Opinion: Should All Pictures of Nude Children be Called Porn, Even When It’s Considered Art?

A naked child. A picture. Is it child porn or art? That is a debate going on now over the latest cover of Australia’s leading art journal, Art Monthly.

The cover features Olympia Nelson, a child of six posing on a rock with white cliffs in the background. Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou who also is the child’s mother took the nude photo. Critics say that the photos and the magazine itself was clearly designed to provoke. If that was their goal they succeeded it. Art Monthly has lost public funding and new protocols on children in art have been drawn up.

The child staring out from the cover of Art Monthly is now 11, the photo itself is five years old. She likes the picture that her mother took of her.

“I was really, really offended by what Kevin Rudd said about this picture. It is one of my favourites – if not my favourite – photo my mum has ever taken of me.”

What Kevin Rudd said about the picture is:

“I can’t stand that stuff… We are talking about the innocence of little children here. A little child cannot answer for themselves about whether they wish to be depicted in this way.”

Australia has been debating about children in art for some time. In May Bill Henson’s collection of photographs depicting naked adolescents were seized from a Sydney gallery. Quietly abandoning the case weeks later no charges were brought against either Henson nor the gallery and the display went back up within weeks.

Getting down to brass tacks is Hetty Johnston. She is a child protection activist who understands at times art may collide with other issues.

“When [art and pornography] collide, we have to err with the children. We need to put a line in the sand – because clearly some of those in the arts world can’t – and say this is a no-go zone.”

There are two sides to this story. One side views any type of art that features a naked child should be considered pornography. The other side says if the art is not intended to titillate then it should not fall under pornographic classification.

There is also a difference between an art gallery and posting nude pictures of children on the Internet.

The police now have to deal with the fall out.

Once again, the matter looks likely to end up in the hands of police, thanks to the Opposition leader Brendan Nelson, who has asked officers to investigate. He said: “These people with Art Monthly have sought to… send a two-fingered salute to the rest of the country about the controversy surrounding Bill Henson’s photography. I think it is time for us to take a stand.”

Of course this is nothing new nor is it only an issue in Australia. Censorship is alive and well and has been for as long as art and literature has been around. Every year there are lists of classic books that have been banned from libraries. In the past James Joyce’s Ulysses, James Baldwin’s Another Country, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Norman Mailer’s The Naked And The Dead and, naturally, D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover have all dealt with those who deem them unsuitable for the masses.

I remember the screaming when a young Brooke Shields cooed that nothing came between her and her Calvin’s.

Is it child porn?

For some it could be. For others though it can be considered art. Where is the line?

The debate will continue until the end of time over what is right and wrong when it comes to children in art.

Does it mean when we take pictures of our babies taking a bath we’re pornographers? In the end it could come to that. And that would be a shame.

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