Those bastards in caps come to have fun and relax by the seaside instead of continuing to work in the factory.
The full title of the exhibition was ‘Those bastards in caps come to have fun and relax by the seaside instead of continuing to work in the factory’. Priscila Fernandes (Coimbra, 1981) took her title from a French newspaper article from 1936, to point to questions pertaining to the relationship between labor and leisure time in our highly productive society.
What is the position of art and the artist in shaping society? This question led Fernandes to the French Pointillists, with their rational painting technique and anarchist ideals, which Fernandes analysed in a series of photographs and paintings. She was particularly fascinated by the way the pointillists gradually shifted their interest from the depiction of urban social issues to painting idyllic landscapes in the coastal towns of the Mediterranean. This development anticipates the rise of mass tourism and changing notions of labor and leisure.
In addition, Fernandes presented ‘The Book of Aesthetic Education of the Modern School’, for which she transformed TENT’s main room into an installation with a double function: both an artwork and a temporary classroom. The installation, inspired by the radical ideas of the Escuela Moderna (Barcelona 1901–06), featured Fernandes’s book ‘¿Y El Arte?’. Responding to the lack of attention for art education within the Escuela Moderna’s pedagogical doctrine, Fernandes retroactively provided the school with a book on the topic. The book raises questions about art and education, and the role of art in shaping a new society.
Critical pedagogies
The Piet Zwart Institute’s Master of Education in Arts used the exhibition as a setting for ‘Cartographies of Acting Pedagogically: Working with Liquid Logic’, a series of workshops and public lectures co-organised by the artist and professor Frans-Willem Korsten. With Ine Gevers & Adelita Husni-Bey, Ane Hjort Guttu, Joost de Bloois, Frans-Willem Korsten and presentations by students from Master of Education in Arts at Piet Zwart Institute.
The exhibition was made possible by the Foundation Zabawas, the J.E. Jurriaanse Foundation and Stichting Niemeijer Fonds. With thanks to Zie Displays
artists
Those bastards in caps come to have fun and relax by the seaside instead of continuing to work in the factory.