Over the last fortnight Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery was scheduled to host an exhibition showcasing the work of acclaimed Australian photographer, Bill Henson. However, just hours prior to its programmed debut, the gallery was stormed by police confiscating 12 works on display and another 20 from the storeroom, while the gallery website was also forced to remove the offending imagery from its server. Such censorship was in play due to the depiction of naked adolescents within many of Henson’s prints.

This story has dominated Australian tabloids and news broadcasts since its occurrence, with sensationalist headlines such as “Gallery raided as Bill Henson child porn art removed” appearing in leading newspapers, while news bulletins slander Henson a pedophile. The artist and gallery owners are now facing possible child pornography charges, causing debate to erupt over the distinction between art and pornography.

With Australia’s own prime minister, Kevin Rudd declaring the images as “absolutely revolting,” it’s no wonder so many people have such an ignorant and philistine view on the topic. Boorish online groups entitled “Bill Henson is disgusting, perverted and a creator of child pornography,” are being created while gallery owners Roslyn and Tony Oxley have even received anonymous phone messages from people threatening to burn down the gallery.

Yet much vocal support is also being shown in favour of the artist, aided with the defense of former child models who appear in Henson’s earlier works, declaring they never felt violated when posing for the artist. Numerous high profile people have also voiced their support for Henson, including fellow artist Callum Morton, playwright Michael Gow and acclaimed actress Cate Blanchett.

Part of the current mass hysteria can be attributed to the way these images are being shown cropped, censored or out of context within the media. Close ups of adolescent girls’ breasts or figures with blurred genitalia certainly demean the artist’s broader body of work and have absolutely nothing to do with the way these images were intended to appear within a gallery environment.

One of the most shocking elements regarding the incident is Henson’s global reputation as a respected artist. His work has been displayed within many major institutions around the world including the Guggenheim, New York, the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London- all without vilification. Within Australia his photographs are even studied as part of high school visual arts curriculum.

The current controversy in accordance with the Australian police force has required several other galleries, who have been displaying Henson’s prints for years to also remove his photographs from their walls. In 2005 the Art Gallery of New South Wales (a somewhat “conservative” art institution), hosted a large scale retrospective of Henson’s photography, which received no public objection whatsoever. Images within the exhibition contained the same form of adolescent nudity as present within the artworks at Roslyn Oxley9. The retrospective contained hundreds, possibly close to a thousand of Henson’s prints and nobody seemed to say a word. So why now?

As a fellow Sydney-sider and art lover, my deepest condolences are with Henson and those affiliated with Roslyn Oxley9. These are certainly very dark days for the Australian art world.