Flâneuse

FLÂNEUSE - featuring Martha Cooper, Alicia Eggert, Retha Ferguson, Laura Grace Ford, Roxane Huilmand, Cristina de Middel, Alicia Paz & Tuesday Smillie

On view August 24 – September 29, 2018

Reception: Thursday, August 30th, 6-8pm

Flâneuse is a group exhibition featuring eight international artists whose work draws attention to the role of gender in contemporary urban experience. Through a variety of media, the artists explore a diverse array of concerns about street life. The overlapping themes they address include history, memory, social justice, personal safety, public protest, physical movement, and commodity culture. Taking the traditional idea of the “flâneur” as a point of departure, the exhibition highlights key themes from the ongoing scholarly debate about the appropriateness or indeed the existence of the female equivalent, the “flaneuse.” 

The nineteenth-century art critic Charles Baudelaire coined the term “flâneur” in his essay “The Painter of Modern Life.” A man with means and time enough to wander through city streets, without aim and without calling attention to himself, the flâneur was an urban explorer. Regarded as an aesthete and a literary figure, he was celebrated as a significant observer of contemporary life. Flânerie or idle strolling was made possible by male privilege and until recently scholars have mostly dismissed the idea of a flâneuse in the context of the nineteenth century when it was indeed difficult for women to be in public spaces without a chaperone. If women were on the street alone they were likely considered poor or prostitutes. 

But does the idea of the “flâneuse” make sense in the 21stcentury? The artists in this exhibition document street life and use their experiences and research for creative purposes that reflect their observations. The modern flâneuse is found in the psychogeographer who considers walking or urban drifting as a way to explore built environments and suggest a sense of place. Day-dreaming or what Virginia Woolf called “street haunting” is part of their artistic practice, for unlike the traditional idle flâneur, all of them are professional, working women. 

The act of flânerie has evolved and for these artists, it is something more dynamic, active and liberating, reflective of the agency women now have in public spaces. Instead of the aimless flâneur, the flâneuse is someone to be reckoned with. That said, the wandering path of the “flâneuse” is still a problematic and sometimes dangerous endeavor. Urban strolling means accepting and sometimes transgressing accepted codes of city space. The freedom of the contemporary flâneuse to window-shop, loiter or soak up street life is complicated by concerns for personal safety, from uncomfortable incidents of anti-social behavior and sexual harassment to violent acts of rape and assault. The collective voice found in Flâneuse openly acknowledges such issues and attempts to ask questions about how to make a safer, more equitable future for women.

Fort Worth Contemporary Arts is one of two galleries that comprise The Art Galleries at TCU. Students and alumni of the TCU College of Fine Arts and guest artists exhibit at these galleries. Fort Worth Contemporary Arts is located at 2900 W. Berry St. located on the edge of TCU – Texas Christian University campus, Fort Worth, TX 76109. Gallery Hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 12 - 5pm, and by appointment. Admission is free. 

For more information about Flâneuse or live programme events, please email [email protected] or call 817-257-2588.  

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Price

• FREE!