PHOTOGRAPHS of naked 12- and 13-year-olds in an exhibition shut down by police have no artistic merit, Kevin Rudd said today.
Alarm about images of naked teenagers by acclaimed photographer Bill Henson has forced a Sydney gallery to cancel its exhibition.
Police said they were investigating the legality of some of the photographs in the exhibition at Roslyn Oxley Gallery in inner-city Paddington.
The opening of the show was cancelled amid complaints about the show's explicit content. Printed invitations to the private viewing featured a single image from the exhibition, depicting a naked 13-year-old girl.
Police said they wanted to speak to one of the models before deciding whether the show would go ahead.
The Prime Minister this morning weighed into the debate about the merits of the artworks, saying he thought they were "revolting".
"I find them absolutely revolting," he told the Nine Network.
"Kids deserve to have the innocence of their childhood protected. I have a very deep view of this. For God's sake, let's just allow kids to be kids.
"Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids."
Gallery manager Amanda Rowell said there had been no specific threats, but the gallery had received dozens of telephone calls. Some angry callers had "no concept" about the show.
She added the gallery was concerned about possible damage to the large-format photographs, which each carry a price tag of $25,000.
"It was spiralling out of control," Ms Rowell said.
"We have never had this controversy before."
Henson is an internationally renowned photographer who was given an important retrospective show at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2005.
He declined last night to comment on the cancellation of the show's opening night, but yesterday expressed frustration at the controversy that sometimes attended his shows.
The exhibition of 30 photographs includes landscape and architectural studies, shown in juxtaposition with the male and female nudes.
Henson said the nudes were taken in his Melbourne studio. The models were about 13 years old and were not professionals.
The children and their families had given permission to be photographed.
Asked about community concerns over child pornography, Henson said his personal and artistic priorities were not conditioned by an alarmist media.
"You can't control the way in which individuals respond to the work," he said.
He was interested in exploring notions of intimacy and "something which is absolutely inviolate and unknowable".
NSW Premier Morris Iemma said he found the exhibition "offensive and disgusting".
"I don't understand why parents would agree to allow their kids to be photographed liked this," he told Sydney's The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell also condemned the exhibition.
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The Rosley Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney, Australia was raided by police over the weekend following complaints of child pornography. The complaints related to an exhibition of works by photographer Bill Henson, which included several photographs of naked pubescent children. Twenty-one of the forty photographs in the exhibition were seized during the raid, and police have announced that charges will be laid under the NSW Commonwealth and Crimes Act for "publishing an indecent article". Digital versions have also been removed from the Gallery's website.


Politicians on both sides of the fence spoke out against the exhibition. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, speaking to the Nine Network, said he found the photos to be "absolutely revolting ... Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids." His Opposition counterpart, Brendan Nelson, believes that the exhibition "violates the things for which we stand as Australians and indeed as parents".

Art experts have supported Henson and defended his work, denying claims of child pornography and exploitation. According to Betty Churcher, a former director of the National Gallery of Australia, "there is absolutely no suggestion of pornography in these photographs". Sydney art dealer Denis Savill hung one of Henson's works, featuring two nudes, in his gallery window beside an Arthur Boyd nude, to "give them something to grizzle about".

According to Tony Oxley, husband of gallery owner Roslyn, the gallery's answering machine has recorded several threats to burn the building down. The police action also calls into question the fate of similar works by Henson in other galleries in Australia and around the world.