Instead of talking about how an artist deals with the political situation they are presented with I wanted to breifly talk about the effect of politicians on art. We would all be pretty aware of what happend to Bill Henson in 2008, But the larger effects on the visual arts community are not as common knowledge. The way children are dipicted in are is a massive bone of contention, and since the Henson saga there has been a change to how the australia council deal with the dipiction of children and pornography in the relation to funding.What is deemed in good taste in this country is still somewhat in the hands of those "leaders" who look to the commercial network current affairs programs for a moral compass. The structure of Australia's Art scene being largly proped up by govenment investment in the Australia Council and without the philanthorpic scene of America, the UK or Europe may arguably leave Australian visual artist in the uncomfortable position of self censoring.
This is an interesting little article about the funding differnces between Opera australia and the other arts, It is another example of how politics influences the culture of this country and how much of a top down propsition the arts is, funding bodys effectivly funtion as cultural censorship but keeping the art and ideas far enough on the periphery as to not inflame any unrest from either artist or the community at large.
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