Sydney was at the edge of winter, with that crisp thin sunlight that can make the harbour city idyllic, when my friend Colin Oehring and I were there for the first Bill Henson opening since the one Kevin Rudd found ‘disgusting’ and which was closed down by the police despite getting a G rating from Donald McDonald’s Commonwealth censors. It all went without horrific drama. Barry Humphries could be seen in the midst of a capacity crowd which had seemed at the outset to consist of Miranda Devine and a couple of teenage girls. I’m told Devine was apologetic about the bushfire cum auto-da-fé she inadvertently started back in 2008.
The exhibition itself didn’t emphasise the jeunes filles –– the dominant young woman in the series was womanly in Henson’s pensive Leonardo da Vinci mode –– but the show was notable for the way Bill has gone digital but in a manner which allows him to flood his images with Renaissance blacks, which make them even more textured-looking and painterly than the analogue work with its chiaroscuro and its famous sense of drama.
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