In the photo of Gordon Parks’ Radio Technicians’ Class, Daytona Beach, Florida ‘(1943), two rows of students stare at their professor, whose back is on the viewer. Headphones on and books open, the class is involved, even delighted. The work is part of a series of image parks made while working as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration – later the Office of War Information – on the heels of a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship. Arrived in Washington, DC, in 1942 and constantly refused the service in public areas, he later shared In an interview: “What the camera had to do was to uncover the evil of racism, the evil of poverty, discrimination and intolerance, by showing the people most of them under members.”
The image of Parks is one of the three historical photos, each of which acts as a sort of section introduction, as part of a major exhibition at Amant that reflects on the atrocities and complexity of education, mainly by the lens of those who suffered underneath. While At education Does not fully try to condemn the system, it investigates both his violence and seems to present alternative models via the art object.
Under the 60-plus work in the show, one of the most visual and conceptual striking Is Philip Wiegard’s “Lost Boys” (2025), a handmade wallpaper designed by Wiegard and made by five students from the nearby Lyons Community School, many of them artists themselves, working under his custody. I visited one of the workshops in February, where they painted the design – turquoise rope, purple mesh, orange curls – using sponges, stamps and bubbles, each section carefully divided by strings. They took their time and learned quickly enough to keep precision; The personal accents of each students were subtle but visible. As part of its own multidisciplinary practice, Wiegard makes wallpaper with the help of centuries old baroque techniques and materials, such as glue and flower. For ‘Lost Boys’ the students were paid to learn these skills – in contrast to the children who were employed to make wallpaper in the 17th century – a choice that makes questions about the distinction between work, education and art.
The Bright, Juicy Colors of “Lost Boys” Are A Startling Backdrop For The Exhibition’s Largest Gallery, Where Stefan Tchereepnin’s Sculptures of Cookie Monster-like Beasts (“Cadisyphos with Baggages” and “Course Casualyed,” Bumbered “—Bothualy” Bothual) Dragging A School Bus, The Other Prone on the Floor – Allude Not Merely to the Intrinsic Horrors of the School System, but also to childhood itself. Various oil paintings by Michela Griffo evoke the painful abuse of her own upbringing, including “Swine in the Nursery” (1982), in which sinister pigs penetrate a Lint Bassinet, observed a scene observed by rows of humpty-dumpy figures repeated over a wall pattern. (Recent works by Griffo can also be seen, including “My Childhood”, 2023.)
The cycles of abuse by both the nuclear family and the school system seem impossible to eliminate, but At education Consider the possibility of their disruption. Cristine Brache’s “My Porsselain Hat” (2017), a Dunce -Pet – that archetypal symbol of humboling – accompanies a screening of the surrealistic and poetic short film “Carmen” by the artist “Carmen” (2023), in which a young woman and her mother stand opposite each other and their shared, confrontal – violence. Elsewhere, Navajo (Diné) artist Susan Traditional Woman Hudson’s “Thank You My Ommas and My Opaspas” (2020) is a wide, beautiful quilt with an image of women and girls about generations. The elderly, who are depicted here as young girls, hold small schoolboards who reveal what they have suffered by the state or their families, and a plea for their children and grandchildren to strive for what they could not (“we died of forced sterilization”; “I was not chained”; Ancestors.
Hudson’s mother and grandmothers were forced to learn how to sew in the state -mandated boarding schools designated for indigenous children. Under the guise of education, these punitive institutions wanted to eradicate indigenous American languages and ways of life, those indigenous children with violence subject to violence Cultural reprogramming. Last year, the Ministry of the Interior unveiled That at least 973 children died in these insulting school systems, buried many of them in both clear and unmarked graves at 65 of the schools, of which there were hundreds. Hudson’s mother finally taught her to sew out for necessity; The artist began to make clothing and quilts, which became a fundamental part of her practice – rearranged a way of control as a gift.
In November 2015, children from secondary and secondary school started as autonomous occupy State schools in São Paulo, Brazil, to protest against the then governor (and the current Brazilian vice-president) Geraldo Alckmin’s school restructuring plan. The controversial proposal is said to have closed more than 90 schools and have transferred more than 300,000 students, probably lead to dismissals, wage reductions and overcrowded classrooms. The artist and educator Graziela Kunsch documented the protests, alchemating the photos in a video of four minutes, “Escolas” (2016). The students, who ranged between the ages of 12 and 18, barricaded themselves within these schools, opposed the presence and violence of the police and repeated the infrastructure of their education, sleeping and cooking and living there, creating their own community.
At education Donald Trump was opened on March 20, on the same day that Donald Trump signed an executive order that Secretary -Minister of Education Linda McMahon enabled to dismantle the agency, one of the few structures that are able to ensure equality in the lack of American education system. The movement, what was Blocked by a federal judge last monthWould give educational supervision to individual states and ultimately school districts among the resoured schools, which receive financing from the department.
The curators of the show had already planned it for more than a year, unable to imagine his unfortunate timeliness. Now the right is to protest even against such decisions threatened. If the school system itself offers any example, repressive policy and structural suppression require creative forms of resistance, movements that emphasize compassion and change. At educationIt seems unintentionally to ask: what will come afterwards?
At education Continue in Amant (315 Maujer St, Brooklyn) until 17 August. The exhibition was compiled by Tobi Maier, Patricia Margarita Hernandez and Ian Wallace.
