



The artistic legacy of Rolf Harris: there are no simple answers


Simon White

Is there a difference between humming a couple of bars of Gary Glitter and hanging up a piece of Rolf Harris' artwork.


A little more than a month ago, a mate and I had an interesting conversation.

It was the morning of the first game of the NBA finals and I was waiting to hear if the strains of Gary Glitter's Rock And Roll (Part 2) would come blaring through on the telecast.

"Don't you think it's weird they still play that song at sports events," I said to him.

How you assess Rolf Harris' artistic legacy might depend on any number of factors.

How you assess Rolf Harris' artistic legacy might depend on any number of factors. Photo: AP

'What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well it's a Gary Glitter song. And you know, Gary Glitter's a paedophile," I explained.

"Oh yeah. Well I guess it's only a little excerpt from it. And it is pretty catchy," he replied.

Sure enough, an hour or so later I was humming away. I'm not sure how long I'd been going for - maybe the best part of a couple of minutes - before I caught myself, realised I was singing "paedo music" and glanced around to make sure nobody in the office had heard me.

Rolf Harris isn't Gary Glitter. Rock And Roll (Part 2) isn't a portrait of the queen. And I'd suggest it's far easier (on a psychological level) to accidentally hum a couple of bars from a song than make a conscious decision to keep a just-sentenced sex offender's artwork up on your wall.

But after Harris' conviction last week of 12 counts of indecent assault, he and Glitter are part of the same debate: to what extent an item of art can ever be separated from the person who has created it.

Radio presenter Bob Maumill and boxer Danny Green had an entertaining go at solving some of the issues around it on Radio 6PR last week.

Maumill's take was that the Harris verdict was hard to reconcile for many people who had grown up with the Boy (formerly) from Bassendean as a part of their everyday lives. Bob is, roughly speaking, of my father's vintage - and as Dad told me on Friday afternoon, being a kid in Perth in the 1950s and seeing a younger Harris perform live was truly something mind-blowing.

Green's take was that Harris was a maggot unworthy of oxygen. Danny is much closer to my age group. I can't speak for his memories of Harris but for much of my life, Rolf has been nothing more than an odd old man, who weirdly shook around a piece of hardboard and performed a song (Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport) that I could never make any sense of.

Over at the Bassendean Town Council the debate played out in a less public forum, with a unanimous vote behind closed doors to revoke Harris' freeman status, a 5-1 vote to remove a plaque in his honour (subsequently stolen before that could happen) and a 4-2 margin in favour of removing Harris' artwork from council chambers and placing it into storage.

The responsibility of announcing Harris' "deletion from local history" fell to the council's young mayor John Gangell. Meanwhile, the older deputy mayor Mike Lewis admitted voting against the removal of the artwork and said he would happily vote in the future in favour of it being returned to public display.

Lewis' thoughts led to one of the more interesting comments I've had to moderate on a story: "The Deputy Mayor is able to distinguish between the man and his art. I wonder if he'd be interested in displaying some paintings from a young Austrian painter from around the 1920s...."

This in turn led to one of the more interesting comments I've had on my Facebook page (shortened here, for space reasons):

"I don't hear of people demanding Roman Polanski's films be destroyed. Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin...I don't want Rolf's artworks on display or exhibited, but I am reluctant to support the hordes who are demanding we throw all his paintings onto a pyre and torch them. And yes, I'm a dad --- and if anyone touched my child I would buy a gun."

In an unrelated matter a Perth bloke on Gumtree is trying to sell a Rolf Harris gold coin for $750. And yesterday came news that a famous Harris mural in Melbourne would be painted over by victims of sex abuse.

I guess where I'm going with all of this is that it's become highly obvious over the past week that there aren't always simple answers in these matters. How you assess the legacy of Rolf Harris' work (as opposed to the man) depends on your own personal circumstances - just some of which might be your age, your experiences of Harris (good or bad), your inherent level of interest in art* and whether you (or anyone close to you) has ever been affected by sexual abuse.

I couldn't, if I was being honest, compare Harris to Hitler, as the person who commented on our website story did.

Nor, however, could I look myself in the eye in the mirror in the morning - surely the most relevant measuring stick for any personal belief - if I regarded Rolf Harris' art as anything other than being entirely tainted by the terrible crimes he committed during the years in which he was creating it.

But again, that's my opinion. If someone has a different opinion, there's not much I can do to change that. Nor any real reason that I should try.

That brings me to another interesting conversation I've had in the past month.

One of my best friends can't bring herself to listen to Wayne Carey commentating footy because of his past issues involving women. My view is that Carey has done his "time" (he's lost commentary contracts in the past after controversies in his personal life), that we live in a society built around the notion of rehabilitation and that if a media outlet is prepared to invest effort and money in one of the top-five AFL/VFL players of all-time, then that media outlet has a right to do so in the face of judgment from its own viewers/listeners/readers (Carey writes for Fairfax Media, owner of this website).**

You know what? I can't convince my friend about this. Any more than she can make me see things the same as she does. We've discussed it before, we'll probably discuss it again and ultimately, I imagine, we'll eventually realise we both have more important things to do.

And in my case, this involves finding ways to keep Rock and Roll (Part 2) out of my head.

* I have no real interest in art. But I am a sports nut. The closest analogy I can think of is Tiny Pinder. I still watch old Perth Wildcats clips on YouTube, get an initial kick out of seeing Tiny draining rainbow jump shots, then catch myself and think "that's a rapist".

** And I argue this case despite the fact I'm at best ambivalent about Carey's work on Channel 7 so far this winter. Like I said, no simple answers.


  • A conundrum indeed. Chopper Read murdered people, wrote a book and then went on a stand up tour. Seems all was forgiven for someone who committed heinous crimes.

    Date and time
    July 07, 2014, 10:43AM
    • Ah, but remember that most people regard serial killing as glamorous (until it's about to happen to them) whereas any man even thinking of sex with someone under 16 is worse than Hitler. What a strange bunch of people we are.

      Date and time
      July 07, 2014, 11:46PM
  • Anyone who burns or paints over his paintings will be kicking themselves in the future, more famous or more infamous it will still make his paintings worth more, even though I think they are crappy. I always thought he was creey but that is probably because he is the same age as my dad and isn't it obligatory for kids to dislike what their parents like?

    Date and time
    July 07, 2014, 11:03AM
    • Paint over the murals and take down the art work in acknowledgement that the artist has been found guilty of a heinous crime OR leave some of them up as a reminder to all that pedophiles come in all sorts of character disguises - admired public figures, trusted community members, friends and relations.

      Date and time
      July 07, 2014, 11:16AM
      • That's right Jane be afraid of everybody keep your children inside in front of the TV where they be brainwashed and become enormously fat.

        Date and time
        July 07, 2014, 11:34AM
    • Here's a good idea, lets take all the churches down where they stand for the breeding ground for child molesters . Especially the Catholic church. And don't forget the Church of England that was set up by King Henry the Eights so he could farther a son.

      Date and time
      July 07, 2014, 11:26AM
      • Petercape you are right if they were cooperating with the royal commission there could be an argument that not all priests were guilty but the fact that they are not cooperating (keeping vital evidence secret) shows there are all complicit so yes take the churches down.

        Date and time
        July 07, 2014, 11:43AM
    • Let's mix some facts into the hysteria.
      If you tried to remove the wickedness from everything there'd be nothing left, all Mitsubishi, Volkswagen etc would have to go first. Tigers eating innocent bambis, etc., the whole world would be condemned to moral purification and there'd be nothing left.
      As for age limits etc, 12 was the age of marriage up until recent times, even very recently in Tasmania, the "new morality" has shut that down and instead legalised homosexuality.
      Rolf Harris is being burned at the stake for being a groper, not a rapist or anything worse, but a stupid groper, he's not in the same league as Gary Glitter or Jimmy Saville. And the whole thing comes down to Jimmy Saville and English racism. Rolf Harris is getting done over to help the English feel better about themselves after Jimmy Saville.
      Jimmy Saville will never undergo a celebrity trial because he's now dead.

      Date and time
      July 07, 2014, 12:02PM
      • Oh dear bg you are suffering from a servers cultural cringe. Jimmy Saville was reported to the police at least four times and he was protected by some high up Torries. He was great mates with Margret Thatcher. Yes Abbots inspiration.

        Date and time
        July 07, 2014, 12:31PM
      • Oh dear, somebody has evoked the 'Abbott' name on this story. No, the Left never obsess, perish the thought. The comments above are just further proof that our society considers pedophilia to be the most heinous crime that humans can commit. A very emotive subject.

        Shaking Eagle
        Date and time
        July 07, 2014, 2:43PM

    More comments

    Comments are now closed

    HuffPost Australia

    Follow Us

    Featured advertisers