By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's
cozy affair with the nation's arts community, in particular
Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett, has hit a rocky patch over an
exhibition of naked photographs of young girls.
Blanchett and 42 other leading arts figures have signed an
open letter critical of Rudd for describing artist Bill
Henson's photographs of naked 12 and 13-year-old children as
"revolting."
Police shut down Henson's exhibition at a Sydney art
gallery last week and confiscated 20 of his photographs as part
of an investigating into whether charges should be laid.
The police raid sparked a heated debate in Australia over
what is art and what is pornography and has seen the arts
community, which publicly backed Rudd's Labor party ahead of
its November election victory, turn on the prime minister for
supporting censorship in the arts.
"The potential prosecution of one of our most respected
artists is no way to build a Creative Australia and does untold
damage to our cultural reputation," said the letter, which was
addressed to Australia's environment minister and the premier
of New South Wales state.
"We should remember that an important index of social
freedom, in earlier times or in repressive regimes elsewhere in
the world, is how artists and art are treated by the state."
The letter is signed by Blanchett, whom Rudd visited in
hospital only days after the birth of her latest baby in April
and whom Rudd invited to Canberra to take part in his national
2020 conference on Australia's future. Other signatories
include Nobel winning writer John Coetzee.
"We wish to make absolutely clear that none of us endorses,
in any way, the abuse of children," they said. "Henson's work
has nothing to do with child pornography and, according to the
judgment of some of the most respected curators and critics in
the world, it is certainly art."
