Title: Vulnerability and the Passing of Childhood in Bill Henson: Innocence in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
When and Where: 5:30 pm, Tuesday, May 18th in room 19.1003
Abstract: The most public responses to Bill Henson's 2008 exhibition either judged the photographs to constitute child pornography (or a prelude to child abuse), or argued for the exemption of Henson's work from that field on the basis of its status as fine art. This paper interrogates these responses by asking what opportunities were missed amid the "controversy," for critical reflection on the political significance of childhood and of art. With reference to Walter Benjamin's reflections on art in the age of new technologies of reproduction, the paper attempts to re-situate Henson's 2008 work — and particularly the most controversial photograph within that exhibition — in the context of a broader 'crisis' in the (artistic) representation of children.
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