Cattelan's Finger

Yet again, Maurizio Cattelan achieved his admitted goal: he is on the covers of magazines.
The finger, called L.O.V.E.*, has been erected in front of the Milan stock exchange for the duration of the Fashion Week happening in the city.
Everyone is happy: Cattelan gets his attention, the public is proud of such a daring representative, the city gets its Fashion Week (kind of) publicized, and the brokers... well, the brokers have a good laugh and continue their business as usual.
That is not to say the work is not good. It is poignant. The finger that is sticking is the only one remaining on the hand. The others seem to have been severed. So is this hand telling the bankers to go fuck themselves, or is that the only thing it can say? Or maybe it's that when you have next to nothing, the middle finger is the one to resist longest.
Oh, but of course, it's made of marble and put on a pedestal.

But that, really, is not the work at work here. The work is to have been able to put it in front of the Stock Exchange. To have shown them the finger and have them accept it. This is what makes a real contemporary trickster - not the sculpture, but the context.
"We want to be confirmed as the capital of contemporary art", the city's administrators officially stated, "and we have to not only mediate but also accept what we do not like".
Which is a hilarious comment, and only confirms Cattelan's intelligence. One wonders how he did it. Maybe what he said was, let's cut the crap, it is a criticism, but it will attract more tourists than you can ever imagine, and will not hurt you in any way whatsoever, because no one is going to take their money out of the stocks after seeing my work. On the contrary, the tourists will leave their money in Milan.
But the controversy remains. “It is unacceptable that the City sticks its finger up to the Stock Exchange" – said the councillor for Town Planning Carlo Masseroli in a fervent discussion.
Masseroli says: "the administration cannot be culturally subordinate to a self-styled artist like Cattelan who wants to use Milan to earn money”.
Oh, that's right, Cattelan made money off this! I wonder who payed him.
So the question is, who is Cattelan showing the finger to?
I'm not sure, but the pictures suggest that the finger is in front of the stock exchange. And is not pointing towards it, but from it.

Which could end this text. But will not. Because even if Cattelan laughs in our face, even if he plays a trick on all of us, he still plays out the crucial role of catalyzer - he materializes the tensions that are already there. He makes us go "Hey! Wait a minute!" He sticks the finger where it hurts.

*The title was originally supposed to be "Omnia munda mundis" ("To the pure ones everything is pure").

Omniphilia

Let's start off easy.

The first image seems the most banal. But we'll get back to it.
The second is clearly far from innocent. Or rather, it is its absolute innocence that brings the tension.
Just one more innocent painting to keep you off-guard...

And here we go:Most of Melissa Steckbauer's spicier pictures are somewhere along the lines of the above. They are people in erotic/sexual situations with animals, realistic or mythical ones. Now, how in the world can she include the first painting you see here (the bear-girl) in the same series, Animalia, as the ones you've just seen?
That is precisely what gives the series such power. They demistify us by including us in the myth. This human animal becomes a being of flesh. Of flesh and myth. This teddy bear is the same girl that's having sex with the dog, moving away from the otherness as it penetrates her. Better: she and the beast are one flesh. They are no different, as if in peace with their unbearable similarity. Look at the man with the bear. What is this? A killing? Could it possibly be a hug? No, it is a hug, be it intended or not. It is flesh, it is warm and cuddly. And foreign. Although harmonious - Steckenbauer insists that for her the crucial issue in terms of eroticism is ethics, which she seems to oppose to a set of taboos. But is there really no taboo? No hidden, dangerous zone? To the contrary, the further she goes, the more mysterious and ambivalent the universe. What is this animal, and how does one distinguish it from oneself?




In the interview at the end of this post, Steckbauer talks about her appreciation for "meat in the painting". And for softness and gentleness. And one of my favorite works of hers combines these two. It is somewhat different from the others, reminding me of Man Ray, maybe. What can we do, it says, what can we do if this is the touch of flesh, the touch that seems to go through my body, to immobilize us as it multiplies the members and gets us way out into oblivion, a communication made ambiguous, an identity lost, or repainted, or foresaken, for the sake of what, of what, oh don't ask me, enjoy.






PS: I dedicate this post to the memory of my aunt, whom I first had the chance to speak to when I was 17. We spoke on the phone (she lived in another country). Her very first words to me were: "Hello young man! How are you? How is your sex life?"

(via)

A performance by Public Movement in Łódź

UPDATE (4.February):
Public Movement is an Israeli performance group. The action you see below was made by them in Łódź, Poland.
A short explanation: before WW2, Łódź used to have a very large Jewish minority. The Jews were, among others, the owners of a significant part of the textile industry thriving in the city. Today, there are practically no more Jews there - and no more industry as well (although the industry did go on until the 70's, I believe). It is a poor and degraded city, with a lot of social problems, and where antisemitism is still present (although the vast majority of the inhabitants have never seen a Jew).
It is one of the very few places I know where one can still find antisemitic slogans on the walls.
So here you have it: the Israelis arrive and correct the Star of David. They basically make a grafitti of how it should look like, and put the correct form over the incorrect one.

And a few little ideas:
- The grafitti they choose to work with are not openly antisemitic. They simply replace one of the letters of the name of a soccer club (ŁKS) with a Star of David. So this is a "neutral" correction on a "neutral" sign.

- The ritual. Ah, the ritual. Turns it all into an action of purity. Precious.

- Notice one other, much more hidden, interpretation: the Jews are back in town. They are here, after our land. They put their stamp on the walls. They claim what is theirs (the club, the building). They are tagging their city.

- But one idea I think is crucial, and might be overlooked in all this will to interpret every single aspect of the work. Public Movement seems to be saying "Yes, this is who we are. We see no reason to be ashamed of it. Do you? Are you not embarrassed to have thought this was inappropriate or even silly, in any way?"

This is some brilliant playing with street art, semiotics, identity and politics.
The one question that I find problematic is - yes, this is on the spot. But for whom? Who is the audience? Is it public art, or just private art in public space? Or maybe it is public art, only for the audience that is reading about it now? So where does that leave the people who walk by this daily? Do we expect them to have a surge of initiative and paint over the whole signs? Or are we, deep inside, enjoying the fact that it's still there, everything is just the same, while we, the smart ones, know and watch?
I really do not know. I do not have better solutions. This, of course, is not a solution either - it is highliting the question(s). But what are we to make of this insistent neutrality right in the middle of a political issue? Is it a curse, the curse of constant distance? Or the blessing of a delicately balanced gesture, for once?

Of birds and the onlookers responsibility:a few words on a video by Koerner Union

I don't remember how I found the video below. It popped up, and I watched, curious, then mesmerized, then disturbed, then - disgusted.
I decided not to post it on New Art. So as not to encourage something I find incorrect, or rather - wrong.
After a while I came back to see it, and watched the whole thing again. And I thought: who am I to judge this? After all, didn't I watch it with curiosity, and watch the whole thing, twice? Why can't I show what's disturbing me, bringing it forward to this public forum, so everyone can make her own mind?
But first, let me warn you: in my opinion, animals were being hurt in the making of this work. If you want to be absolutely sure you don't participate in any way in the popularity of this work, do not see the film below.



I would not resist if I were you. Maybe I would do it for the sake of something (it's a scary skill, thinking up good reasons). But I would be there, peeking in. Maybe not until the end. But then, it doesn't matter, does it? Does it?
The question of the onlooker, his power and his role in the process of creation, might often be used in contemporary art - but very seldom is it addressed in-depth. What is our responsibility? Can shutting our eyes be a good way of "appreciating" and yet disliking the work? Can I refuse something without knowing what it is? What do we know about the work we see above? About the conditions of its creation? Should I even be posting this without that knowledge?
See this strange video, also directed by Körner (Koerner) Union. (Be patient.)

Now, the astonishing part with the hen makes me question my own assumptions. Was my judgement too simplistic, also in the other case? Maybe this is just a short moment, or maybe it's all a trick, maybe the birds are not bumping against the mirror, shocking against it violently, thinking there is space where a solid mirror remains? Maybe it was all digitally manipulated or they were trained, or something? Or maybe I'm being hypersensitive?

Relax, now.

Here are a few untortured animals, in a wonderful picture by Isabella Rozendaal.
No, this is no antidote to these moral dilemmas. But it's an appeasement: the gentle distance. Rozendaal is someone who appreciates " the remarkable and humorous things she encounters in real life". And a way of approaching reality which plays with the idea of "amateur" photography, so we feel like this is almost too easy, and yet, remarkably appealing.


Yet, after all this, let's make a circle, and go back to Korner Union, with a video that somehow makes one think of the pictures above, with simple stories that are just slightly off (and a great song by Don Cavalli)...

But my favorite thing by Korner Union is quite minimalistic I suppose and maybe it's just this mood, tonight, with all the snow melted away, thawed and relaxed and, well, it's a page I found on their soon-to-be-active site. It also takes part in the game of hide-and-seek between the onlookers and the people-who-show-as-things-we-like. And it's simple.

The virginal origin of the world

Needless to say, this work by Tanja Ostojic is a reference to Courbet's Origin of the World:



Produced by the 25Peaces collective, it was supposed to be a promotion of Europe, and from what I understand, to participate in the campaign in favor of the European Constitution (in 2005, if I am not mistaken). As the image was posted on huge billboards, it was considered too radical and was taken off. And the Constitution lost the referendum.
But what is the actual message? Is it 'the origin of a new world'? It seems more like the beginning of something that can never be born. Instead of the origin, instead of the troubling, but real, thing, we get... panties with stars. Thank you very much. Where exactly is this Europe supposed to originate? Oh, and the retouched skin, the pure atmosphere of soap commercials and soft porn... It reminds me of Jeff Koons. And I'm not sure that's where I would like to see my Europe. Then again, I'm not sure Orlan's earlier variation on the Origin of the World motive would be convincing in a political debate:

Any other alternatives?

Tanja Ostojic's work was accused of misogyny. After writing the above words, I found a fascinating interview with the artist, who clearly states that the objective of the work was not to promote the EU ideals, etc., but it was created beforehand, namely as a comment on the EU's politics of (non)intergration. Now it makes sense. Ostojic actually seems quite upset about the context the work was shown in and the idiotic way it was treated by the Austrian media. Her site also made me discover another, impressive work by Ostojic: Looking For a Husband with an EU Passport (2003):



Wow. This hurts. I would call this a hard core artistic attitude. In that it doesn't have any problems with exploring what is too intimate to be shared. Nudity is a common, though not at all necessary element. It is really about exposure. Maybe, about making us feel uncomfortable. Do I like it? Is there any way one can like it?

(partly via)

Technorati: photography, erotic art, fine art, painting, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Marlene Dumas: taking sex seriously

Marlene Dumas, whose watercolor painting was featured here a few days ago, is worth going back to.
Not because she is the most expensive living female artist. And not because she "embraces the totality of the human experience" (wow, people still actually write this sort of stuff...).

Oh, bloody hell.
Oh, bloody hell.
I am as filthy as I am pure.
I think things, imagine things, crave for them or despise them.
This explicitness, this seeing more, or need to see more, is what brings me here.
To this site, to this artist. To this constant search for a name, a form, a way of channeling thirst.
Is it about sex? Is it about the blatancy of exposition?
Is it about humanity? About the loss of innocence? The search for meaning?
Is it about who we are? About our place in the order?
It certainly is about where the technique takes us. Yes, the technique. The way of putting things, of joining the clay.






One thing that irritates me is the often-repeated idea that Dumas is an artist "who knows no taboos". This is not only silly and sensationalist - it takes away the pleasure of discovering the exact lines of her taboo, her notions of decency, quite present and rich. Look at the above pictures as at a map of impossibilities, of what is not said. The form as subtraction.

See more Marlene Dumas here, here and here.

Technorati: painting, erotic art, sex, erotic art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Discreet vulgar and artsy

Both works are created by Mexican artist Amor Muñoz.

Technorati: fine art, visual art, design, sex, art, contemporary art, vvoi

The naked teacher: teaching performance art

CNN reports:

Mo Xiaoxin, a 56-year-old assistant professor at a university in Changzhou, in eastern Jiangsu province, shocked students by stripping during a lecture on "body art" to emphasize the "power" of the body and to "challenge taboos," the Beijing News said.

"There are no taboos in the field of research, but to do this directly in the course of teaching is obviously not appropriate," the paper quoted Tian Junting, a culture ministry official, as saying.

The lecture was part of a course within a newly established "human body art and culture" research institute -- China's first -- at Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology, the paper said.

Mo arranged for four other models, including a man and woman in their 70s or 80s, and a younger couple, to strip naked in front of the class while he lectured, the paper said.

Scandal? Or trivial event? Are we to see this through the eyes of an art critic for whom a naked body is just another element of artistic expression? Or should we rather interpret it from the students' point of view? Would it then be an indecent act, a very embarrassing one? Of course, the article says little about the context of the class. It was part of an experimental course on body art. But was it a practical course? Is a practical course in body art actually possible? I've heard of body art workshops where people were encouraged to self-mutilate. How exactly does that work? Does one train various techniques, until one gets them right? Is there a set of "exercises" one has to execute to pass?

If we accept that a significant part of contemporary art looks to go "out of the box", teaching it becomes a challenge. Trust me, I know. The whole idea is how to get someone to accept the excentric as central, i.e., how to see ("alternative") contemporary art as a basis, or a context for work. This is extremely difficult, much more difficult than just learning to appreciate it. On one hand, the students need to comprehend the strength of new works, the impact they potentially have; on the other, it's not enough to see it in a distance, in an attitude of all-encompassing tolerance. This - body art, performance, controversial or plain shocking installations - is to be, if not a foundation, at least a contemporary history. That means, it needs to be close enough to be useful, to be felt as something we might have done, but (often fortunately) don't need to do any more.

Does this mean the teacher was right? Only if he achieved his goal. Only if the people watching him not only got the point (their point, not necessarily his point), but also, will feel empowered through the experience.

Shocking almost certainly wasn't the teacher's goal. After all, why should the very presence of human body shock? Well, maybe "shock" is not the right expression. But there is certainly an uneasiness. Now here's the trick: without this uneasiness, body art loses its special power. Cutting your body becomes no different than cutting a sheet of paper. And if someone chooses to do the former rather than the latter, it does make a difference to her.

But teaching it? Or: actually doing body art (if getting naked comes anywhere near as much as an introduction to body art) in front of the students? Two points irritate me here:

1) A teacher that instead of making the students discover things by doing them does them himself is at least suspicious. I'd rather have a scandal where the teacher convinced students to actually do body art. At least then, they are the performers, and not just forced spectators. The article states that the teacher tried making the students undress too. It seems it didn't work. Was there any room left on the stage?

2) On a more personal level, art that aims to "break taboos" rarely ever speaks to me. It's not too hard to watch. It's too easy. As one ex-body artist said, the performers are not the only ones sweating. The audience sweats too - of a specific embarrassment and more often than not, a deep desire to be somewhere else.

My doubts regarding Mo Xiaoxin are both as a teacher and a perfomer. But they have little to do with indecence.

Technorati: performance, performance art, teaching, sex, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Installation for the soccer maniacs

Police in Berlin said on Wednesday they had arrested two men on suspicion of placing cement-filled soccer balls around the city and inviting people to kick them. At least two people injured themselves by kicking the balls, which were chained to lampposts and trees alongside the spray-painted message: "Can you kick it?"

I agree with ann that the message seems unnecessary, but the work does have a pleasant, sadistic thing about it. Especially if you're living in a country like Portugal.

(via, originally from)

Cattelan's perverted victory

Of course, it's not his fault. He simply made the art. And if someone interpreted it wrong, well, they interpreted it wrong.
As many of you know, in 2004 the Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan hung three plastic dolls of children from Milan's oldest tree.
Shortly after being officially "open", the exhibition came to a sudden end: Franco De Benedetto, a Milenese man, decided to cut the children off. He cut two ropes, but swayed and fell when cutting the third one. He was injured and taken to hospital.
Cattelan graciously didn't press charges, but the city of Milan did. And won. De Benedetto will be spending three months in prison for destroying a work of art. Mind you, it took them nearly two years to establish this was indeed a work of art, as that was the prosecution's main argument.

Some say he simply misinterpreted the nature of the work:

Maybe, as the ambulance blared through the Milan streets, di Benedetto was moved to reflect on the violent collision of two types of judgment: civic and aesthetic. He seemed to have mistaken one for the other; or rather, he’d disallowed the second as soon as he set out on his hapless clamber.

I quite disagree. I think the whole work was based on the game between a work of art and a "natural" surrounding. As it is often the case with Cattelan, it was supposed to create uncertainty about the exact role of the work. Only here, it could easily bring uncertainty as to whether the sculptures were real or not.
In places where guns are illegal it is also a crime to pretend one has a gun. Even if you said it was a work of art, you would still be inciting a certain type of behaviour, suggesting a certain reality. I believe this is exactly the case here. This is not to say Cattelan is a criminal, case closed. Not at all. But since he plays in the real world, he should accept the real world's rules. And he does - by neither accusing De Benedetto formally, nor insisting on hanging the children again. But he creates a situation and then washes his hands, as if he wasn't its author. De Benedetto hurt himself and wound up in the hospital. This should be enough. The contact between art and reality is made quite explicit in this fall. The score seems so naturally set. Why go further?

Technorati: visual art, art installation, installation, art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool

Ad

"The effort for Childcare, India aims to help more than 20 Million Indian Children who beg on the streets each day."
Found this powerful ad on a very entertaining site for ad-lovers. It has some brilliant ideas. Fascinating, how the world of advertizing is close to the artworld, without either of the sides openly acknowledging the brotherhood. With a few notable exceptions, of course.
(via)

245 Cubic Meters of controversy - Santiago Sierra's latest

How could I have missed this!
Santiago Sierra is back. And, as usual, he's creating a stir. If it seemed to you he's been controversial enough, paying people to be tattooed or to carry stone squares around or to stay walled in during an exhibition, well, this time he seems to have outdone himself.
His project, called 245 Cubic Meters, was

to give people a sense of the Holocaust by pumping lethal car exhaust fumes into a former synagogue and letting visitors enter one by one with a breathing apparatus.

I suppose everything worked out as planned: huge outrage, criticism, and a public debate about art, it's possible role in society and the way it can, should or does influence us.
The exhibition was suspended.

Here is my take on it.
1. I don't agree with the critics that claim Sierra's work is exactly what it claims to fight, i.e., "the trivialization of the Holocaust", as the artist put it. I don't think something becomes trivial just because you make a direct reference to it. Obviously, this isn't Disneyland, and nobody going in there must have made it light-heartedly. This is a very serious, heavy matter. When death is near, it is really too simple to discard it as "trivial".
2. Taking place in Germany, the work can be seen as a cleansing ritual, more than a gesture of rememberance. Many Germans I know never dared to ask their fathers or granfathers what they did during the war (Hans in his note to my last post notes the ever-present figure of the goo-bad uncle).
3. Part of the cleansing is certainly the aethetic aspect of the work. Walking in an abandoned synagogue is a strong emotion. Walking with a firefighter-guide makes it even more surreal.
4. The firefighter is a very strong element. It was misinterpreted by several commentators as the proof of how ridiculous an attempt at restaging the drama can be. Well, I think it rather shows that this is not a restaging. This is a work of art, and is to be treated as such. It tells a story which goes beyond itself. It is not about reliving the moment. It is, maybe, about the possibility of reliving the moment. About the power of a place. Authenticity - yes. But authenticity of a place, of a history, of an event. Authenticity of a gas and of our reaction to it. Of the precautions we take. Today.

5. If Sierra was actually after the creepy feeling that all this was real, if he wanted to "remember", he could have simply made a trip to Auschwitz. It is a horrible, horrible place. I'm still not sure if I think it is a good thing for it to exist. Its struggle for memory gets scarily close to a fascination with death, the same one that makes us look at an accident or listen to a horrible story. Yes, it makes us remember. But I'm not sure if the cost is not, well, some sort of a pornography, if you may, an indecent exposure of something that really should have been put to rest. Nonetheless, it exists - it's there to see for anyone unsure if his memory is correct, unsure if he has enough disgust for what people can do to other people. I don't think we need Santiago Sierra to remind us of that.
6. The difference is that Sierra made his piece in a gallery space. In a synagogue. In Germany. I am really tired of having Poland associated with the Holocaust (I think I mentioned it some while ago). This work puts the finger to the wound. Right where it (still!) hurts.
7. How pretentious to seek to evoke their horror and fear of death in such a cheap way! In a cynical game which yields no insight whatsoever. - says a newspaper.
For some time, Santiago Sierra has been asking one question: "What if it were you?". His works are exercices in empathy. They are often cruel exercices. In this sense, yes, they get cynical.
This reminds me of the famous Stanley Milgram, a scientist often accused of cynicism, who discovered that most people can be unhumanly cruel by creating simple conditions (orders coming from an authority) that made them do what they thought to be acts of great cruelty. Milgram was accused of turning people into murderers, as if they were toys to play with. Sierra is accused of "hurting the dignity of the victims", as if they were toys to play with. I really don't see how the dignity of the victims is being hurt. And, contrary to some of his other works, here Sierra doesn't actually use anyone, he doesn't turn people into something just (?) for art's sake.
8. What he does play with is memory. And guilt. The synagogue is the sign, it is what made the difference when the selection was made during the war, it was what identified the victims and what differenciated them from the others (the killers, but also the by-standers). Here, the visitor becomes at once the victim, the perpetrator and the by-stander, the observer. Being the art spectator he is, he cannot help but have a distance. At the same time, he goes inside, he participates. He repeats history. As a victim, or as a re-creator?
9. To me, this last question is going too far. And not because it crosses some line of decency. Because from what I can imagine and see on the pictures (once again: what can I imagine and see on the picture? how far can imagination get me?), the conceptuality of the work is simply unbearable. Bluntly speaking: it seems boring. It is the second work by Sierra that I find interesting as a concept, but have difficulty finding strong as an actual work (The first one was 300 tons). I really don't feel like walking through an empty synagogue with a fireman just so Santiago Sierra can make his point. And having a gas mask on would hardly change my stance.
But honestly, I think I still haven't figured it all out quite yet.

Technorati: art installation, installation, visual art, art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool

The Search for the Perfect Dress

Burkha, by Spanish designer/artist Alicia Framis, is made of Twaron, also known as kevlar or aramid fiber, an ultra-resistent material that is bullet-proof, but also resists flames and dog bites. This is to protect its wearer in dangerous extreme right-wing neighbourhoods where violence against immigrants and religious minorities often takes place.

Looking at the picture, Linda Zacks' question "Burka or Bikini?" comes to mind.
Why does this answer scare me even more? Am I being way too conservative? Besides being an artistic work, it is also a social statement. Yet, somehow, it seems to provoke both sides, the islamic culture and the "Western rationalism". Yes, I think I like this chill down my spine. There is something wrong with the picture, because there is something wrong with the sudden proximity of tradition in its most limiting sense and modernity in its most limiting sense. Seen from the point of view of the other, they both might seem ridiculous. And they could, if they wished to, listen more carefuly to who the other one is. On both sides.

We cannot escape having divided personalities. Having our culture invaded by the culture. I always tend to think of the times of the Roman Empire, when latin invaded the world. The ridiculous nature of civilization is so clear in these periods of overcoming, swallowing... A recent lecture, Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, comes to mind: are we better because we wash twice a day? Are we better because we have a method for writing down our history? Because we own what we call rationalism? How many of us own it, to be precise? But, if we accept the "barbarians", if we embrace the other, either in our tolerance and/or in our wish to enrich ourselves, who are we? And if we are the other, and decide to take some of this otherness in parantheses, as the vast majority of religious people do today, as do people from influencial cultural backgrounds, who are we then?
Double-headed monsters?

Rosemarie Trockel, Schizo-pullover (1988)

Technorati: design, fashion, art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool

Women by women

Billboard (2003) by Heta Kuchka

Billboard (2003) by Liv Carlé
Part of the Billboard project www.women2003 :

From 23. March to 4. April [2003] one hundred and two Scandinavian female artists will present their own personal and artistic female image in the public space ? entering a dialogue with the images created by commercials. (...)
In that way the new female images created by this project will form a solid and diverse contrast to the monotonous representations created by the commercial market.

What is strange is how many of these works (the ones above included) define the woman through her relation to the man.
Both these images are disturbing. And they say somewhat similar things - the fear of rejection, the question of being appealing or not, the scary idea that the author, a woman, is completely wrong, just because she is herself.
And while it's supposed to question our values as men (and women who accept this), I'm not sure if it doesn't do exactly the opposite, provoking us to answer, "Get a grip on yourself girl! If you can't make him appreciate you for who you are, if you can't gain respect, if you get a guy that sees you as a toy, you better look around. There are plenty more of us, you know".
But, look at it from another point of view. The two works I present are part of a series of actual billboards put in and around Copenhagen and Malmö. They are not as much a statement, as they are an answer. They laugh at the myth. At the plastic imagery we know all-too-well. And if that answer tells more about men than about women, it might be giving us a hint about the images it aims to reply to.

Technorati: feminism, photography, art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool

Young Fashion: The Thimble Scandal

Here is something spicy from an area I haven't been paying much attention to - fashion.
I have received the above picture from Maryla Sobek, a friend who teaches at the Fashion School of the UQAM university (huge French-speaking university in Montreal, Canada). The picture, by Anne Marie Sauriol (a student at the university), was going to be a poster for the graduation fashion show (roughly translated, the sign on the side states "Honoring Fashion").
And all hell broke loose.
The director considered it a scandal. Something horribly vulgar and absolutely unacceptable. My friend suggests that the younger generation has a different sensibility, and might see this as a provocation, but not necessarily as a vulgar offense.

There is a large group of people that still find the phrase "fuck you" extremely offensive. Sarah Lucas is not one of them. The amateurs of Sarah Kane's dramaturgy are not among them either. People who experiment don't get offended. They might get bored. Or disappointed. And to me that is more of a risk here.
Bored, because we've seen the middle finger so many times it really isn't anything special.
Disappointed, because we might be expecting something we won't necessarily see on the show.
Now here is my counterargument on both points:
1) This doesn't bore me. Because it has a twist. The thimble - the cap, the condom, the hat, the head, the dot over the 'i', the filter, the creator. The sublimation. The humorist. The hidden treasure. It says "now that I got your attention, come here".
2) Something else this picture says is "We're fed up. And that's our beginning." Which raises expectations. One feels like saying "If you're so tough on everyone else, you better be good". And that's a pretty dangerous zone. Easy to lose.
3) Or is it? I'm not sure the poster is really a statement. It could be seen more as an artsy PR work, Benetton-style. As we know, in its most controversial (and talked about) posters, Benetton chooses topics not necessarily related to the issues it is directly involved with. Rather, it says "we see what you see. we feel what you feel." It speaks to its target group by using empathy. We could say a similar thing is happening here: the students themselves would not be offended by this sort of a poster; it is too common. Just think of all the t-shirts with "bad bitch" written on them. Anyone studying fashion must be aware of what is happening in social behavior, and I suppose it is a good idea to use it, answer it, and then, if you really really want to be an artiste, defy it. So, if this is a statement, I would say it isn't a positive one in the sense that it doesn't actually affirm anything, but rather appeals to a negative attitude that is already present in the public. And then, it uses it, associating itself with the street punk attitude.
Then again, students still have more experience as consumers than creators. So their creation can also be seen as a reaction of a fashion consumer. To what? Well, take Benetton, the edgiest fashion label publicity-wise. The 18-to-20-something year olds of today (including myself) weren't only brought up on Benetton's "ideals". We see the hypocrisy: Benetton had no problem going from this:

(1984)

to this:
(1998)

and finally to this:
(2006)

What are we left with? How can a designer still have ideals, if those ideals are used by marketing specialists in a totally arbitrary way, as it suits the moment? Maybe someone got tired of selling pink dreams and black, satin fairy tales with android proportions? So what is there left to say, what is there left to fight for or invent? I hope, a lot. But just as we needed Artuad's senseless screams to get to a new form of theater, as we needed Cage's silence to get to new music, so in order to get to some fresh, original ideas from time to time we might need a middle finger stuck up high. Hopefully, with a thimble on top.

Technorati: fashion, visual art, art, contemporary art, new art, vvoi, vvoitek, modern art, cool