Australia: Labor government backs witch-hunting of photographer Bill Henson

Henson and the gallery owners are now being threatened with prosecution under the federal Crimes Act and state child pornography laws. If charges are laid, they will constitute a gross violation of freedom of artistic expression, and must be vigorously opposed by artists, students and all working people. Hensons photographs, with their ethereal and sensitive depiction of young adolescentssometimes nakedare not remotely pornographic.

Bill Henson, 52, is widely regarded as the countrys most significant artist/photographer. His works appear in major art galleries in Europe and North America, including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the Guggenheim in New York, and he was Australias official representative at the 1995 Venice Biennale, the most important event on the international contemporary arts calendar.

In 2005 more than 115,000 people viewed a major retrospective of his work presented at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). The NGV, which has two of the photographs from the exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery on reserve, describes Hensons work as part of a humanistic tradition which has explored the body at all ages and in all its forms. Collections of his work are also held at the National Gallery of Australia and the High Court of Australia, both in Canberra.