From the perspective of one who has worked on the SA Classification of Publications Board. Argues that censorship is becoming increasingly unmanageable due to two trends which are detailed in the article. Also argues that public debate (with the exception of child pornography) in the media has declined. In contrast there is rising debate about sacrilege.
Dennis Del Favero's 'Parting Embrace' is a series of 10 Type C prints which attempt to investigate the subjectivity of sexual abuse in a way that not only engages with its inherent pornographic content but which refuses neat moral resolution.
Curated by Neville John O'Neill for the Canberra Contemporary Art Space.
Tandanya, National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide
10 July - 16 August 1998
Gone from Carrick Hill before it became a public collection are three Stanley Spencer erotic paintings and William Dobell's 'The Duchess Disrobes' (two versions). Smith examines the nature of the collection of works by Sir Edward and Lady Ursula Haywood.
Much of the vibrancy of Hong Kong's contemporary culture manifests itself in unexpected new forms...explores how four artists construct images of sexuality within the compact (post?) colonial environment.
Explores the 'pornographic' in the public domain. Art isn't an excuse for pornography, because pornography simpy exists. Art has remained a realm within which a vast range of ideas can be explored and tested. There are no questions of ethics or morality in art. This starts to get more exciting as art gets closer to life.
Julie Robb is the executive director of the Arts Law Centre of Australia. The centre advises artists and those involved in exhibitions and publication of risky material of the cultural responsibilities to make efforts to find ways of exercising their privileges. Looks at the current practices.
Editorial: hypocrisy in our attitude to sex. It is both celebrated and maligned, and the censorship laws allow young people to view explicit violence while classifying sex for adults only, based on psuedo-scientific analysis of 'normal' or 'aberrant'. This history of public attitude from the Enlightenment on, libertinism a radical opposition to status quo, advertising and porn, and artists exercising self-censorship.