POLITICS and the world of the arts rarely mix, as I can recall from experience.
"Harold, it was one of my worst times in politics," former prime minister Gough Whitlam said to me years ago. He was describing the outcome over the purchase of Blue Poles in the early 1970s.
Blue Poles was to be part of the first set of paintings that would make up the new National Gallery of Australia being built at the time in Canberra, subsequently opening in1982.
As time has shown, it was a masterful act to buy the picture for $1.2 million, which at the time was equivalent to $US2 millon. The Jackson Pollock masterpiece has been a centrepiece of the NGA for nearly 30 years now.
Before you bag me for name-dropping, let me make two points. First, under the old rule, if you're going to drop a name, drop a big one, and as Whitlam would readily agree, he falls into that category.
Second, it was a genuine comment for me as apart from being prime minister for the famous 1972-75 period, Whitlam was the second chairman of the NGA and I was for four years the fifth, so we did become good friends.
On the subject of price, I was pleased to tell Whitlam years ago, during my period at the top of the gallery, that I received an offer from a super-rich American (who can remain nameless but certainly had the money), who approached me and the gallery and offered a lesser Pollock painting he owned plus $US100 million for our Blue Poles. Naturally I said no but was delighted later to tell Whitlam the story. As you can imagine, Whitlam only had one comment for me: "Harold, I was right. Yet again."
People had been outraged over Blue Poles and it was a lesson to all in politics that the world of the arts can be fraught with danger.
Kevin Rudd, the incumbent Prime Minister appears to be in hot water over the pictures by world-class Australian photographer Bill Henson for his works featuring children. Henson has many images covering a wide range of subjects; in fact the NGA has 149 by Henson, only one of them a nude.
Rudd could well have consulted Whitlam about the arts, and possibly left the commentary about Henson to Arts Minister Peter Garrett, so that the 2m tall Garrett could have got hammered by the likes of Cate Blanchett instead. After all, what is an arts minister for?
Henson's pictures on this occasion are of an adolescent nude female. People in the arts find this completely acceptable, as do I. It's hardly pornographic unless you think that way, and it doesn't appear to be exploiting anybody.
Society can generally separate the difference between exploitation, pornography and art, and in fact if we're going to continue to be a balanced society we should always do that.
The nude is a perfectly legitimate art form. The Lucian Freud picture After Cezanne I helped buy at the NGA during my time is a nude. On the question of did it work, I remember authorising the price of $7.2 million and the latest Freud picture of about the same size just changed hands for $US35 million ($36.4 million). Freud paints only nudes, quite explicit ones, and it has never worried anyone.
Putting nudes aside, however, on the question of exploitation of children it is a different story.
Australian Democrats leader Lyn Allison is heading an inquiry into sexuality of children in advertising. I spoke with the senator yesterday and she deserves our commendation. The inquiry was started under the Howard government but has been supported and resurrected under the Rudd Government.
Allison's inquiry is genuine and quite probably necessary, and has not unsurprisingly been swamped with substantial submissions. My advice to the advertising industry is to take the matter of the senator's inquiry seriously.
While I agree that Henson's approach is art and absolutely legitimate, the exploitation of children in advertising is another matter. Advertising has to reflect community standards. If it lags behind these standards it suffers from being obsolete and forgettable. If it gets ahead of them, as it has been suggested by some of these submissions, it invites more than public criticism.
The advertising industry can expect to be visited with legislation in a controlled fashion that it doesn't necessarily want but possibly deserves.
As Rudd wading into the Henson matter shows, the exploitation of children is a community issue.
More power to Allison, to the nude figure in the arts world and to making money out of buying clever works of art.
We did plenty of it at the NGA and I found it's sometimes a better way to invest your money than the stock market.
Harold Mitchell is executive chairman of the Mitchell Communications Group.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment