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This cycle of artworks has a quite symbolic
title: "The future belongs to us". The sentence itself, taken
from the "Cabaret" movie song (originally "Tomorrow
belongs to me") sung by the (Nazi youth) jugends, transfers its meaning
to the question of children's engagement in a society constructs. The
pictorial motifs of children posing for underwear advertisements are
taken from 70`s shopping catalogues. Boys and girls, standing in acted
"intimate" situations, illuminated from behind (just like saints
in orthodox frescoes) and showing innocence and unawareness that they are
being used - in a commercial, political, ideological and mental sense.
“Strawberry boy”, “Silver boy”, “Golden boy”
etc. a paintings from the series “The future Belongs to Us”, show a boy standing
in a pose that suggests the social ideal of masculinity – his arm is bent
to show muscles, strength and readiness for aggression. Dressed only in
underwear, provocative and tempting, the boy has the task to “emit” the
ideal of desirability, and to justify the value of a commercial product.
The fact is that the child, depicted in its full naivety, helplessness
and denudation, has been used in commercial purposes. The boy is
simulating, acting out his violence that has actually been forced on him
through education by adults who accept that ideal as a collective
construct. Projection of social ideals and values, disputable if assessed
from a distance, forms a new generation of people by depositing
unachieved ambitions – my offspring must achieve everything I couldn’t
do.
Manipulation
of sexuality that has been channeled towards the creation of the sexes
from the early childhood is just a tool for restoring and multiplying the
social ideal itself. Highlighted as against the discrete ornaments of
childhood – the pattern of Pinocchio, the character that teaches
sincerity and kindness, the boy points out outgrowth of common human
values and the priority of more brutal, and for social positioning more
important values.
Economizing
with children for the purpose of affirmation has been exaggerated during
the last 10 years in these parts and grotesquely ubiquitous in everyday
life, and it has been particularly transparent in media that “educate”
its mass public.
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