? I support the former but am struggling to see the Scriptural evidence to support the latter.]

"Arts, grace and gratuity"

Professor Hart then suggested “arts’ enhancement of the world belongs decisively within the logic of economy of ‘grace’. We take and transform things and offer them back, not because it serves some human need to do so….but because, as an act of sheer gratuity, it seems right, good, fitting to do so.” Art in this sense is inherently eucharistic, a gift freely offered in thanksgiving, “a gift freely offered in thanksgiving, because the one who gives it has him or herself first freely received.” [An aside: Once again, I suspect that our musicians could identify this purpose as central to what they do when they make and perform music.] Professor Hart then considered the possibility that even those outside the Kingdom of God might be used of God through their creative activities and suggested that they could.


A Trinitarian account

He then turned from William’s attempts, which he suggested do not go far enough, to Sayer’s once again to revisit a Trinitarian account of Human artistry. Can human creativity and the arts be grounded in the Christian doctrine of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

Of particular interest to me in his analysis here was his discussion of the distinction between God’s ‘creative’ action in calling the world into existence and his “sustaining or preserving of that same world, holding it in being from moment to moment.” But he suggested that God’s ongoing work should not be seen just as sustaining what he had created, but of “drawing out” establishing a set of possibilities for flourishing and enrichment, the revealing of things hidden in the depths of creation as potential futures….”. This he suggested does not exclude our participation but includes our responsible participation.

Professor Hart then moved to Jurgen Moltmann’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit whose concern he suggested is not just “….the generation of faith and the inner lives of believers, but with the sanctification of the creation, establishing the forces of life and resisting death, and drawing ‘all things’ into conformity with the character of their maker.” He suggested that again human creativity is an enhancement and enrichment of the given world.

He then moved back to look at the work of Spirit with the Son. Jesus taking on flesh, assuming “our fallen nature in order to refashion it, putting to death in it all that is unworthy of God’s holiness, and establishing in it, all that reflects that same holiness.”

[An aside: While this notion correctly accommodates the sense of ongoing sanctification in the lives of believers, there is obviously a need to keep in balance Christ's work in our redemption and justification at the point of acceptance of Christ. While Hart didn't suggest otherwise, any Trinitarian theology of the arts needs to start with the redeeming grace of God in sending his own Son in human form to become an atoning sacrifice; it must consider the fullness of Christ's work]

Professor Hart then posed the question, is not the whole life of Jesus (conception, birth, baptism, ministry, death, ascension and return) “one long creative and artistic engagement”? Hart asked the question “is what…the Church celebrates week by week in its liturgies and proclaim in its missionary activities” artistry?

The end times

Finally, Professor Hart looked at the end times. He started in Lecture 1 with Genesis and ended with Revelation. He reminded us that “the world as we find it is in an ambiguous state – created, and reflecting the goodness of its origination with God, yet fallen, and reflecting the distorting presence within it of sin and evil and death, a condition from which it requires finally to be rescued. No amount of ‘enhancement’ or ‘enrichment’ or ‘added value’ will do. Something much more radical is called for and, by faith, hoped for.” There will be a new heaven and a new earth (Is 65; Rev 21:1, 5). And the one seated on the throne says “See, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5). Here Professor Hart suggests there is radical newness which only God can establish, there is a balance of “discontinuity with one of continuity”. It is finished Jesus cried at the Cross, Sin and death are defeated, the kingdom is at hand, and yet it is still to finally come. In the meantime he suggests there “is a history of transformation and redeeming renewal of the world to be lived out” and artistic and imagination endeavour has a place in this.

This has been an excellent series of talks which we may publish at some future date. As well, Professor Hart is working on a larger book that addresses the them of the lectures. I appreciated his generosity in sharing his ideas, his work in progress so to speak. It has been a stimulating week.

You can find all three summaries of the Lectures via this one link here.

Please note that the full text of the lectures plus MP3 files should be posted by the end of next week.

God and the Artist - Part 2

New College (which established CASE) has an annual public lecture series each year, which I convene. The Lectures are in their 22nd year and are on each evening (2-5 September 2008). Their purpose is to bring together the college residents, University, Church and wider community to discuss significant issues of common concern. This year the theme is God and the Artist: Human creativity in theological perspective and our lecture is Professor Trevor Hart from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.


The second lecture delivered last night was titled"

The ‘heart of man’ and the ‘mind of the maker’: Tolkien and Sayers on imagination and human artistry

This post is my summary of what Professor had to say. While I have tried to faithfully report the summary of the lecture, and present his views (not necessarily mine), and I have used many direct quotes, any inaccuracies are my responsibility not those of Professor Hart.

Sayers work

Last night he focussed our attention on the work of two writers Tolkien and Sayers in his attempt to advance his theology of artistic creativity and imagination. He started his analysis on Sayers with her play “The Zeal of Thy House” that she wrote for the Canterbury Festival in 1937 – a work that was to be a celebration of artists and craftsmen. In her writing of this play centred on the rebuilding of the church’s choir in the late 12th century - and using the French architect William of Sens (chosen to undertake the work) as the protagonist - she “paints a picture of human artistry and craftsmanship as at the very least a spiritual vocation equivalent to others, and at best something much more significant than that.” Much of his discussion centred on a final speech to the audience by the Archangel Michael in “The Zeal of Thy House” and Sayers popular wartime classic “The Mind of the Maker” (1941).


Sayers like others before her used the doctrine of the Trinity as a metaphor to create a conception of the place of the artist relative to their creator. She described the book as ‘three books’ – the ‘idea’ of the book, the ‘energy’ or birth of the idea, and the ‘Power’ or the impact of the work as it is read. This is a work of skilled apologetics that goes much further. Hart suggested that what her work offers is a “distinctive theology of the creation of human beings in the image and likeness of God. To be human, to correspond to God humanly, is above all else to be creative and thereby to ‘image’ God’s won Trinitarian being.” “Creativeness… was for Sayers the secret to the Cosmos, the fundamental pattern of personal existence…to be human according to Sayers was not only to be homo sapiens, but homo faber – man the maker”.

Professor Hart offered a brief and partial critique of the problems with Sayers theology and aesthetics. First, as C.S. Lewis reminder her, “there is an unbridgeable gulf of sorts between God and the world he has made, between the ‘created’ and the ‘uncreated’. He reminded Sayers that any analogies we use to think and speak of God must therefore tremble at the temerity of their own approach to what is finally a holy mystery and must remain so. Second, Sayers picture of God’s eternal Trinitarian being is of a specific sort, (which Hart suggests is probably influenced by St Augustine and Karl Barth); one that does not view the Trinity as three divine ‘persons’ in relation to one another, but aspects or modes of existence of one divine person. Third, Sayers’ premise that the creative act can occur wholly within the mind of the maker is problematic (even for literature), but moreso for music and art. Fourth, Sayers offers, “a highly individualist account overlooking the importance of social and communal factors vital to the facilitation of creativity” - as Nicholas Wolterstorff has reminded us. Finally, it needs to be noted that Sayers’ own rendering of Trinitarian notion of “Idea, Energy and Power’ is developed (as Hart points out) with virtually no reference to Christian Scripture.

Sayers view on Creativity

Before moving to Tolkien Hart finished with an analysis of how Sayers defined the hallmarks of creativity. What does creativity look like? He offered three insights from her work. First, “being creative involves bringing something new into the world God has made, something which was not there before. At the level of the materials used she accepts that there is a finite amount, we don’t add to God’s creation. But at the level of imagination, “she insists that there is no such finite constraint – pattern, form and meaning do not belong to the inventory of the flesh.” For Sayers the artist comes closest to the creation ‘out of nothing’ that the Bible teaches is the prerogative of God himself.

Second, “to be creative is to exercise God-given freedom, refusing to be constrained by the apparent limits of givenness….pushing beyond the thresholds of the familiar….”. It is a freedom within rather from the divinely ordained potentialities and constraints of the world.

Third, “creativity adds value to the world. It enhances and enriches, taking the world as it finds it, and handing it back transformed for the better through a supererogatory surplus of care and attention.”

Tolkien

Professor Hart then turned to Tolkien. Using Tolkien’s literature and writing about literature as backdrop he unpacked Tolkien’s concept of artistry as ‘sub-creation’. Tolkien’s first foray into myth was his work “The Music of the Ainur” in which a recount is given of how God created first a race of angelic beings (the Ainur or Valar) as participants in fashioning of Middle-earth. Unlike the biblical creation myth, “The music of the Ainur” is not just about God’s creativity, but equally ours’. The Ainur are “….‘sub-creators’ not co-creators. There is a subordinate modality of creative action, yet one that is nonetheless, thoroughly creative.” Tolkien suggests that “the ‘many hues’ which adorn the world and render it beautiful….must be refracted through our sub-creative act” for his myth is concerned with human artistry.

Professor Hart suggested, “…human art is in some sense a matter of assisting in our turn, in making our world.” Drawing on Tolkien he suggests that the desire that drives creativity (and which can be corrupted as we see in William of See) is a “sort of insatiability”, but one which has the good and the free flourishing of its object (Tolkien calls this ‘Primary Reality’) as its chief concern. “The artist is no slave to reality, but her lover.” If art is born out of unsatisfied desire it is kindled and sustained by a God-given imagination. For Tolkien, “..to be human is to be (and called to be) creative with respect to God’s world.”

Building on Tolkien’s thesis Professor Hart unpacked the concept of a “secondary” or alternative world (or Sidney’s “Another nature” as discussed in Lecture 1). When authors like me use titles like “Other Worlds: The endless possibilities of literature” what is implied and how does a theology of the arts offer explanatory help. Hart points out that Tolkien does not mean an entirely alternative cosmos (though Middle-earth seems to go close to this), he means instead the particular object or ‘work’ which the artist fashions. Tolkien does not seek to blur the boundaries between reality and unreality. He draws a clear distinction between the “Primary World” and the world of the story, “….something the artist expects us to take for granted.” While being expected to be citizens of the Primary World “…we are expected to permit ourselves to be drawn imaginatively across the threshold between fact and fiction, and to become temporary indwellers of another world….”

Secondary belief is appropriate and expected with respect to a Secondary World “…of which we become, temporarily, citizens by virtue of some sub-creator’s art. The capacity to engender it, indeed, is, for Tolkien, what differentiates art from mere ‘imagination’ at all.”

Hart’s last interesting twist to his explanation of Tolkien’s work comes with his discussion of ownership of the these secondary worlds and secondary belief within them, a point at which there is clear diversion from Sayers. Tolkien had a particular view of the status of an artistic world, he knew that “…he wasn’t the creator of Middle-earth in any absolute sense.” There are many things “…about this literary world and about any work and world of art, about which the artist was and would and would never be in any position to declaim with absolute authority…..the work…always comes to the artist as something given and received, and in one sense, therefore, not ‘created’ by him or her at all.” Readers and observers of art will find all sorts of things in the work that the artist was not aware they had placed within it.


“For the sub-creator, the making of other worlds is no act of defiance or contradiction of the prima divine ‘Let there be…’. On the contrary, the artist’s Secondary Reality enjoys a positive relationship to the Primary Reality which, ordinarily, we indwell, and is always glad to acknowledge its subordinate state.”

Tolkien insists that artistic vision does not seek to supersede our world, but instead seeks to glimpse the richest possibilities latent within the creative vision of God. And he presents an underlying concept. Our art is not so much about things are, but of what they are capable of becoming, and “how things may be and will be when God is finally all in all (this) …is the source of that joy which aesthetic experience grants us. Beauty – genuine beauty – is finally an eschatological phenomenon.” Art “…does not compete with the world but in a profound sense for Tolkien makes the world new.”

The third and final lecture will be presented tonight with the title “Givenness, grace, and gratitude: creation, artistry and eucharist”.

Please note that the full text of the lectures plus MP3 files will be posted by the end of next week.

God and the artist - Part 1

New College (which established CASE) has an annual public lecture series each year which I convene. The Lectures are in their 22nd year and are on each evening (2-5 September 2008). Their purpose is to bring together the college residents, University, Church and wider community to discuss significant issues of common concern. This year the theme is God and the Artist: Human creativity in theological perspective and our lecture is Professor Trevor Hart from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

Last night 200 people gathered at the University of New South Wales (where New College and CASE live) to engage in the first lecture. The title was ‘The lunatic, the lover and the poet’: divine copyright and the dangers of ‘strong imagination’.

This post is my summary of what Professor had to say. While I have tried to faithfully report the summary of the lecture, and present his views (not necessarily mine), and I have used many direct quotes, any inaccuracies are my responsibility not those of Professor Hart.

Starting at the beginning

Professor Hart commenced the lecture series with the opening words of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. He reminded us that the Hebrew word translated “created” is “bara’ has an aura of holiness to it, being set aside exclusively for his divine use; “there is and can be no corresponding human analogy to this divine action, because it has to do with God’s unique relationship to the world as the one who, by virtue of his sovereign Lordship, brings a world forth into existence where previously there was not only nothing but no potential for anything.” While there are other words used in the Bible that describe man’s activity of doing and making, none should be confused with God’s creation as encapsulated in the Hebrew word “bara”.

But he suggested that there is a changeability of language that has led to a loss of appreciation of God’s place as creator as against mankind’s creativity. Hart suggested that words are “sticky” and “have the habit of picking up words and associations” – words are used and used again until the initial core connotation is lost.

Hart pointed out that the careless use of the word “creativity” – creative play, creative problem solving, creative accounting etc – is a long way from Genesis and “its sublime vision of ultimate origination”. Interestingly, he made the point that such complaints come primarily from artists, not worried about God’s dignity being lost, but their’s and that of their work. The canons of orthodoxy and heterodoxy are no longer theological but aesthetic.

He argued that to some extent the use of the word “created” was meant to imply that the artist had created “new worlds of meanings to be set alongside those of God”. However, while we can make sense of this even within a Christian framework it lends itself “to other impulses”.

What Hart sets out to do in these lectures is to examine the place of artistic creation. A theology of human artistry – an account “that takes seriously Christian Scripture and Creeds”. Can we hold together talk of human creativity and “God’s unique identity as the originator and gracious giver of being and life to the world”? This he suggests is not a question of if but of how? We need he suggested to disentangle from one another both ‘modalities of creativity’ both of which are to do with God’s relationship to the world, but only one of which incorporates human agency.

Cosmos and cosmetics

Citing Abrams (1954), in the monograph “The mirror and the lamp”, he argued that the most primitive and enduring aesthetic was that of “holding a mirror to the world”, art imitating life, an aesthetic consistent with Plato’s somewhat negative view of art and Aristotle’s more positive view. He used Leonardo da Vinci as an example, who almost 2 millennia later, expressed the view (and demonstrated it) that art should not try to improve on the things of nature. Art in effect was seen as allowing due emphasis to be given to the world God has given us to inhabit. But even in this earliest view of the place of art there was a distortion of the notion of the mirror as artists sought to paint out (so to speak) the “warts, the blemishes and the bulges”. The artist was not just seeking to render a true likeness, but was seeking to add beauty to what they see (e.g. Michelangelo and Rembrandt). Artists were seeking to catch “the best of the thing”. This view reflected the belief that in a sense the artist’s soul was seen as having access to Nature’s blueprint in the mind of God, and their role was to add some cosmetic enhancement, adding value to what they found in nature.

These ideas he suggested were reborn in the Renaissance offering an exalted place to human artistry. By the Renaissance “the artist sits in judgement rather than as a skilled apprentice in the workshop of a divine master”. The desire was not for what God has purposed “but something that improves upon and competes with it.”

Breach of Copyright

In citing Abrams again, Hart suggested that there was then a shift from mimetic notions of art to one that assumed that the illumination of the human mind was essential to the process of “murky reality”. Art was then seen not as a mirror reflecting the light but of shining a lamp on what was observed to illuminate it further. The artist moved from a view of a world naturally rich in beauty and goodness to a world needing to be enriched “by the projections of the human imagination”. This Hart suggested was the source of Kant’s claim that we can only ever experience phenomena as they appear to us rather than as they appear to other creatures or perhaps to God.

Hart suggested that we can see how easy it is to move from the position to “half create” the world to a position of seeing the world us unacceptable and in need of offering an alternative view of Nature. A position that George Steiner suggested reached its height in Modernism where the artist sought to call into being objects and creations as totally unlike nature as possible, “begetting their own creations”. Here the artist is offering a challenge to the givenness of God’s creation and his prerogatives as Creator. It is this Hart suggests that “lies behind an ancient Hebraic nervousness about the imagination”. “Creative imagination, then, paradoxically lies at the core of all that is worst and all that is best in our humanity”.


But modernism is not where we are in 2008. Postmodern aesthetics have been the dominant influence. Hart cites Richard Kearney who observes that artistic imagination is less like a mirror than a labyrinth of mirrors each in turn reflected in “seemingly endless refractive play of light and none standing apart as the apparent source of it all”. Art scavenges its materials from “the sites of prior acts of imaginative construction, pre-owned and part-used serviceable, and fraught with the semantic instability of the merely human.” “If Modernism threatened to supplant the source of aesthetic meaning by usurping the throne of the cosmos, post-modernity does so just as effectively by refusing to bend the knee to any authority whatever, be it human or divine.”

But Hart suggested that any “self-deluded attempts to supplant that Word by instigating new moments of origination cannot succeed”. Such attempts he suggested lead to despairing shadow chasing; a version of the cosmos as “turbulent chaos”. Both Modernism and Postmodernism deny transcendence. He cited George Steiner to point to the folly of such efforts, “art is and must properly be a dialogue with a meaningful presence which does not depend on us for its being”. Steiner goes further to suggest that where God’s presence is no longer tenable and where his absence is no longer a felt and overwhelming weight “that certain dimensions of thought and creativity are no longer attainable.”

Pathologies of the poetic eye

Hart then took the audience back to the 16th century to the work of Shakespeare, and specifically “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Cervantes great novel “Don Quixote”. Both he suggested raise serious questions about the place of the imaginative in human life. Shakespeare in this work both directly (through the plot) and indirectly through its use of comedy and irony, looks at the chaos that is created when the boundaries between reality and artifice are blurred deliberately or accidentally. The play poses the question, are we as humans in danger of confusing the real and the imaginary. Similarly, Hart suggested that Cervantes in the imaginative premises of the novel there is a critical take on the possibility of over-indulgence in the imaginary. Quixote loses his grip on the distinction between reality fiction as he tries to reconfigure his life according to the books that he loves; he transforms the everyday to a knightly quest. The comedy comes from the collision between Quixote’s illusory and real worlds.


Hart suggested that both these works caution against the “vices and devices of the imagination”. Both do this by driving a wedge of irony between imagination and reason, with each leaving us with a sense that the final verdict on imagination is complex. Both texts Hart suggests remind us that the status of reality itself is the subject of dispute and negotiation, and that “every attempt to make sense of the world is finally poetic, a making as well as a finding of sense in the world.”

Hart concluded the lecture by drawing on the work of Sir Phillip Sidney’s “Apologie for Poetrie”. Sidney argued for the development of poetry in which he saw that with the “divine breath of God” the poet could bring forth new things through the work far beyond their capabilities. The artist, far from challenging God can be God’s instrument and faithful servant. Sidney’s understanding of the need to keep man in his rightful place is seen in his unwillingness to use the term ‘creator’ of the human artist at all. The artist is seen as gaining access to the essential character of things, “that which we are capable of coming and should become, the potentiality built into them by God”. Hart paraphrased Sidney to argue that in a sense what the artist sees and represents in his/her work is “not the way the world is now, but the world bathed in the light of eschatological perspective, as, in God’s purposes and the grace of God’s new creation, it can be and finally may be. And the ‘final end’ according to Sidney of such vision is not titillation, nor an Oedipal bid to ‘un-Nature nature’, but to lead and draw us to so high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clayey lodgings, can be capable of.”

The lecture generated some good questions and some equally good answers: “Could not modernity also seek to celebrate God?” “What of music, do his ideas extend to music?” etc

Professor Trevor Hart will return to the eschatological theme in lecture three on Thursday, but tomorrow night (3rd September) he will look at the work of Sayers and Tolkien and the light their work shines on the place of the human artist in a theological perspective.

Please note that the full text of the lectures plus MP3 files will be posted by the end of next week.

God, Creativity and Creators

The next edition of the Case magazine has as its theme, ‘God, creativity, creators’. Why this theme? Trevor Hart comments in his contribution to the magazine that artistic imagination is among the greatest gifts of God. But like many (if not all) gifts of God, it can be used to pursue mixed motives and purposes.

Readers of this blog know that I have spent more time than usual considering the work of one artist in the past few months (you can read the posts here). The Bill Henson controversy has been challenging. Like the contributors to the next edition of Case magazine, I see the arts as part of the way we express our humanity, creativity and giftedness. The arts can be used to the glory of God as an expression of the creative gifts he has given us, or they can be a diversion from him, rather than a celebration of all that is worthy of our praise.

John Calvin, had no difficulty seeing God’s purposes in the arts. In commenting on Genesis 4 and Jabal as the ‘father of all who play the lyre and pipe’ he noted that

‘… the invention of arts, and of other things which serve to the common use and convenience of life, is a gift of God by no means to be despised, and a faculty worthy of commendation.’

Genesis 4 provides an account of the beginnings of civilisation in a fallen world. Eve gives birth to Cain then Abel. Cain slays his brother Abel and the consequence of sin and man's downward spiral is obvious. God places a curse on Cain and his offspring.

"And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth" (Gen 4:11-12).

And yet, from his people there is still productivity and purpose. Cain's destiny to be "a fugitive and a wanderer" separated from God, does not mean that his life will have no value; God uses all parts of his creation according to his purposes. Even in a land of fugitives and wanderers we see a city built (Gen 4:17), a family fathered (Gen 4:18), rural industry develop (Gen 4:20), musical expression on the lyre and pipe (Gen 4:21), and forging of iron and bronze (Gen 4:21). Civilisation develops outside the Garden, even in the land of rebellion and separation from God there is productivity, culture and art. God does not abandon Cain, but places him under a protective shield rather than allow vengeance to run unrestrained. God's common grace touches all of creation.

Calvin offers further comment of relevance here:

"...Let us know then, that the sons of Cain, though deprived of the Spirit of regeneration, were yet endued with gifts of no despicable kind.....the excellent gifts of the Spirit are diffused through the whole human race."

The arts reflect humanity’s unique position in creation as the ones who are made in the image of the Creator. Creativity and humanity's creations are a gift from God that can give us joy and pleasure. Praise God that the arts speak in some measure of his creative grace.

The themed content of the next issue of Case Magazine will cover a variety of themes within the theology of the arts and creative human endeavour. Subscribers will receive their copies this week.

Brief overview of Case #16

Andrew Lansdown argues for the special role of fantasy in stimulating the imagination. In addressing the criticisms against fantasy he focuses on four common concerns: the place of the occult in fantasy; the disconnection between fantasy and reality; the perception that fantasy distorts reality; and, the criticism that it can be escapist.

Professor Trevor Hart considers the arts more broadly, and argues that artistic imagination and expression are part of the creativity of God himself. He suggests, “…we should embrace creative expression as an act of sharing in and celebrating God’s own creative activity.”

Anna Blanch discusses the intersection of literature and theology as an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field of study. She posits that such study provides space for scholars to examine how the human desire to know and understand God is expressed in the arts. She asks, could the exploration of imaginative texts help us understand Christian Scripture better and awaken our minds to its beauty?

Scott Monk brings the perspective of a writer of teenage fiction and offers an interesting insight into the dilemma Christians face when writing for secular audiences. He describes the ‘balancing act’ he faces when negotiating the complexities of the different moralities of his mainly youthful readership.

Tied to the theme of this edition are two excellent book reviews by Greg Clarke and Rob Smith. Rob reviews Professor Jeremy Begbie’s book Resounding Truth: Christian wisdom in the world of music and Greg reviews Peter Conrad’s secular book Creation: Artists, gods and origins. Both books will be of interest to readers wanting to consider the theme of this issue of Case.

How to subscribe?

Case magazine is a 32-page full colour magazine that is published quarterly. You receive case as part of the cost of becoming a CASE associate. You also receive access to other CASE resources online, reduced prices for CASE events and access to specific CASE seminars. Cost to individuals is just $55 per year, $35 for students, and $25 for an overseas electronic version. You can more information here.

The New College Lectures

Our focus on the arts will continue in the 2008 New College Lectures (2-4 September, 2008) on the theme "God and the artist: Human creativity in theological perspective". The lectures are free.

For more information on the lectures and how to RSVP (which is essential) consult the New College website here.

Bill Henson - Part 4

After three Bill Henson blog posts (see here, here and here) I decided that I had subjected myself to enough frustration over this matter and wouldn't re-visit the topic. This was until I was confronted by Elizabeth Farrelly's frustrating essay "Paint them ugly" in the Sydney Morning Herald (12-13 July). I read it while on a much-needed holiday with my wife Carmen. I tried to ignore it. But eventually, I read it and felt compelled to send a letter to the Editor (which wasn't published!). I also decided that I needed to follow up one more time with a post on Henson's art. On the same day I had a fascinating exchange with a dissenting anonymous reader in response to my third Bill Henson post (here) that dealt with the provocative Art Monthly Australia magazine cover of a naked 5 year old girl. My reading of Farrelly, my letter writing to the SMH and my engagement with the anonymous blogger all overlapped. It took all my emotional energy and much of my time across a whole day to read, respond and write my letter, and so I decided I'd leave the blog post till later. Here it is, two weeks later. The Farrelly essay was in effect an attempt to provide a serious comment that would help readers to reflect on childhood and the transition to adulthood, and specifically the way that power is often imbalanced between adults and children. She made some excellent points. But after providing three interesting vignettes on childhood and family life she attempted to take the high moral ground in relation to the Henson affair:

"The Henson affair was resolved by not being resolved. The pictures were returned, no charges laid but viewable by appointment only. For Henson, for his gallerist Ros Oxley and for any artist or gallerist tempted to show any child, ever, the message was Beware! Beware the moral majority, the expectation of niceness in art, the imposition of 'standards' - not of artistry, or craftsmanship, or skill, but of decency. Decency, in art.

Never mind that decency, in all its small-mindedness, is the very anathema of art. Or that art and pornography are virtually opposite cultural forms. Consider for a minute the questions left by the Bill Henson affair about the nature of childhood, of children and of our relationship, as adults, to them."

As one who had objected to Henson I felt I was being unfairly attacked as "small-minded", part of the "moral majority" and so on. Farrelly proceeded to make a number of basic (almost random) points:

• "In Shakespeare's time she (i.e. 15 year old Miley Cyrus - who had been in the news that day) might have been married"
• "We talk as though she's a child being prematurely unnaturally 'sexualised'. "
• "Beware the moral majority"
• "The Oz trial and the Bill Henson affair are Australia's main contribution to obscenity scandal"
  
• The reaction to Henson is based on the "visceral urge to protect innocence"
• "We all want to protect our children.... but how much of our construction of childhood as a fragile walled garden is just that - a construct?"
  

She then moved to a questioning of parents and their motives for wanting to protect their children. She questioned parental motives for protection. She implied that the modern over anxious parent is too concerned with parenting styles, education, nutrition, discipline etc (she has a point here). Children are not perfect she suggested and neither are parents. Where is this going you might ask? It seems that Farrelly was wanting to blame society at large and families in particular for pushing children prematurely into adulthood and never encouraging some young adults to grow up (and of course there is some truth in this). Perhaps her point was badly made and she was trying to say that Henson's work is a commentary on our times.


The frustration with an essay like Farrelly's is that in her endeavour to play to the arts community there is a confusion of liberalism and relativism that leads to a failure on her part to adequately test her own assumptions. On one hand she was acknowledging that childhood and adulthood are different, that childhood innocence should exist, that parents have a role to protect and preserve childhood etc. But at the same time she wanted to promote the relativist argument that childhood is simply a construct anyway; what's all the moral fuss. I haven't the space or the time to do a complete critique of the essay but let me finish with the following quote and one point which I think is telling :

"Hardly surprising, perhaps, that once there (i.e. retreating from the task of parenting), we emit contrary and confusing signals; hyper-parenting, worshipping and yet negotiating. Deciding 18-year-old boys are old enough to die for their country but fifteen-year-old girls are too young even to recognise the power that having curves and pouts suddenly gives them. Turning the family from a hierarchy into a mini-democracy where children, teens and adults have equal status and discipline is no longer imposed but negotiated.

What we do not see, however, is that this perpetual childhood of ours is stolen from our children. Childhood - that particular, magic vision that allows kids to walk under tables, and fly under the radar - relies on being powerless as much as being small; relies on some external, benevolent source of power. We don't see this, because we see all empowerment as good.

So we abrogate. We refuse to exercise proper power over our children, or to recognise that children segue into adulthood by emulating us. We decline to set for them the boundaries or develop in them the skills by which they might securely navigate this process. We build a society obsessed with celebrity, sex and consumption, where advertising ice-cream on the sides of buses evokes oral sex, and then we affect abhorrence at the way our teenagers practise celebrity, sex and consumption.

The costs are high. In indulging our reluctance to play the grown-up, we sacrifice our children on the altar of our own cowardice, shoving them over the top to face an adulthood from which we ourselves shrink."

Stirring words, I wish I'd written some of them. But somehow, Farrelly seems unable to reconcile her own words (with which there is much that I see as true) with her own desire to argue that Henson, gallery owners, art magazine editors and even parents should be free to use images of naked young children beyond critique and accountability. The public, including people of faith and non-faith, professional educators, parents and grandparents, doctors and health workers, social workers, psychologists, police, lawyers, even the Prime Minister of this country, has questioned the wisdom of allowing children as young as 13 years to pose naked for a photographer. Images that are then placed on public display and distributed via the Internet to the world. With one of Farrelly's points I concur - sex has power. Yes there is power that can be exercised through sexuality. Yes, we should "exercise proper power over our children". Yes, we do have a society "obsessed with celebrity, sex and consumption". Yes, young people in the years of puberty may discover their own sexuality and wish to explot it. But given Farrelly's own words, you would hope that she might see a role for others to offer children guidance in this area, beyond simply offering them freedom to choose. That's why some have questioned the use of these images - any civil society, any community, has the right to raise such matters.

The matter of power seems to be of critical importance for Farrelly and so I have three questions about power for her and other apologists for Henson. Who is in control of the power of the 13 year old girl's emerging sexuality that Henson sought to portray? Who was exploiting this emerging sexual power? And whose purposes were most served by its use?

Bill Henson - Part 3

I've written twice previously about the Bill Henson art exhibition that featured photographs of a naked 13 year-old-girl. For overseas readers, this led to much public comment and polarised views on the merits or wrong-doing of his work. Police charges against the artist and gallery followed (Part 1 and Part 2), but recently the charges were droppped. This seems to have encouraged an art magazine to test the boundaries of public acceptability by publishing a photo of a naked 6 year-old on the front cover. The action seems to have been calculated and has sought to promote the view that use of naked photos of children is a legitimate art form.

The picture, taken in 2003 by Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou of her daughter Olympia appeared on the cover of this month's Art Monthly Australia. The edition also has other photos of naked children. The Age art critic Robert Nelson, reports that "Papapetrou's husband and father of Olympia, now 11, said the family had no regrets and the photograph was a great work of art."

I find it incomprehensible that in a civilised society that there are so many people willing to defend the action of a mother who has photographed her 6 year-old daughter naked in varied unnatural poses and has then shared them with the world. The child's father (an art critic) has supported the publication of the photos in the magazine, and has allowed the girl (now 11 years) to front the media cameras to argue the case for such artistic photos.

While the photos might well be seen by some as art, many see it as a case of child exploitation and perhaps abuse. I am saddened and at the same time outraged by the recent developments and would urge public condemnation and government action to tighten laws in this area.

The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has pulled together a collection of recent media reports and information without making any comment. These provide further background and viewpoints.

Bill Henson - Part 2

When I wrote a post about Bill Henson's controversial photographic work and the action by Australian police in closing down his most recent exhibition, it wasn't clear where this would end. In the past week we have seen the police drop all charges and Henson's supporters quietly celebrating the defeat of the "the philistines" who questioned his work. End of story? Well no.

As Miranda Devine writes in her opinion piece "Picture this: society draws the line" in the Sydney Morning Herald (14.6.08), the art community cannot simply conclude that art is beyond question from other interpretive communities, even if they choose to show it to an exclusive and 'safe' group of supporters. Devine notes that the art of Henson is not just being questioned by the police and government censors; nor just blogs like mine that have raised concerns in terms of the rights of children as well as moral and ethical concerns. In recent days a large group of psychologists, social workers and child-protection advocates have raised their concerns in a very public way in the form of an open letter. The group believes that the concern about Henson's work has been sidetracked into a pointless discussion about art versus pornography; when as they and others suggest it is about the protection of children and their developmental inability to give informed consent. The spokesman (Chris Goddard) states:


"We are particularly concerned [by the suggestion] Mr Henson's photographs are in some way so special as to be above the question of consent"

As I pointed out in my previous blog post, no interpretive community (even the art community) can hide behind postmodern notions that art appreciation and how any work is 'read' is all relative. The meaning is not just in the knower (rather than the work), all such meanings or interpretations of art are not simply relative. A photograph of a naked 13 year-old girl might be, in the eyes of some simply art, but it is still a photograph of a real naked 13 year-old girl. Like many others (it would seem), I find his use of such images, and the way that he does it, in the name of art to be inappropriate. I'm pleased that I am not alone. As Devine points out, it seems that:

"....community tolerance for underage exploitation has found its limits".

I'm pleased about this and would hope that the community at large might continue to consider where it draws the line on many issues that affect society. I'd also be keen to continue to encourage others to consider on what basis they make such decisions. I know what my yardstick is for informing my worldview and the choices I make about what is just and unjust, appropriate and inappropriate, right and wrong. It is the teaching of the Bible and the wisdom and truth of God that it communicates.

Was Bill Henson caught out by postmodernism?

In Australia we have just had a major controversy caused by an art exhibition featuring the photographic work of Bill Henson. Henson is a one of our most famous living artists and has gained widespread international acclaim. However, last week the police were called to a gallery where his latest exhibition was to be opened. For non-Australians who read this blog the key details are: Henson has for a long time included photographs of young pubescent children. In his own words he likes to express "..ideas about humanity and vulnerability and our sense of ourselves living inside our bodies and our bodies in space" and has been interested in the transition from childhood to adulthood (amongst other things).

What triggered the confrontation with police was the use of a photograph of a naked 13 year old girl on the invitation to the exhibition opening and the use of some images of the same girl on the gallery's website. Hetty Johnston an activist for Braveheart (an organization fighting against child pornography) contacted the police, the exhibition was shut down, the art removed from the gallery by police and the images removed from the website. The police are still investigating and are expected to lay charges against the artist and gallery.

I haven't written this post to comment on the work itself and have never seen it except via the media in the last week. Nor am I trying to make judgements about the artist or his motives. However, it appears that about one third of the images in the exhibition featured photographs of a young teenage boy and girl in varied poses including one of the girl fully naked with exposed genitals. If this is true then I think that there is good reason for concern.

But for me, what is intriguing about this confrontation has been the way various individuals and groups have responded. For some his work is viewed as pornography while for others it is seen as high art exploring issues that are important. Edmund Capon, Director of the Art Gallery of NSW has described his art this way:

"Henson's images are veritable symphonies of decadence and beauty, of squalor and opulence, of mysterious darkness and ominous light, of quiet obsession and subversive ecstasy."

The Prime Minister described some of the images this way:

"Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids."

Hetty Johnston (Braveheart) commented:

"You can call it anything you want, but at the end of the day, these are images of naked adolescents."

Judy Annear (Senior Curator at the Art gallery of NSW) in defended Henson's work in the Sydney Morning Herald but acknowledged that his 'edgy' work can cause some people to "take a step away" from it. She suggested that:

"In the end it's only a representation. We're not being asked to agree or approve."

Postmodernism asserts that meaning or interpretation varies with the individual, circumstances and time. You can almost hear the postmodern art critic saying ‘the art might be offensive to you, but not for me’. In Annear's words, "it's only an interpretation". Postmodernism shifts the focus from the artist and the work to the viewer and his or her context. In a sense postmodernists would claim that we don’t go to a gallery to discover what an artist has depicted representationally, but rather to experience the artwork and to discover for yourself just what it might mean. The meaning is seen as in the knower not the work, and all such meanings or interpretations are relative.

Of course, while supporters of postmodernism focus on the interpreter they also see others as influencing our meanings. While not commenting specifically about art, Stanley Fish suggests that it is in interpretive communities, rather than any work (whether text, art, film) that meaning and interpretations are produced. In considering the relationship between an interpreter (e.g. a gallery viewer), an interpretive community (e.g. art enthusiasts) and a source of knowledge or interpretation (e.g. photographic art), Fish sees the interpretive community as determinative. And here is the problem for Henson. While the relatively closed community of art critics might well see his work as a “veritable symphon(y) of decadence and beauty”, others outside this limited interpretive community might just see it as pornography and as photographs that are in breach of the law. Non-members of the art community have not been prepared to accept the deconstructionist view that there is no connection between the signifier (e.g. a photo) and the signified (e.g. a naked 13 year old girl). They have asked why was this young girl photographed this way? Is she old enough to give consent? What responsibility did her parents have in this? Could these images be exploited by others?

For many outside the art community, the photos are not a representation, they are a photo of a 'real' 13 year old girl. What’s more, they might assert that the very artistic devices used by Henson (e.g. subtle lighting, poses that appear sexual to many etc) signal that the artist might just intend for the viewer to see the art as concerned with teenage sexuality and hence object to the work on moral and legal grounds. Furthermore, they might just conclude that this is exploitation and perhaps even abuse of children.

I asked the question in the title to this post "Was Bill Henson caught out by postmodernism". The outrage by the arts community is unwarranted in my view. The defence of Henson that I've hard in the media has typically been based on three lines:

* he's one of our greatest artists;
* he's been doing this for 30 years;
* it's art and so should be viewed differently.

None of these arguments have convinced me of anything, nor have they negated the concerns raised by those outside the arts community. There seems to have been long-term acceptance of Henson's work within the arts community, but things went pear-shaped when the gallery did two things. First its used one of the images on the exhibition invitation and sent it outside the tight arts community. Second, it placed some of the images on the Internet opening the images up to the whole world. This permitted new interpretive communities to examine Henson's work and draw different conclusions to the arts community. And this highlights one of the problem with postmodernism, it promotes meaning and interpretation as relative, but its adherents often seem to want to place limits on interpretive possibilities when the viewpoint is at odds with their own.

You can read a Sydney Morning Herald article about the exhibition here.