But the fact of the matter is that the parents did give their consent and still support Hensen's work. It was a private exhibition where the work was not for public sale, so the range of those people who were likely to see the artwork in the first place was severely limited. And why is it that we have become such a puritant society that naked means sexual?
As for the age of the subjects: I remember being eighteen and I did more stupid things than I did when I was 12, which were far worse - probably because when I was younger I didn't explore the same urges in a safer environment.
If we compare Anne Geddies work - which my mother has called pornography for years, and they fundamentally disgust her - which is photos of babies tarted up in all sorts of ways which we can freely buy postcards, greeting cards and prints of everywhere. This on the other hand was nothing but the subject, exploring themes of confusion and identity crisis, done, in my opinion, extremely well. There is implicit trust, and openness in the shot. It is my opinion if 12 year olds are treated with respect and generally interacted with as an adult, more often than not they will interact as adults too...
We've become a society where 18 is the 'safe' age for everything, but what does that mean? I know people who at 22 still should not be allowed to own a bank account, or drive, or make life decissions that effect not only themselves, but the rest of the community - on the other hand, I know some extremely estute 14 year olds - and I know everything in between too. To say 'let kids just be kids' is to insinuate by the time we turn 18 we should have never watched television, never held a job, and generally have lived extremely sheltered lives - but by the stage we do such things there is an extreme biological urge to break free of the family structure and assert your own independence - which generally occurs at the onset of puberty. To deny this urge and insist that adolescents are ignorant and foolish is just as unrealistic as saying we should only let them be children... not so long ago (I put it at 50 years ago) it was generally thought childhood ended at about 14, and there was a time where there was no such thing as childhood...
And, how dare we as a society suggest that the parents are so completely out of their own capacity to make that decision in the first place? I personally think parents who put their children in pageants should be shaken, and hard. Same deal with child models - generally speaking. But. It's those people's choice, not their child's - again, stupid thing about consent in our society. In my view, if given the three options, Hensen's work is the least offensive to or manipulative of the girl and boy's innocense.
And it is more than an issue of consent, when a man who has been incredibly well respected for creating the same art for a good many years is suddenly accused of not only pornography, but paedaphilia... it strikes me as political burning man, to show the community that we are doing something against those who will harm our children, just like the absurd terrorist laws - and I don't believe that too many people are blind enough to see this as anything more.
Frankly, although I don't think that Anne Geddes' work is kiddieporn, I have to agree with your mother on that one. A society that thinks babies in flowerpots or dressed as bumblebees is cute is fundamentally screwed up.
I think that you're so caught up in moral outrage here that you are refusing to see that the other side does actually have a valid point to make - whether you agree or not, children are children, and as someone who works with children of the age of Henson's subjects on a daily basis, I can tell you that yes, most of them ARE ignorant of consequences, and most of them ARE foolish. Yes, there are some kids of twelve or thirteen who are very mature for their ages, but most are not. Let's face it, the circles that you travel in are hardly ordinary, are they?
In addition, I think that given the people I meet through my job, who are a reasonable subset of society, I can also say with a reasonable degree of confidence that most parents don't know what they are doing. Everyone is an expert until they have kids. If a parent is stupid enough to exploit their child through pageantry or modelling or other such atrocities, then we can not assume that the parents of these children were not the same. Where are the shots involving the girl's mother naked? That's right, there aren't any, and I can't think of a better way to emphasise the divide between the childhood desire to be Mummy's little darling and the adolescent desire to distance oneself than an image with both mother and child in it. Frankly, I can't see any difference between pageants, modelling for Pumpkin Patch or modelling for artworks like these. It's all exploitation.
There is a Henson in the National Gallery, but this one is taken from behind. You can't see anything. You can't even tell if the child is male or female. That is why nobody has objected to it - it is art, real art, and one can study it and appreciate it without wondering if you would be arrested for downloading an identical image.
Your viewpoint on this is odd, and your arguments are odder. I don't see how not letting children watch TV or get part-time jobs is 'letting kids be kids' - there is a considerable difference between letting kids do the things that most of their peers do, and allowing a man to take photographs of them while they are naked. I suppose I'm just a little more concerned about psychological consequences, given that I work with some pretty messed up kids. Maybe it's because I did things at twelve that still give me the shivers with shame, and I'm now twenty four. There are plenty of people to blame here - parents, the media for creating a storm in a teacup, a man who yes, was well known and respected crossing a boundary for the sole purpose of creating controversy, which has now come back to bite him in the arse.
I'm not going to argue this anymore, because firstly, you're not going to be convinced by anything I have said, as I am not convinced by anything you have said. I'm not a puritan, I'm a serious hobby photographer and art lover, and I'm a teacher who works with children of this age, so whether you believe it or not, I am in a far better position to say 'what kids are like'. Enough now.
As for the age of the subjects: I remember being eighteen and I did more stupid things than I did when I was 12, which were far worse - probably because when I was younger I didn't explore the same urges in a safer environment.
If we compare Anne Geddies work - which my mother has called pornography for years, and they fundamentally disgust her - which is photos of babies tarted up in all sorts of ways which we can freely buy postcards, greeting cards and prints of everywhere. This on the other hand was nothing but the subject, exploring themes of confusion and identity crisis, done, in my opinion, extremely well. There is implicit trust, and openness in the shot. It is my opinion if 12 year olds are treated with respect and generally interacted with as an adult, more often than not they will interact as adults too...
We've become a society where 18 is the 'safe' age for everything, but what does that mean? I know people who at 22 still should not be allowed to own a bank account, or drive, or make life decissions that effect not only themselves, but the rest of the community - on the other hand, I know some extremely estute 14 year olds - and I know everything in between too. To say 'let kids just be kids' is to insinuate by the time we turn 18 we should have never watched television, never held a job, and generally have lived extremely sheltered lives - but by the stage we do such things there is an extreme biological urge to break free of the family structure and assert your own independence - which generally occurs at the onset of puberty. To deny this urge and insist that adolescents are ignorant and foolish is just as unrealistic as saying we should only let them be children... not so long ago (I put it at 50 years ago) it was generally thought childhood ended at about 14, and there was a time where there was no such thing as childhood...
And, how dare we as a society suggest that the parents are so completely out of their own capacity to make that decision in the first place? I personally think parents who put their children in pageants should be shaken, and hard. Same deal with child models - generally speaking. But. It's those people's choice, not their child's - again, stupid thing about consent in our society. In my view, if given the three options, Hensen's work is the least offensive to or manipulative of the girl and boy's innocense.
And it is more than an issue of consent, when a man who has been incredibly well respected for creating the same art for a good many years is suddenly accused of not only pornography, but paedaphilia... it strikes me as political burning man, to show the community that we are doing something against those who will harm our children, just like the absurd terrorist laws - and I don't believe that too many people are blind enough to see this as anything more.
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I think that you're so caught up in moral outrage here that you are refusing to see that the other side does actually have a valid point to make - whether you agree or not, children are children, and as someone who works with children of the age of Henson's subjects on a daily basis, I can tell you that yes, most of them ARE ignorant of consequences, and most of them ARE foolish. Yes, there are some kids of twelve or thirteen who are very mature for their ages, but most are not. Let's face it, the circles that you travel in are hardly ordinary, are they?
In addition, I think that given the people I meet through my job, who are a reasonable subset of society, I can also say with a reasonable degree of confidence that most parents don't know what they are doing. Everyone is an expert until they have kids. If a parent is stupid enough to exploit their child through pageantry or modelling or other such atrocities, then we can not assume that the parents of these children were not the same. Where are the shots involving the girl's mother naked? That's right, there aren't any, and I can't think of a better way to emphasise the divide between the childhood desire to be Mummy's little darling and the adolescent desire to distance oneself than an image with both mother and child in it. Frankly, I can't see any difference between pageants, modelling for Pumpkin Patch or modelling for artworks like these. It's all exploitation.
There is a Henson in the National Gallery, but this one is taken from behind. You can't see anything. You can't even tell if the child is male or female. That is why nobody has objected to it - it is art, real art, and one can study it and appreciate it without wondering if you would be arrested for downloading an identical image.
Your viewpoint on this is odd, and your arguments are odder. I don't see how not letting children watch TV or get part-time jobs is 'letting kids be kids' - there is a considerable difference between letting kids do the things that most of their peers do, and allowing a man to take photographs of them while they are naked. I suppose I'm just a little more concerned about psychological consequences, given that I work with some pretty messed up kids. Maybe it's because I did things at twelve that still give me the shivers with shame, and I'm now twenty four. There are plenty of people to blame here - parents, the media for creating a storm in a teacup, a man who yes, was well known and respected crossing a boundary for the sole purpose of creating controversy, which has now come back to bite him in the arse.
I'm not going to argue this anymore, because firstly, you're not going to be convinced by anything I have said, as I am not convinced by anything you have said. I'm not a puritan, I'm a serious hobby photographer and art lover, and I'm a teacher who works with children of this age, so whether you believe it or not, I am in a far better position to say 'what kids are like'. Enough now.
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