News that the Tate gallery was removing the work of a leading artist from public view following his conviction for child sex offences made headlines globally a week ago. The sense of shock in the art world was palpable following the downfall of renowned painter and photographer Graham Ovenden, whose sensuous images of prepubescent girls have been critically acclaimed but also the subject of suspicious police attention for decades.
No wonder the arty types are stunned: suddenly, they find themselves rudely demoted by the Tate’s implicit acknowledgment that when push comes to shove the police and the courts are the only important art critics in the business. They thought Ovenden’s work was high art, but suddenly they find to their embarrassment and confusion that, no, it is low pornography.
There has been, to be sure, a great deal of agonised resistance to this stark revisionism in recent days. The cultural commentariat have pondered parallels: is the music of Wagner less great because the man himself was a notorious racist and hero of the Nazis? Dig deep enough and you might well find a bit of a scumbag behind most of the world’s significant cultural output: being troubled, unbalanced, difficult, even downright immoral and wicked frequently goes hand in hand with seeing the world in new and significant ways, and rendering those perceptions artistically.
Well, anyway, that’s what I think. And if the plods can have a view worth listening to, why shouldn’t Heretic TOC? So, in the time honoured manner of the opinionated philistine, I hereby announce that I don’t know much about art but I know what I like: porn!
Yes, I know, we’re not supposed to say that, but I rather suspect some of Ovenden’s work really is porn, and none the worse for that, despite all the subtle arty farty stuff said in its defence, including by the artist himself. Take this for instance, which was Ovenden writing about his book States of Grace many years ago after it had been seized by US Customs:
“Symbolically speaking, we are dealing with feelings of the heart and the human yearning for Edenic simplicity – a state of grace, as it were, where there is neither sin nor corruption. The apple has yet to be eaten. The subject, of course, symbolizes this state in the photograph. At the same time, we see that the attainment of Eden is no easy task: the vulnerability of the child suggests, or rather confirms, the fragility of Eden, as well as its fleeting nature in the face of the concerns of the adult world and the demands of modernity.”
Yeah, right. Or, as Ovenden might have said to a fellow Loli-lover, “Gorgeous, isn’t she? I do have some naughtier ones, if you’re interested.”
If my speculation here is correct (and it is only speculation so sorry, Graham, if all your art is actually “pure”), then the question arises as to whether his porn is good porn. The public debate in the newspaper columns and the blogs appears to have ignored this possibility entirely, or have defined it out of existence. In other words, they have been saying if it is porn it cannot be art.
What nonsense! Look no further than the Wikipedia entry on Erotic art and you will find entries that are highly accomplished by any standards (not just mine) and also downright pornographic rather than just subtly erotic. Paedophilic porn can also be excellent art, as the Japanese, especially, have shown with their amazing manga – alas now no longer legally accessible in the UK following section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
For another view, by Heretic TOC commentator Peter Hooper, see Children in art, have they become one of today’s problems?
Footnote: Today’s big news is the death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Heretic TOC will not be shedding tears over her departure but she did at least have the great merit of visionary leadership, unlike today’s focus group politicians, who don’t know what to think until a largely ignorant, irrational and bigoted electorate tells them.
A bit of research reveals that Ovenden is far from the only contemporary photographer to have been in trouble for pics of underage female nudity. Bill Henson, David Hamilton and Jock Sturges have all had legal difficulties at some point for photographing naked young girls. Henson’s troublesome snaps were of young teenagers; Hamilton’s of preteens and young teens, all pubescent or immediately postpubescent; Sturges’s of prepubescent, pubescent and immediately postpubescent girls, as well as the occasional prepubescent boy.
According to the disconcertingly dense mass of text I found here: http://www.photosig.com/go/forums/read?id=146915 Hamilton’s longtime wife was once a thirteen-year-old model of his, and Sturges has admitted a sexual relationship at age twenty-eight with a fourteen-year-old girl, Jennifer Montgomery, whose boarding-school dorm counselor he was. Montgomery is now of the opinion that the relationship damaged her, but has said “it’s not black and white” and her autobiographical film ‘Art for Teachers of Children’ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112393/) shows her making the first move.
Interestingly, I think (correct me if I’m wrong) that there was less of a fuss over Sally Mann’s book of photos of twelve-year-old girls who were no relation to her than over her photos of her three young (under ten) children.
Here: http://weeklywire.com/ww/04-20-98/boston_feature_1.html is an interview with Sturges. He has some good-sense things to say: that humans are sexual from birth, that a high age of consent and a climate of shame around sexuality prevent good sex education and make children who actually have been sexually abused reluctant to come forward. He also counters possible claims of ‘objectification’ by saying, “People who make pinup photographs don’t care who the woman is … My ambition is that you look at [my] pictures and realize what complex, fascinating, interesting people every single one of my subjects is.” That might sound like a load of self-serving rubbish, but having read more about the guy I don’t think it is. His likes to take nude pictures of people who already live a naturist lifestyle and so are comfortable with nudity; he has sometimes photographed girls together with their mothers; he has long-standing professional relationships with some of his models, girls-now-women whom he has photographed from toddlerhood or earlier up well into the thirties.
Allow me finally to draw everyone’s attention to this interesting fact: the ones who set the FBI on Sturges were not ‘feminazis’ but the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. They don’t seem to care for David Hamilton’s work either.
I think you’re right. V. informative post, A. Thanks.
Thanks for the thanks! I forgot to mention this Guardian article http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2005/jun/23/photography.art , in which we read:
“Hamilton’s photographs have long been at the forefront of the ‘is it art or pornography?’ debate. Glenn Holland, spokesman for the 71-year-old photographer, who lives in St Tropez, said: ‘We are deeply saddened and disappointed by this, as David is one of the most successful art photographers the world has ever known. His books have sold millions.’ ”
Why so successful? Could it possibly be because lots and lots of people like looking at photos of naked young girls?
I just looked up the Amazon.com reviews for ‘The Age of Innocence’, the book mentioned in that Guardian link. Some of the comments are wonderful — surprising, thoughtful and very encouraging, and an excellent argument for a more relaxed view of nude photography. I hope you won’t mind if I quote extensively. Feel free to trim.
One reviewer:
“I have two daughters, and I consider them to be the most perfect works of art that ever existed. It is my life’s goal to try and capture their perfection with a camera. I look for every new look, gesture, attitude as they grow and develop. … some of [Hamilton’s] photos show these young girls posing to purposely display their sexuality. This is exciting in a picture of a full-grown woman, but disturbing in this book. It is difficult for me to look at some of these girls, posed so provocatively, and not feel a sexual longing. As the father of two young girls, this bothers me a lot.
“I also own ‘Radiant Identities’ by Jock Sturges. Sturges also uses young female models as subjects. However, at no time does he ever pose his models in a sexually suggestive manner. Without exception I would be proud to see my own children pose for him, as I know that they would be treated with respect and dignity. Which is not to say that Hamilton’s models weren’t. It’s just that I was very disturbed by some of what I saw.”
Another reviewer:
“I’m a devout Christian, and when I first heard on a Christian talk radio show that I listen to that Amazon.com was peddling child pornography, it raised my ire. I went home, and, as instructed by the radio talk show host, began to write an angry threatening letter to Amazon.com. My teenage daughter who I love and cherish in spite of our admit generational gap issues, asked me why I was writing a critical letter about a title I had never read. Well — sometimes us older folks need to listen to our children. I put the letter on hold, and agreed to take a look at the book. While I didn’t go out of my way to find it, I happened upon it at a bookstore the following day. And I have to admit — this is NOT pornography at all. The poses of these beautiful young women is not at all provocative or seductive or arousing. This is art that shows the beautiful body that the Lord created. I don’t understand the criticism, and am truly sorry that I nearly sent off an ignorant letter.”
A third:
[SNIPPED. TOC adds: A., you said “Feel free to trim.” Thanks for your sensitivity to the length issue. I am going to cut for several reasons, one of which is that straightforward quotes from an available source can easily be reached by those who want to. One, or at most two, will usually be sufficient to illustrate any point that needs immediately to be made. Also, as the moderator, I feel obliged to read every word of all comments carefully: I am happy to do this in respect of readers’ comments insofar as is practical lengthwise, but multiple quotes put a strain on one’s time. As the About page indicates, I would like all comments to be succinct. However, that “rule” tends to be honoured in the breach quite a lot because some of the longer comments are excellent, including your own — and may even end up as a guest blog! Others are rambling and repetitive though, and I have to be tough with those. You may be surprised to learn that even short posts are quite often rejected on the grounds of being repetitive! This occurs when the author submits much the same post on many occasions.]
I keep coming back to this argument, that long before ‘erotic’ the nude body – children’s and adult’s alike – is the way we ‘are’. It is clothing and adornment that are the artifact.
The whole of the counter-argument is nothing more than rejection of our being human, our humanity, and invention of something else again that has yet to be determined, and clarified, and rendered sensible. The post-war counter-culture is and was only ever an effort to restore our humanity in the face of the excesses of the Cold war and Vietnam era military-industrial complex.
So, for me, I remain here at first base and shall continue to do so until somebody comes up with good reason to believe in their often bizarre and untenable constructs over our simple is-ness; our essential nature as human beings.
David Hamilton, Jock Sturgess, Will McBride, Sally Mann, Bill Henson, and another Australian Sandy Edwards as further example, provide not merely ‘art’ but commentary on various aspects of the human condition. Mann especially concerns herself with its transience, while Henson highlights coming-of-age transitions against degraded industrial backgrounds. McBride of course focused unambiguously on war and its aftermath; on holocaust.
Obsession with children and nudity, with prepubescent pee-pees and pussies, quite misses the point, when the particular focus of attention is not on sex or sexuality or even genitalia but vulnerability and innocence, of emergence and becoming. So we can see their genitals, so bloody what?
Graham Ovenden’s girl model and Edwards’ Gillian Mears, alike express shock and dismay that years after the fact, after years of real pride in the sheer beauty and thoughtfulness of their childhood images and portraits, somebody somewhere comes out to say they are obscene.
I’ve had boys in the house on the verge of puberty, the first among them to exhibit pubic hair and fluff on the top lip when they are especially striking, ask exactly that question and for precisely the same reason – so bloody what? It is they who are most offended that anyone might say there is something wrong with them, or that it might be wrong for others to know how they are during that phase in their life.
So some of them in the process, like the rest of us, enjoy intimacy with people we are close to from time to time. Again, so bloody what?
On Wikipedia we find this:
“A hearing before Magistrate Zachary Carter was held on May 28, 1992, attended by the subject depicted in the allegedly offending image, then 18 years of age, and eminent photo-historian and critic, A. D. Coleman. Both witnesses were prepared to testify and proferred written statements. The subject of the image on page 54 said:
‘I have known Graham Ovenden as a family friend for fourteen years – since I was four years old. I have modeled for Graham on numerous occasions – in fact, too numerous to count – for both his photographs and paintings. I have modeled for him both clothed and fully nude, both alone and with other children…. The portrait which the United States has charged as indecent is a portrait of me as I was eight years ago. I am not acting in a sexual way in the picture and Graham never asked me to sexual or treated me as a sexual object. The accusation that the image is “obscene” is, to me, an accusation that I am “obscene”, something to which I take offense.’ ”
Surely, the views of that former ten-year-old girl, who had become an articulate young woman of eighteen, are the only ones which should count. No victim, no crime.
Hardly fair that you would accuse Ovenden with a spurious, unfounded “Or, as Ovenden might have said to a fellow Loli-lover, ‘Gorgeous, isn’t she? I do have some naughtier ones, if you’re interested.’” There has never been another side to Ovenden’s photography. The 3 images for which he was convicted were the only ones that the police could find to “get” him on (and then only in mid-trial, after the prosecution had to withdraw actual sex charges that were denied by the “victims” and the judge asked whether they didn’t have some other charges that could be brought in their place). 2 of the images were never even printed by Ovenden, let alone published. (The police printed them.) The third image was printed by Ovenden for his own album of work, but never distributed or shown. None of them, in any case, is “porn.”
As far as Ovenden’s non-photographic art goes, there also is no “porn” side. If you want to judge him as a pornographer, Ovenden is a total failure. It’s just not what his work is about. In the handful of “erotic” drawings that he has produced over the years, there is a darkness that doesn’t really admit much, if any, masturbatory contemplation. The work doesn’t celebrate desire, but loss. It proposes no sexual paradise. Nor does it have any of the leer, which can be quite delightful, of even the darkest lolicon, such as work by Hikari Hayashibara, Machida Hiraku or Taro Ihi of Fractal Underground Studio (who is perhaps the most artistic of all the lolicon artists). Even Ovenden’s “Aspects of Lolita” aquatint series, which is among the work that the Tate took down, is quiet and contemplative, far more about contemplating Lolita and her moods than in examining Humbert Humbert’s torrid desires for her.
I plead guilty as charged, Your Honour. My suggestion was highly speculative as I admitted in the blog itself, even adding an apology in case I was wrong. In further mitigation, there was no malice in it; on the contrary, I wish him well. Also, mere speculation can hardly damage Ovenden’s reputation any more than it has been by the verdicts, nor will it affect the sentence handed down. As for Otto’s comments about Ovenden’s art, including the comparison with some Japanese artists, I can only say they are interesting and seem well-informed. So thanks for this contribution.
And we have Kenneth Lanning of the FBI who is on record as saying: “All child pornography documents the sexual abuse and exploitation of a child. Viewing child pornography, or even possessing child pornography, is tantamount to committing the abuse yourself. The abuse of the child continues each time the images are viewed or exchanged. Indeed, children are now being harmed by virtual abuse.” So Mr Lanning and other tyrannical sex abuse industry zealots, if child pornography includes any image of a child without clothes, what am I to do when I visit my local and legal naturist beach? Should I go about blindfolded? Does your concept of child pornography extend to painted images of naked children too? Art galleries abound with naked cherubs unselfconsciously flaunting their small but perfectly formed genitalia for all to admire, for example: ninety-one delightful penis-bearing cherubs in the Berlin Gemälde Art Gallery alone. Should I wear a blindfold when I visit art galleries too?
No person has the right to tell me what I can and cannot see with my eyes. It is none of anyone’s damn business! Naked children are neither obscene nor indecent, they are beautiful. As a confirmed heretic, no boy can ever be naked enough. Anyone who cannot view a naked child without being disgusted must surely have a phobia or some kind of disorder. The real perversion isn’t nudity, it’s the fear and loathing of it. That such natural activity is regarded as child pornography documenting sexual abuse that solely involves victim and perpetrator, underlines just how corrupt the law has become in this area, reflecting as it does, society’s decision that for some moral consideration it has the right to outlaw a particular human impulse or human desire, in the absence of any rational debate. Society’s obsession with sexual and sexualized children – a connection forged by our culture and basic to it – is so intense, society feels obliged to displace, disguise and deny it, pretending all the while to protect innocence whilst all the time exploiting it to the hilt via fashion, film and literature; further evidence, if any were needed, of society’s hypocritical double standard.
‘Child pornography’ is used because some people have a need to look at it. This need and its satisfaction will not be extinguished by prohibitions any more than homosexuality was cured by chemical castration, or any more than drugs were eliminated in the trillion dollar, fifty year war on drugs. Human desires are largely indifferent to fines.
I am old enough to remember the child pornography that was freely sold in the 70’s and how amused the involved children looked.
Bearing this in mind, it is not difficult to understand the real reason why people today have been so stubbornly denied access to this kind of material. As we know from dictatorships, limiting the access to information about something allows ignorance to flourish and misrepresentation to go unchallenged.
Atropos, you are being far too logical — and reasonable!
Ha! I like it ;o) Dare not be too unreasonable here on this wonderful blog, eh? As for logical … “But they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical.” Guilty as charged your honour!
Here you are again, doing what you do best — informing, raising questions and provoking thought. Of course we agree that in a free society (our ideal though obviously not our reality) it is not the legitimate business of the state to dictate what is permitted and not permitted in art, literature or philosophy. And we agree that removing Ovenden from the Tate is an atrocity. I also agree with you that “being troubled, unbalanced, difficult, even downright immoral and wicked frequently goes hand in hand with seeing the world in new and significant ways, and rendering those perceptions artistically.” Even so I question the idea that aesthetics is the only criterion by which we should judge art (which I suspect is your position.) That makes art harmless. Which I think its not. We can, let me suggest, evaluate art by three criteria: 1. aesthetic interest, 2. truthfulness and 3. moral vision. Ovenden scores very high on all three counts, in my judgment. Even his worst critics would probably concede the aesthetic interest. On truthfulness he also scores high — and this is precisely why the puritans hate him. He portrays pubescent girls as both erotically charged and as erotically exciting to the viewer. And that’s true. They are. But puritans do not wish to acknowledge how exciting people on the cusp between childhood and adulthood are. And implicit in this is the vision that we should incorporate this fact in our moral reasoning. Which I think is also valid.
[TOC: Thanks for the appreciation, and for a really high quality substantive comment: I hope to come back to this.]
Love of art epitomizes subjectivity! Who said that? I did…
I have no knowledge of Ovenden’s work, but if it involves nudity, the moral conservatives of this foul world will be instantly out of control. To them, nudity is the same as sex. How the hell do they get into the shower without “abusing” themselves? M T-W.
(This is a repost of my comment on Peter’s blog, http://takearisknz.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/chidren-in-art-have-they-become-one-of-todays-problems/#comments)
We are well on our way to being able to enjoy only “approved” or “official” art, or work of “approved or “official” artists. Will we now examine the pasts of every artist to make sure his work is acceptable?
With a lifetime of artistic production, much of which portrays girls in myriad ways (including nude) and contexts, Ovenden may well have had an attraction to pubescent females. As such, one must wonder if Ovenden is another example of what Father of Sexology John Money denominated as “pedophilic genius,” the phenomenon by which one’s masterpieces are inspired by one’s love of children.
Is there any doubt that had the Rev. Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland) taken his abundance of nude photographs of Alice Liddell today he would be branded and convicted of indecency? In that case does the world need to be deprived of his literary masterpieces that have so entertained us as children for many generations now? I maintain that the harm to the world and its children from the loss of Alice in Wonderland would be far greater than the “damage” (if any at all) from a single subject being photographed nude.
Finally, isn’t the latter assumption untested anyway? Just where is the evidence for the idea that nude photography is somehow damaging?
What a sad day for art, and us all.
Yes, a sad day indeed! Yet, for the moral-reactionary cretins, this is a day of glory. For them, children are ciphers — without feelings or curiosity or love — or anything else that matters in human discourse. In their sphere, a picture of a nude child is attack upon that child; and all other children, by inference.
In the case of statutory rape in the US, the child cannot consent — and the extension of that is that a child may not pose naked — because a child cannot consent to take part in such an immoral act! What nonsense! M T-W.
This matter is globally serious in the extreme; at the core reason for my involvement in these matters, and I feel they should be being discussed seriously.
in May 2008, while I was yet awaiting trial myself, the Australian photographer Bill Henson had work seized from a Sydney gallery following complaints by the same Hetty Johnston whose ‘Bravehearts’ vigilante organisation came after me too, an anthropologist investigating their activities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Henson
http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/
http://www.crikey.com.au/2008/05/26/barns-henson-a-victim-of-abuse-of-process/
It would help a very great deal were people all round to refrain from labelling, then appropriating and mobilising to their own cause, the ordinary legitimate work of those who deal routinely with children, and child nudity and sexuality.
When I speak of normalisation, what I do mean is a cultural revival that includes art and enlightenment, though I grant there are people still who view the world through a very grubby lens.
That’s what lies at the very heart of the problem needing to be addressed here.
Hey! What are you talking about Ovenden for? Everyone knows you’re a boy-lover! (Oops)
Well, my friends now know what to put on my grave-stone – “He was a Heretic TOC commentator”. Oh, to be remembered! Your frank writing style is valued Tom.