The media maelstrom created by Bill Henson’s recent attempted exhibition reveals much more than just the most obvious issues relating to the contemporary cultural sensitivity of the presentation of images of young adolescents.

If one was to take some of the work of a Caravaggio or a Donatello out of the artistic context they could quite easily be held up to just the sort of moral scrutiny and derision that Henson’s photography is currently subject to. Henson’s art has obviously been sailing a little close to the ethical wind for some time and you have to wonder if he is courting controversy as a means of self-publicity or if he should perhaps be more aware and/or cautious of the cultural sensitivities inspired by his images.

The Australian Prime Minister has apparently called these images “absolutely revolting”. What’s really interesting about all of this is that you would think that people would be just as horrified by the commercial tendency to sexualise adolescents in the media through popular culture, fashion and music. Where and when there is big money being made by big business there is a deafening political and moral silence.

The images in Henson’s exhibition would be absolutely revolting if displayed with the intent of sexualising them. It appears that the blank canvas of the human body allows people to project all manner of ethical iniquity upon the motives of the photographer when a Saturday morning popular music TV show probably does far more harm to the cultural representation and self-image of young adolescents. A little like the way that people projected all their own evil into the largely unspecified wrongdoings of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, people are freely projecting their own interpretations of evil upon these essentially blank human canvases.

You have to wonder what message is actually being sent to young people where their naked bodies are decried as disgusting but the music and fashion industries’ sexualising constructs are hailed as art and valid business practice. I am not defending the content of the exhibition. I am merely reflecting that there are many more areas in our culture that could be held up to just the sort of scrutiny that this exhibition has been.