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We've got our finger right on the nature of art, here. Art challenges. It poses questions. It brings up our prejudices and preconceptions and sacred cows so they can be examined and perhaps slain.
I can't fathom that the artist could have been naive enough to think this work would be uncontroversial. The controversy is the point! On some level, the controversy IS the artwork. This very thread is his actual art piece, not the photographs.
Also (and this may seem like a contradiction against what I just wrote, but it's not), whether or not something is obscene has ZERO to do with the artist's intention, at least as obscenity is defined in the United States. I'm not a scholar on Australian law, but in the US obscenity is defined in terms of community standards.
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