The debate about children in art begins again

thecatsgrin · Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 2181 Location: Gippsland

And those cats and dogs on the pet food cans , bags and boxes.... they are all nude.
And those cats are always flashing their 3rd eye!!
Pornographic for sure... all those people into beastiality will be getting their jollys at the expence of our pets....

thecatsgrin · Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 2181 Location: Gippsland

The newspaper article mentions another thing to cause alarm, that the work will be judged on artistic merit, and that the person is an artist... great... now the formal education bit will come in to it...

gggraph

Stefan Maguran

No surprises there, Grant - it is, after all the rust bucket transformed in the backwater of Australia.

thecatsgrin · Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 2181 Location: Gippsland

Nishart · Joined: 29 Mar 2007 Posts: 116 Location: Victoria

I abhor paedophiles actions. They destroy children's lives & families lives and in some cases those children destroy others lives. It is obvious they become good at manipulating people and circumstance to suit themselves.

Without going into all arguments above. I should state that i agree that there needs to be a sensible balance between laws, artists and society.

But how do you stop a paedophile manipulating people so they can hide behind artistic merit?

I dont profess that the above laws are perfect and they present numerous minefields but what do you suggest to do to stop these people? (I don’t mean linch them)

These people give artists a bad name. What would you suggest to stop these people mudding artists good name?

We get up in arms when we hear an underage girl (even mature age) that has been indecently abused/used/assaulted at the hands of a dodgy photographer in the fashion industry. We champion the victims rights. As artists how are we going to stand up for those children that are actually used and abused by a paedophile sheltering under the heading “artistic merit”?

nellmartin652 · Joined: 03 Apr 2010 Posts: 2

I think the mind of an Artist can't read by general people like us.So,We do not have no criticize or ignore them.

Dug · Joined: 04 Jul 2005 Posts: 4837 Location: Gippsland

Just a comment:

When my son was working as a police officer he was involved in a raid on a pedophile group , he said the 2 things that amazed and disgusted him.

One was the money involved and profile of those involved with the group. Many suspects were notable members of society and involved in the legal profession itself this made it almost impossible to gain a conviction.

The other was the sheer quality of the material they discovered, he said that the printing quality of the magazines and the photography was on a par with any top line fashion magazine. The content was abominable but the quality and money that must have been involved astounded him.

He had always associated porn with cheap grotty porno mags these were high class glossy publications.

Some years later I know of a business deal between a notable asian businessman and owner of a large publishing firm amongst other businesses and a large Australian government funded organization.

There was much made of the joint venture and cooperation, ( I was involved in the publicity photos ) All of a sudden the deal was dropped and just disappeared totally. It turned out that the publishing arm of his business was involved in printing and distributing the same high class child pornography.

=================================

I think what I am saying ( and I am thinking about this as I write ) is that the quality of the images produced and the obvious style of the publications or work do not cover for obvious abuse of children.

If children are being harmed by the production of any image then it should be pretty obvious to any objective observer.

Anything that causes harm especially to the innocent or defenseless is an obvious crime.

Nishart · Joined: 29 Mar 2007 Posts: 116 Location: Victoria

Look i know my comment above might seem harsh.

I guess all i am trying to say is lets come up with some positive solutions to present to government to help protect children. Systems and/or ideas that are practical & sensible in their approach for everyone rather than just winging about it.

Obviously $500 just to check artwork will affect the price of artwork, it will make it unaffordable for the hobby artists. It opens up minefields regarding all other creative areas of artwork, craftwork, education, etcetcetcetc.

What positive solutions can anyone think of, to help suggest ways to protect the generally good reputation of artists out there?

How would we like to see our industry protected?

How do we want to show, as artists, that we want to provide positive proactive solutions, in identifying questionable/borderline grey areas in regards to questionable artwork content involving children?

Can we come up with some better ideas on how to deal with this topic that can provide positive solutions legally for protection of children in relation to artwork content involving kids.

thecatsgrin · Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 2181 Location: Gippsland

Guilty until proven innocent sucks....
Just find the real predators. Simplistic , and almost as likely to not work.

Nishart · Joined: 29 Mar 2007 Posts: 116 Location: Victoria

Yeh it does suck.
There has got to be a more positive way to not only give artists a fair go but to also provide ways to stop offenders finding this issue of "artistic merit" as a legal loophole without going down the track of political correctness madness (ie finding the right balance).