(Madrid, Spain)
Carla Zaccagnini and Runo Lagomarsino are on view at Reina Sofia Museum with exhibition “Really Useful Knowledge”, on view through 9th February 2015.
The notion of “really useful knowledge” emerged at the beginning of the 19th century alongside the workers’ awareness of the need for self-education. In the 1820s and 1830s, working class organisations in the UK introduced this phrase to describe a body of knowledge that encompassed various “unpractical” disciplines such as politics, economy and philosophy, as opposed to the “useful knowledge” proclaimed by business owners who had previously begun to invest more heavily in their companies’ progress through financing workers’ education in “applicable” disciplines like engineering, physics, chemistry and mathematics. In this reference to the long-forgotten class struggles of early capitalism, the title of the exhibition suggests an inquiry into “really useful knowledge” from a contemporary perspective.
The exhibition endeavours to position the notion of critical pedagogy as a crucial element in collective struggles, and explore the tension between individual and social emancipation through education with examples that are both historical and current, and their relation to organisational forms capable of leading unified resistance to the reproduction of capital. In doing so, the exhibition highlights the collective utilization of public resources, action and experiments, either forgotten or under threat of eradication, taking the museum as a pedagogical site devoted to the analysis of artistic forms interconnected with actual or desired social relations.
“Really Useful Knowledge”, featuring works by Carla Zaccagnini and Runo Lagomarsino
On view through 9th February 2015
Visiting: Mondays and from Wednesday to Saturday, from 10am to 9pm; Sundays from 10am to 7pm; closed Tuesdays
Museu Reina Sofia
Sabatini building ground floor
52 Santa Isabel Street
28012, Madrid