Children in art

The Australia Council yesterday released its Draft Children in Art Protocols, which will determine council funding where artists are working...

Monday roundup

A number of bits and pieces catch my eye this morning:1. Arts Minister Peter Garrett has asked the Australia Council and Screen Australia to...

Speaking with grace

It was good to see Bill Henson speaking publicly for the first time after the recent fracas and negotiating the inevitable media glare with ...

Bill Henson rated PG

This morning comes the news that the DPP has told NSW police that they don't have a case to prosecute Bill Henson for obscenity or posse...

Reality: what a concept

Ms TN and others have had many requests from people who would also like to put their names to the The Open Letter in Support of Bill Henson....

Naked censorship

Yesterday it was reported that police were investigating websites hosting Bill Henson's photographs. Aside from the grim humour of seein...

The wash up

Daniel Schlusser pointed out last week that an illiterate idiot published in the Age was quoting William Blake in order to condemn Bill Hens...

Henson threatened with prosecution

Updates belowI am shocked and deeply disturbed to read this morning that photographer Bill Henson - one of Australia's most significant ...

The blank blogs of Burma

Anyone who feels sanguine about the possible freedoms of new media should contemplate the blank blogs of Burma. As the military cracks down ...

On banishing crrrritics

A quick pointer to an excellent post by Chris Boyd which, while pointing to some recent contemplations in the blogosphere (including Ming-Zh...

Australia as a paradigm of the mentally impaired

A quick flash: a disturbing piece on censorship by David Marr in the SMH this morning. In its ceaseless quest to backpedal to the 1950s (and...

On being nice

UPDATES: Some well-considered words from Ben Ellis over at Parachute of a Playwright and gobsmacked disbelief from our man in berlin Daniel...

Arts funding: some further thoughts

Some notes arising out of the present discussion:1. The question of funding the arts is a no-brainer for artists. Not, as alleged by populis...

Speaking up for theatre

I just did something unprecedented, and closed off the comment thread to my post on the threat to La Mama's funding. TN had swum into th...

Handke again

Peter Handke is in the headlines again, this time after he was stripped of the prestigious Heinrich Heiner Prize by the city of Dusseldorf....

Things on Sunday

Wondering what to do this Sunday? Of course you are. So head on down to the Malthouse, where your faithful blogger is hosting the next Thing...

Language and war

Worth reading, for those intrigued by the conundrum of Peter Handke's attitudes to Serbian nationalism and by the nexus between language...

And as for the play?

Michael Roloff, Handke's English translator, has some noteworthy comments on the Handke controversy at this colourful Handke web page, w...

And Handke says...

Update: Via Playgoer: The London Times weighs in with a think piece that defends Handke - and art - against narrow moralising. Unfortunately...

Handke comedie update

Update: Our Man in Paris Ben Ellis updates the story with an excellent post that summarises for us blockhead monolinguists some of the admir...