Naked Youth.(Bill Henson)

Artforum International, February, 2002 by Cooper, Dennis

Until recently, being an American admirer of the photographer Bill Henson was a lonely and rather painstaking chore. Apart from a small survey of his work at the Denver Art Museum in 1990 an a few photographs included in a 1984 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum exhibition of Australia art, he has been almost impossible to find in the Unite States, less unknown than antiknown--a sub-subcult figure even within circles devoted to contemporary photography. Given that his work has been a staple of the European art world since 1981 and that it occupied an entire pavilion at the 1995 Venice Biennale, Henson's invisibility is bizarre enough. But when you consider that his photographs of the '80s and '90s predict and arguably outclass much of the personal, edgy portraiture currently...

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