yucolo.com :: Palau de la Virreina

31. Mai 2007 – 24. September 2007

El rei de la casa

ADULTS AT TEN, CHILDREN AT FORTY

“El Rei de la casa” is a journey, an essay in the form of a stroll, with the purpose of suggesting a reflection on childhood. The notion we have of childhood often fails to fit the reality of today’s children. The work by the artists present here serves precisely to illustrate some of these areas of friction.

Our current idea of childhood is the product of an ongoing symbolic construction. That is why this exhibition approaches childhood from a cultural and historical perspective and eschews any attempt at a natural or biological definition of children. In the first, and at the same time last, room there is a space with documentation on this construction at different periods in history.

The myth of childhood as the age of innocence, heir to Rousseau’s thought, attained its splendour during the industrial revolution. Although the majority of children were victims of exploitation in the factories and mines, the children of the upper classes, the leading characters in Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, had a pampered and fanciful life. In this new scenario, grieving at the death of children and the myth of lost children feed a new sensitivity that highlights children’s status. Childhood is gradually becoming a new social category.

El rei de la casa

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