Art needs Bill Henson, like it needs a good ____ to do its work

Phone sex worker thinking about a world without rules and limitations

One of the more remarkable refrains from prominent art experts during the recent Bill Henson art/pornography debate was the line that he needs to use underage girls and boys in order to say his art.

That really took me by surprise because I am not an artist and have always been in awe of how much an artist can communicate using the materials or forms at hand. I always feel that everything must finally have been said and done, but then some artist will stretch a material or genre or context.

I am thinking here of art more broadly than just visual arts and including all those forms and situations with rules or limitations; graffiti, haiku poetry, Dogme film, sonata form, single act plays, music, flash mobs and all the art made under violently oppressive regimes.

When Paul Kelly sings 'I don't remember a thing', he presents not just the imaginary murder of innocence in Bill Henson's teenage subjects, but a literal murder of a woman by her husband. Yet it does not need a single word of description, let alone the real body of a real woman in a theatrical pose, to get the artistic work done.

The photo above is from a book about phone sex workers by Phillip Toledano, to be published in the US in September. It "reveals not just the identity of operators who answer the phone when you call a 1-900 number, but their desires, fears, motivations, and most memorable calls", according to a photo essay on Mother Jones.

So when art wants to talk about a fourteen year old girl's sexuality, does it need the fourteen year old girl to be naked and captured photographically? I don't know, but I question the unanimous 'Yes' we heard from art authorities.

How would you fill in the blank: art need a good [blank] do its work ?