Saw this in Kings Park today. At first I thought these women’s genitals had been very poorly rendered by the artist, until I realised that they had been added later by “amateur” craftsmen. That’s the problem with limestone, you can carve it with a twig. For example…
…it toook only three minutes to create this bum hole, the way a boy scout starts a fire with a rotating stick. Or so I’ve heard.
And wasn’t it nice to have a quality sculpture unveiled by The Lord Mayor in Howard street this week. The unveiling was delayed over all the Bill Henson controvery. I’m not sure why…
perhaps it was this rendering of a 9 year old’s? In any case, this sculpture is not worst in TWOP books. I like it.
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Why?
Just like Bill Henson’s work, this too is child porn.
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margeryx @ 8:45 am
Your sexual hang-ups are showing.
Whilst sexual abuse of any person, especially those unable to adequately defend themselves, is totally abhorrent, the simple act of nudity, or it’s depiction in any art form, is just that.
Describing it as pornography reveals more about the objector than the object.
Innocence is in the eye of the beholder.
Beware of the beam in your own.
It might be worth noting that the sculptor was an eminent lady artist who made the original some 70 years ago, that the model had kept the original plasterwork in her personal possession until recently, and that she gifted the work to the City of Perth to have it bronze cast as originally intended and for it to be placed on public display.
Abused child? I think not.
Oh my God. I agree with Rolly.
Either:
a) He’s talking sense; or
b) He’s become a Metrocentric Twat (TM); or
c) I’ve woken up a Dumbleyunger.
That should read “‘Metrocentic Twat’©2008Rolly”, Bento.
We can’t have incorrect attribution, can we?
“Abused child? I think not.”
Unlike the Simpsons children?
lauredhel:
Your criticism of Rolly’s argument is predicated on the notion that he is in agreement with the finding in the Simpsons case. I suspect he is not, because it is patently ridiculous (based on the brief discussion of it on your link). Extremely poor taste (and morally concerning) yes, child pornography, no.
Ah – I wasn’t criticising Rolly, Bento. It was a generic pointing out of Australia’s hypocrisy, not a pointed one.
Whatever the original intent and context of the ‘lady artist’ (quaint rolly!), I think the point is the sculpture doesn’t suit the times and is in not very good taste, and I think getting kids to pose nude for artists IS exploitative, without question (note: I’m NOT saying it’s abusive) – and I think that about child models and some child performers too. And regular child models & performers would never in a million years be asked to pose nude for art or advertising or anything.
The stringent guidelines on child performers have developed because kids were exploited, and the same should apply to using them as life models. It’s about their rights, not what we appreciate artistically.
(Really: why doesn’t Bill Hensen just use a 16-year-old model who’s under-developed and looks 14 or 12 or whatever? Cos it wouldn’t be controversial! Oh, and she wouldn’t be paid junior rates under the LIfe Models Award.)
or maybe, as it’s so provocative, and is actually good art, it does suit the times as art shouldn’t be comfortable, and we should be pleased that CP is doing something controversial.
Or something.
Bento, I hope you have not woken up in Dumbleyung, or if you have that it was a good B&S.
I was hoping for more comment on the Kings Park piece. Wasn’t going to put in the kiddie one. I quite like it in comparison to all those awful Smith bronzes in the city.
Oh yeah RIGHT. You put in a reference to Bill Henson and a closeup of a statue of a 9-year-old’s realistically rendered genitals & expected everyone to ignore that & comment on a limestone woman’s highly figurative one put there by a vandal?
OK, the carving is truly crap. On the other hand the baby is fairly young so I could see it as a detailed rendering of the agony of childbirth.
Or should I say rending.
I didn’t say I wanted it ignored, just that the Kings park one is more of a classic style of worst. There was a thematic link no? (apart from she-ra unveiling it.) If I hadn’t seen Kings Park one, I wouldn’t have put up Howard St, wheras Kings Park is bad enough to support a post on its own. The unveiling was delayed by henson controversy, so I think it appropriate to mention the fact.
Oh yeah fair enough. Sure there’s a thematic link. But you surely can’t be surprised that Bill Henson hijacked the classic limestone worst. Another day in perth, another bad sculpture.
I admit my views are controversial – knew it would get you all talking though.
I just don’t like any art that suggests it is ok to stare at naked vulnerable children. It makes me really uncomfortable. Sorry, Rolly, if that means I have deep seated psyhcological issues, but a lot of mothers are feeling the same.
I agree with Lisa that using young models is exploitative. I don’t know all the rules around underage models but I don’t think they have the maturity to know how their representation may be used or how they will feel about it when they are older, which means we have to trust the parents to be protective and sadly that is not the overriding motivation with some parents.
Whilst no-one appreciates an after-market statue bumhole addition more than I, the opportunity to interact with Hoydenites was too good to pass up.
Now, if you will excuse me, I’m off to drink bourbon and do some circle-work in the WB. And maybe then to interfere with the stock.
The perfect Christmas Eve Eve Eve Bento.
I’m with Margeryx, I may be hung-up but I sure wouldn’t want my naked daughter’s (or son’s) form being unveiled in Howard St… by Peter Natrass!…. Eiuww.
I guess the model must be a Natrass fan though.
I don’t think you’re entirely with Margeryx, poor lisa. You’ve said you wouldn’t want your naked daughter’s (son son’s) form being unveiled in Howard Street (especially by creepy Dr Nattrass), and neither would I (if I had one, but I probably wouldn’t even be comfortable with Dr Nattrass unveiling a naked statue of my cat). But does that make it child porn? Me, I don’t think so.
Now, can we please go back to giggling at bumholes and baiting Rolly?
Oh right, I see wot you mean, no I don’t think it’s child porn at all, it just makes me uncomfortable and there’s enough exploitation of children already, without dragging in Peter Natrass, Catherine Lumby and commentators in Arts Glasses as well is what I meant.
Yes Bento – I will drink to that!
Let me back down from my obviously ill-formed and poorly articulated opinions and rejoin the giggling bumhole party.
It’s Christmas afterall.
She-Ra unveiled it. Natrass can only come out during the hours of darkness.
No hegemony talk bento?
Righto, we’re agreed. The statue is a little discomfiting, Nattrass is creepy, Rolly’s from Dumbleyung, and men are beasts.
Happy Worstmas to all.
margeryx said:
“I just don’t like any art that suggests it is ok to stare at naked vulnerable children.”
How about commercial art?
The kind that promotes cosmetics, clothing fashion, slimming diets, ‘lifestyle’ options to the womens’ and girls’ magazines using sub-teenage looking models?
Designed to sow the seeds of discontent amongst immature and vulnerable, isn’t this more exploitative of both the model and the viewer?
There’s more than just a little hypocrisy in the morals-preaching lobby.
Your own words “staring” is a gross assumption on your part. How do you know what is going on in the heart and mind of a viewer?
That there are evil men and women within society is a known fact and it is a known fact that that these evil persons
are often the creators and users of pornography.
There is no such observable link between the viewing of pornography and subsequent sexual abuse in any studies that have been conducted to date.
That it may aggravate pre-existent perverted dispositions is probable, but still not well studied to the best of my knowledge.
That many offenders shelter behind a front of moral outrage and prohibition is, however, a fact of life, much of which has come into the public awareness only relatively recently.
In my view, we live in a very sick society where the unnatural ‘norms’ created by religions, commercial interest and political expediency have done, and are still doing, immeasurable and possibly irreparable damage to the mass psyche.
But that won’t change in my lifetime.
So, whatever your beliefs and prejudices, I wish you all the Very Best for Safe and Happy Holiday Season.
And give a thought for the tens of thousands of children around the world for whom malnutrition, dehydration and death from easily curable disease is “normal”.
I’ve been eating pilchards again.
I’m well and truly ‘baited’.
And poor Dumbleyung. Whatever did the good folk of that small settlement do to deserve to have me associated with it? Eh? Eh?
Happy Festering to you all.
would this be a good time to bring Bindi Irwin into the discussion?
Is there ever?
Rolly, you are quite easy to stir.
Cherry Mishmash!
Yerrite, margeryx.
I’m pretty laid back about most things, but hypocrisy and injustice are two topics that can get me well and truly fired up.
Which means, of course, that I’m on the boil for quite a lot of the time {:)
Interesting that the model had the piece for 70 years before it was cast/displayed. Purely opportunity? Similarly to the Hanson case, the final approval for the display of the images should belong to the model, not the parents nor the artist, and this can only be obtained when the model becomes an adult. So you got wait awhile. Big deal.
LA, how did you know it took only 3 minutes to drill? Did you time yourself?
It’s the word on the streets.
There are lots of things on the streets TLA and most of them are spurious, simply unbelievable, and/or just plain dangerous.
A recent batch of little white party pills is a good example :(
posing naked for art has little to do with art, but everything about sex.
drawing/painting/sculpting/photographing the naked human has little to do with art, but everything with sex.
check ou my blog at http://www.themodelundraped.blogspot.com
i am a 67-year old male and have been posing naked at 8 institutions with over 100 instructors.
Dude. I will not be clicking that link unless you can provide an iron-clad guarantee I will not see pictures of a 67-year old Dutch nudist.
Yes, I’m afraid that whatever they are wearing, it will need a damn good ironing.
Good call, Bento. There are alleyways of the net best not ventured into by even the most intrepid.
I clicked and I reccommend you don’t.
I mean, Cocks attached to bodies… that’s just sick isn’t it?
I too clicked. That is all.
Not finger in dyke.
Fully cut now, Carlisle looks
like quite a nice place.
well, I took one for the team and looked, and feel that I am just a little bit wiser about the less traveled corners of human nature
see if you can answer these questions with looking:
1. does this man have a beard?
2. just how proud is he of his dick?
What’s his take on multiculturalism? Work?
it doesn’t work apparently.
‘as a male posing naked for fine art students and artists, i proudly show off my uncut cock.
i am an atheist, but if there were a god, i want to thank her for allowing me to have been born in europe.
the third image is of a drawing done by an art college student, all the other (pictures of my cock) are done by me.’
I think this is my favourite
some people put a cardboard cut-out of Dennis Lillee in the window, others do this:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_qI4lMziMS3g/SqvaqlbX5GI/AAAAAAAAAIY/GAKYugX9CHs/s1600-h/three30.JPG
The idea of looking out the window to this scene is a tad unsettling.
What a wired statue a nice way to start lent. I know im waisting time.