Back in the Bubble

There was a strong and somewhat negative change in me after I began teaching at my former highschool. The fact is that teaching there became a sort of guideline to my existence, my routine and my interests. I was now teaching 11 to 16-year-olds from wealthy families about art, at a school that favored practical thinking. This, in a way, limited my openness exclusively to what I felt was relevant to this scenario. No time, energy or interest in anything else.

I felt hugely comfortable teaching them about the inner workings of photo cameras or the language of cinema, the practical tricks to improving their drawing and the basics of color theory. It was the practical side of art, something that wasn't so vulnerable to being written off as a useless waste of time, because it was tangible knowledge, that could be put to some use by students who had good access to high culture (though whether they chose to make the most of that access or indulge in lower, more futile, but equally usable pop references remained up to them...). This became the direction towards which I was driving all my being.
At some point, I noticed I was inherently different from the other teachers-in-training I was studying with. They were simple people from all walks of life, who had decided to provide children with some artistic experience. But they seemed conformed with ending up as underpaid teachers in public schools, as if the idea of striving for a well-paid job at a private school was an impossibility and I had somehow struck gold with the job I currently had.
It felt to me as well that they had some sort of skewed idea that the poor, the uncultured, the underdogs were the ones who would make the most of what they could offer, as if the wealthy were too priviledged and spoilt to deserve or even need these lessons and they would magically "happen" in their heads with no external help needed.
Furthermore, it bored me to notice that the approach these future teachers favored consisted of a slew of random and patronizing crafting exercises - making paper maché dolls, making stamps out of corks or potatoes, that sort of thing - that resulted in "cute" works from students who were completely clueless as to why they were doing this. The art class was an exercise in futility and students eventually degenerated into treating the class a a second break and the teacher as an idiot (with good reason too, since the class felt like the teacher was treating them as idiots...). I heard gruesome stories of disgruntled and bored public school students physically assaulting teachers -  such was the degree of disrespect. Granted that these exercises did develop students' dexterity and their cognitive abilities, but I was sure that could be done while at the same time teaching them actual conscious skills they could consciously use and facts they could assimilate, rather than one-off parlor tricks. I was expecting to be treated with respect, even if my class wasn't an integral part of the university admission exams. In order to have that, I had to give the students something tangible as well.

But all of this meant I was also becoming somewhat more narrow-minded. I had been to the public schools as part of teacher trainning. I had seen first hand how most of these humbler students were lacking in the basic formation needed to comprehend some of the more complex concepts. How most of them didn't even care. How the schools themselves were unwilling to invest what was needed for a decent art course because they didn't see it as something a future low-class worker would need. Gradually, I myself began to buy into the notion that improving an art course at a public school was a waste of time. I came close to believing that art was indeed irrelevant to these students (other than what they needed to carry out the manufacture of carnival floats and costumes, an industry that kept many of them out of misery). Bottom line: I shut myself off from the outer world, remaining inside this upper-class bubble.

I recognize this enormous prejudice as a way "the System" has of reproducing itself. Still, I see no way of escaping this at present. The teacher trainning classes, my classes, the painting classes on Wednesdays, everything is taking up so much time that there is no way to include volunteering for lower-class schools right now. Perhaps in the future.

And even then, I'll first have to be convinced I can actually make a difference in such children's lives.

Bullshitism

Lá em Londres, durante o mestrado, um dos professores nos mostrou este vídeo:




[Fiquei sabendo agora que a artista deu uma palestra na faculdade de Camberwell para os formandos do mestrado de lá naquele mesmo ano. Perdi...]

O vídeo me fez pensar sobre como eu andava ouvindo muito disso por aí. Não é nenhuma novidade que a carreira de arte baseia-se muito na sua capacidade de fazer política, de se apresentar como algo palatável e não como o que você realmente é: um estudante de arte inseguro, sem controle sobre a qualidade do que você faz, tateando no escuro pra ver se você acerta algum veio principal das questões estéticas da nossa época. Nessa tentativa de se vestir de alguém com mais autoconfiança, criamos todo esse vernáculo de palavras bonitas que na verdade não dizem nada além disso: que somos estudantes de artes inseguros, sem controle sobre a qualidade do... deu pra entender, né? Eu fui perceber lá em Chelsea (e já tinha percebido com alguns outros artistas por aqui) que essa estratégia do bullshitism realmente funciona pra muita gente. Entendidos e não entendidos de arte, que engolem as obras, sejam quais forem, se elas vierem empacotadas em palavras complicadas. Assim como engolem os artistas se eles vierem travestidos de personas excêntricas e expansivas.

Em uma tentativa bem-humorada de botar em prática essa crítica, e ao mesmo tempo tentar fazer a turminha que morava comigo na Bernard Myers House em Camberwell lavar a própria louça depois de comer, eu fiz toda uma série de fotos dos restos mofados de comida deles, cada uma acompanhada de um texto bem bullshitista, defendendo cada "obra" como um trabalho de arte pós-moderna. Acabou virando um álbum no meu Facebook, chamado de Kitchen Filth:

The latest trend in Filth Art mixes several elements of the postmodernist discourse. The contempt towards commercial art exemplified by the use of perishable materials, the stylistic promiscuity in the mix of old and new elements, the unconventional and uncategorisable final products and even ethnic elements that challenge Greenbergian modernism.

[Clique nos nomes das obras para ver]
Potception: (Ramekin on mold and unknown substance on bowl)
The geniality of this one resides in the complex play between container and substance, allowing a multiple-layered interpretation. A container sits on substance, which in turn sits on a container. This could go on indefinitely.

Koolaid: (Mold on artificially flavored beverage on glass)
The advent of modern synthetic materials such as artifical beverages gave rise to new possibilities in contemporary Filth Art, like the growth of mold on liquid displayed on this piece.

O negócio caiu tão bem na rotina da Bernard Myers, que no final do nosso período lá, eu até documentei o "trabalho final" que algum artista de Filth Art fez na nossa geladeira (e na de outros cinco apartamentos). Tudo devidamente satirizado com legenda bullshitista

Final Piece: I believe this is our Filth Artist's final piece for his/her degree show.
Notice the nice balance between the empty fridge door and the full fridge interior, linked together by the empty ketchup bottles left on the empty door, with their content reaching out to the other, full area. It's a conceptual link.
Although I have to say that I felt there's an element missing from this piece in relation to the others: the mold. Perhaps our artist just didn't have enough time to grow it before presenting it to us this morning....
You can view other pieces in this final series of works in Kenny Foot's album "June 4th"