Help, my teacher makes dirty art
Being a teacher and an artist is sometimes a difficult combination. Especially when the artistic work contains nudes. More and more students, parents or colleagues find art offensive.
Picture: Nina Maissouradze
In the autumn of 2018, a bizarre scenario unfolds at the Rotterdam School Association, a primary school where mainly children of higher educated parents attend. 
A number of them see photo compositions of naked Barbies on the facebook page of the group 5 teacher. Art that the teacher has been making for years and which is also no secret at school. But these parents find the pictures so offensive that they decide to leave their children at home. 'It is not normal for a teacher to be able to make these kinds of images,' it quotes Algemeen Dagblad from an anonymous email. In total, five students from group 5 are not allowed to attend.
The children are now just going back to school, says Per Severin, the school's director. “We stick to our statement that this is a private matter for the teacher. Her future at our school is absolutely not in question. ” He is disappointed that the incident has reached the media. He does not want to say whether the teacher is currently working, but he does want to say that the whole situation has 'enormous impact' on her. He has also not finished talking to the parents. The teacher does not want to respond publicly, but she posted a statement at the time explaining that idealized doll bodies are often a theme in her art.
Dirty
Cabaret artist Johan Goossens. Image: Frans Peters - Flickr
The teacher is under a magnifying glass. Made a spelling mistake? Parents know where to find you. Dropped out against a student? They probably know exactly which rule of conduct you have violated.
Place in this context teachers who visit the stage with taboo-breaking art, and it is a matter of waiting for hassle. This is partly why comedian Johan Goossens stopped as a Dutch teacher at an Amsterdam roc, well before his current Flame premiered. “I couldn't see myself doing that at the same time. A program about my sex life in which I stand on stage almost naked and my work as a teacher. Moreover: if the public knows that you are a teacher, they will still look at you differently. ”
The new prudishness seeps into the classroom
For many years, Goossens was able to combine both professions well. “There was a reassuring disinterest from students in my work as a cabaret artist. Although I did become a bit more conformist. When I first started I sometimes showed students videos of my stand-up comedy. But as soon as I get on play I realized: Oh yes, I'm here to swear, or tell a dirty joke. This is confusing in your role as a teacher. ” Also at his latest performance, groups of former pupils occasionally sit in the room. Goossens finds that just as uncomfortable as when family visits this performance. “Then I still think: Oh god, they should look at that. Soon they'll think I'm a dirty bastard. ”
Image l'Origine du monde: Daniele Dalledonne - Flickr
Because the chance that students will find something dirty has increased, says Judith Boessen, editor-in-chief of the trade magazine for art and culture in education. Art zone. In September 2018 she made a special entitled 'Nieuwe Pruutsheid'. That prudishness does not make the work of art teachers any easier. Boessen: “How should you deal with students who are disgusted by the tufts of pubic hair on Courbet's masterpiece? L'origine du monde while they effortlessly track the song Habiba by rapper Boef in which he tells about a girl who licks his banana? ”
Double standards
Picture: Nina Maissouradze
In the same edition of Kunstzone, Steven Kolsteren, head of education at the Groninger Museum, points to the double standard. "We're just a few mouse clicks away from hard porn, but we also want to protect kids from anything leaning towards naked." As the nude is portrayed more realistically and gets closer to the here and now, students find it more uncomfortable, he notes. Boessen surveyed teachers and noted that this diminishing tolerance is seeping into art classes. “Some teachers are looking for a middle ground. They show a cleaned version of a work, in which the crown of Sesame Street-Bert or simply a black bar hides the worst from view. ”
Nina Maissouradze * recognizes that cleaning. In addition to her artistry, she works part-time as an art teacher at a roc and at a university of applied sciences. “Everything I make myself, I share on social media, so naked work too. But in the meantime I am removing the penis pictures from my Instagram at the end of August. In the course of the school year, when the students get to know me a bit better, I will add more exposure. ” Her MBO students in particular sometimes have difficulty with her work. “The last time the class asked: What is the most shocking thing you have made? I showed them a picture of a naked woman giving birth to a boy with legs apart while a boy is standing next to it. But they did not understand. Why do you make that? They thought it was dirty, ugly and unnecessary. For me, such work is just humor, but they don't see it. ”
At the beginning of the year I remove the penis pictures from my Instagram
The prudery does not seem to end for the time being. After Facebook and Instagram, the more liberal Tumblr is now also removing explicit content. Furthermore, the #MeToo movement has been influential since 2017. This exposes the link between female and abuse: something that parents are already terrified of. In addition, more and more students in Dutch education at home are learning Muslim values, with nude being a more complicated theme than in secular cultures.
Beauty ideal
Judith Boessen of Kunstzone mainly sees the normative effect of social media, which invariably shows a beauty ideal. As a result, students are less likely to deal with ordinary human bodies. “Hair, for example, evokes disgust. Or take the classic example of the Rubens figures. Voluptuous nudes that don't live up to today's standard. You will notice that students get stuck in that they think it is dirty and ugly. It becomes more difficult to ask the question 'What did the artist want to express?' If the student only thinks: Yeah, that's not a hot girl. ”
*) Nina Maissouradze also illustrates articles for the Education Magazine, including this story.
This article was published in the Education Magazine of February 2019. Every month the Education Magazine? Become member of the AOb!
