Maurice O'Riordan's view on nude children as art wrong

AUSTRALIA'S arts community needs to drag itself back into reality.

It might start by showing some intelligence and maturity, but perhaps that is too much to expect if Maurice O'Riordan, editor of the taxpayer-subsidised Art Monthly magazine, is representative of those who wish to be seen as our cultural arbiters. O'Riordan is responsible for putting a fairly innocuous photograph of a naked little girl on the cover of his magazine as a statement against censorship following the furore that erupted over the recent exhibition of photos of nude children taken by artist Bill Henson. Henson's works have long been acknowledged by critics to be edgy, to tease viewers with their sexualisation of pubescent kids captured as they metamorphose from childhood to adolescence. There is no dispute about that, Henson found a niche, just as artists like the late Robert Mapplethorpe, who challenged his audiences with his confronting pictures of homosexuals with objects inserted in their posteriors, found (no pun intended) a niche. Their images may well be artistic, but that doesn't mean they occupy particularly savoury niches. O'Riordan, however, slipped further into the slime and dragged supporters of the arts community with him by his self-acknowledged attempt to "validate nudity and childhood as subjects for art; to surrender to the power of the imagination (in children and adults) and dialogue without crippling them through fear-mongering and repression". This is unadulterated humbug of the first order. He is not alone however, for he was joined in his flaccid argument by Robert Nelson, the art critic father of the little girl whose pictures O'Riordan published. O'Riordan expressed surprise that his actions have been condemned by political leaders from both major parties, saying: "That kind of reaction is not actually addressing the reality." In fact, the sort of criticism that greeted both Henson's work and O'Riordan's publication of Polixeni Papapetrou's photos of her prepubescent daughter Olympia does far more to address reality than recreating photos in the style of Lewis Carroll, creator of Alice in Wonderland. The reality, as anyone acquainted with the sordid world of paedophilia knows, is that there are very demented people out there who do clip advertisements for children's clothing and hide them in their cells to use in fuelling their predatory sexual fantasies. That is the reality. Another reality is that these monsters do more than sit about masturbating like monkeys (please don't bother complaining to me about monkeys' civil rights, either), they actually rape and kill the objects of their fantasies. As a young reporter, I was asked to interview the parents of Blue Mountains schoolgirl Vicki Barton, who was murdered by Alfred Jessop in January 1969, when she was eight. Her scattered bones were found near Faulconbridge several years later and her grieving parents most graciously accommodated me and a photographer on the afternoon that they learned their worst fears had been realised and they would never see their daughter alive again. I will never forget that evening spent in their company. In 1975, Jessop was sentenced to 18 months for assaulting a woman at Parramatta railway station, and while in prison he wrote "love letters" to school girls he met through a newspaper penfriend column. He was arrested in connection with Barton's murder in 1977 on information supplied by his former wife. He was sentenced to life in 1978. The sentencing judge said Jessop was a "continuing threat", a "dangerous psychopath" and a "sexual deviant". His sentence was redetermined under truth-in-sentencing legislation in 1992, which allowed prisoners on life sentences to be given a maximum term. He became eligible for release on December 12, 2003, and the NSW Corrective Services Department yesterday assured me he is no longer in jail. Perhaps he is looking to purchase a copy of Art Monthly today, the art community would no doubt welcome another subscriber in its ranks. For centuries, some in the West have argued Plato's view that young children are naturally sexualised and that is not a bad thing. More recently this view has been embraced by paedophile groups such as the North American Man Boy Love Association, a body which posed as a homosexual organisation sympathetic to the sexual desires of young children. Henson, O'Riordan and Nelson have each given a tacit nod to this slippery philosophy in their works and comments. They appear to have little concept of the value of innocence, the essence of childhood. By melding politics and art they are whittling away the edges of the values which afford some protection to those who are powerless to protect themselves. Society owes it to provide children a safe passage through the age of innocence. Devaluing childhood, making products out of children like Bindi Irwin, putting naked children on front pages of magazines for political purposes, debauches the art community's arguments. There are beautiful drawings of the naked form and there is pornography. Michelangelo used naked forms, his David is a classic of the genre. What we have seen in recent weeks is an arrogance and aloofness from an arts community that cannot find within itself any sympathy for the views of the general community. No other community holds such an elitist view of its own worth. As young Olympia may learn as she grows older and looks back upon her exploitation by a Left-wing clique, you can pick your nose and pick your friends, but you can't pick your parents.