Where is art?

As there is a clear trend to photograph one’s body wearing very little, the rising outrage is against the nude in art, but not in social media that much, where soft porn is a normalcy and a way to sell oneself. Is everyday soft porn prostitution?

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Artist poses in front of her art, 2017

What is appropriate art, what should art be like and who is to decide? Who is the critic and what is the quality of criticism are to be questioned, as when all opinions must be voiced and are, who are listened to and what is said? The nipple (that must be freed?), breasts (nowadays breast are very commonly out, except the nipple), vaginas, asses (that are out as well), penises, fat are common in fine art to see, but they do cause moral outrage especially in fine art, probably even more when photographed and when the artist does it herself of herself questioning the sexism in the arts especially. Museums and galleries are becoming more family friendly places to visit to lure visitors and in the process art shown must be family friendly too? What family friendliness in this context means, censoring, teaching and moralising? What does art teach, what is the visitor to learn from art or about art? What kind of place does pedagogy have in art and showing art and should it as for example Guggenheim proposed to be the case in Finland 2016, when it was selling its franchise product for us, to have pedagogical spaces for kids in a commercial museum? How pedagogical can a commercial museum be and what kind of pedagogy does the art world provide? Does the art world learn here or does it take the place of a supreme teacher? Pedagogy provided in cynicism, marketing, painting, becoming famous or what is beauty?

What does family friendliness mean in today’s world, in the art world, in art, in marketing and why be family friendly other than making a buck, just be ever so nice and listen to Jingle Bells? Does it mean more gift shops, snacks and pop-ups, fast-food, fast art, naivety, shopping, blocking unwanted influences and opinions and spending time kind of existing and creating of a place of culture, where one can become cultured, more commercial places for consumerism, where we can also sell ourselves? More is beautiful and more lucrative and more popular is good? Is there a trend to make art family friendly to consume as much as possible photographing oneself and be seen in and what is that art like there? Glittering, shining and ultra-positive? What does it mean to make art family friendly for art as a whole, for places of art and for the artist? Thinking, what is friendliness in this context? Artist should manipulate her art to not disturb and not create awkwardness as women should manipulate themselves to please the eye? Weird is scary and horror is not art? Is the artist family friendly as a profession? Hearing that there should be warning labels for fine art on websites and in places of art for not to scare children/adults and not cause trauma, offence, uncomfortable feelings is for me as an artist a flag and creates a pressure for need to appeal and gratify. I don’t make art to please, for pure enjoyment and entertainment. I do not include likings in what I do. It is as a thought against art to aim to please and collect like stamps. Wanting to create places of art as places of visual candy stores surely works as people like glitter and images of fantasy. If you want to be bored by art and not be provoked a thought, it is your choice, but don’t claim all art must be eye candy.

Question is what does a visitor want from places of art and is it important to pay attention to and to what extent? What is the visitor for the art establishment other than a consumer and what is art for the art establishment and for the visitor? People wish to be entertained, be surprised, be in the presence of greatness, fame, names, skill, be in awe, but all this in the good sense of leaving the place in some kind of having seen is something what tourists do. To be in wonderment of it all is what I hope. Do people want to be safe in places of art, safe from the visual that may attack them in some way? What is a visual attack in real life? Is that a threat as such and in what way? Pictures do hunt us and stay in our minds, what do they do and how do images impact our thinking and feelings is something we must be afraid of and alert?
There is a division there between places of art and the normal place of living and looking where art may be placed or not, usually not. We can avoid art totally, but should we? We may live without seeing and being in touch of art, which is part of the problem of why art exists more commercial and must be made in different ways and why art is seen as weird and hostile. Is art hostile and how, if so? And what is the hostile part? What is artist’s job in today’s world? Where is art?

LET’S Go BACK TO FLASHDANCE: THERE IS MORE TO THE MOVIE THAN THE PLOT. IT IS MORE CLEVER THAN YOU GIVE IT CREDIT FOR.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

It is a fairytale kind of spectacle or anti-spectacle in a spectacle, if that is a thing. Anti-spectacle in the sense of changing of the perspective towards gender, class, work and art, romantic is the spectacle, a pattern we expect. The spectacle we are used to seeing and thinking in terms of movies and in general how class, work, gender and art function and are, are thought to represent and be like. The American dream in this case where a beautiful young woman reaches out for her dream, a place in the sun and ends up getting more or ‘all’, a romantic relationship with a Man with a Porsche, who is also the owner of the factory where Alexandra, the woman in question, works at as a welder. One big plus of the movie is it does not highlight the work Alexandra does, welding is just work with men as co-workers, it makes the movie hugely more interesting though, and her the one who lives outside the box and is allowed to do so. She is not harassed by her co-workers, her abilities are not questioned. It is truly a beautiful setting, which her choice of work, most definitely would be seen weird still today.

To explore deeper into what the movie is all about is worth our while as it has been deeply overlooked as many romantic movies that are meant for women usually are. To pay attention to details, characters, camera shots, what is being looked at and told via tensions between women and men and why those tensions exist. What happens between the sexes, between women especially, what are sexes both expected to do, look and be like. Movie is a language as is dance as is sex, sexuality, clothing and gender. You have to focus on to read it all and actually think what are we looking at, what happens there and why all the time. It is not just an entertaining show where you can relax and forget what is going on, this is told via contrasts between sleazy bars, working men and art, how women are treated in different settings and how these settings differ, how women want to be treated and what do they desire of their lives to be. Movie is never just a movie that is meant to entertain, not even those that are made for that purpose, nor is music or the dance acts that seem to be out of place. Point is easily missed when the romantic is what stays interesting and in the focus.

In a bar where ambitious fit and talented dancers show their art, act for paying customers who are watching and are a bit amazed by the unexpected shows. Contrast is also to the other bar where dancing is not the primary interest of anyone, only nude female bodies, that move in a certain way. Women are dancing for money but in a show-your-ass-kind of way, but they still want to be discovered and dream of making it. What are people watching and why, who gets attention? Watching happens for instant gratification, simplicity of getting pleasure cheap and for fun. A bar is a world of something else than the workplace and not a place of thought, burdening oneself. Customers of the bar are not the assumed ordinary art lovers, but that is the point. Why should people be provoked to think more than is necessary, why not give them what they want? To whom is art for and why is it a class issue? What is art and where is art, who is capable of art and why it is a special occasion in a special place? High and low seem to be repulsed by each other, classes stay separated  like oil and water. The dance acts, art and artists, are really in the right place. Intention of the movie is not to depict a straightforward story in a manner of this is what happens: this is what we dream of happening to us. It is not a children’s story and it is not pink. It seems light, but is heavier when one starts exploring. That are the expectations and frame women are supposed to fit in, want, act upon and are shown in the movie, that those who dare, can change the game. There is social critique hidden there to be found.

To say Flashdance is a feminist movie is not quite what a true movie lover might expect. What do you think about the turn, that a seemingly light Hollywood movie is feminist in a very kick-ass way and about the structural difficult issue of choosing how to get ahead in life, on one’s own terms and talent, and not sleeping with the boss or buddy who has connections. What do you think about when after having seen and evaluated for example the scene where Alexandra goes and finds her friend who has gone to work as a stripper, moving herself in conventional stripper manner, she is grabbed off the stage by Alexandra and escorted out. In the scene Alexandra’s clothing and standing position compared to her friend tell a lot when friend the stripper ends up in a puddle on street wearing only panties and high heels and is cold. Money, she earned gets wet in the rain on the pavement. Alexandra’s loose pants and sneakers when she stands firmly behind the naked woman who has fallen down and sold her body for money to please men may seem easy and naive, but it is something very basic, a woman on the ground beaten down feeling there is no other opportunity for her.

After having read couple of critiques about the movie and clearly many have missed the point: When one is an art critic it is essential to see behind the expected, the image and be free of bias. What is the seen image telling us, what happens without words, what is the setting and who are the characters, what do they do. Do you need more clues, because explaining has to be done also in a very basic manner, obviously also for critics. When you are an art critic, don’t fall for the simple clichés. Such poor analysis destroys a lot, as does arrogance, assumptions and cynicism. Minimizing culture that is aimed at and is about women and girls is a normal practice. It is a learned reaction which comes without thinking. A black woman eating a banana in a scene where women talk about relationships, well sounds as cliché as anything, but it happens in couple of seconds, and is easily missed, but telling. To make it as you with your raw capabilities, without handouts and favours..

Flashdance, is a feminist movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashdance in which woman does work as a welder and pursues her dream to become a professional dancer, also in which women help each other, face sexual harassment and deal with it by acting out, consequences lurking there and threat of violence is almost a certainty. To oppose men means you have to be one and be prepared. Movie portrays different kinds of female roles, a gallery of different kinds of women. The expectations of what women should be like, playing with stereotypes with which women struggle and hold on to as coping mechanisms. They may be afraid to go against the machine or don’t know how to or should they, and those who do not fit in the accepted roles especially, seem to be out of sync or do what they need to do despite whatever. Interesting are the different kinds of female characters there, how there are systematic learned rules of behaviour that stick, codes for genders and how these codes are taken for granted. How women portrayed are in their places and obviously struggle and lack power. They try to move on up as do men, they have dreams. Men try to move inside women’s panties and sex is clearly a very basic tool of control and making it. It is the first thought, easy way out, a getaway car and motive. World of art is a dusty stagnant relic too, which needs heavy dusting. Alex, the leading women, is afraid to enter this monument of perfected trained fragile-looking fairy-like ballerinas and primadonnas. She want’s to make it on her own with her own credentials with her talent and does not need a man to do that for her.

Real life is stranger than fiction says this welder.

 

”I have a friend who has a simple test for a movie: Is this movie as interesting as the same things would be, happening in real life? A lot of movies aren’t, and ”Flashdance” sure isn’t. If this movie had spent just a little more effort getting to know the heroine of its story, and a little less time trying to rip off ”Saturday Night Fever,” it might have been a much better film.”

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/flashdance-1983

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085549/reviews

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/09/entertainment/la-et-cm-flashdance-musical-review-segerstrom-20130509

Reviews and critiques strongly reflect the persona of the critic who is writing. For some reason in this case feminist perspective does not shine through. Wonder why.