Artist: Ola Vasiljeva
Exhibition title: En Rachâchant
Curated by: Roos Gortzak
Venue: Vleeshal Markt, Middelburg, The Netherlands
Date: September 13 – December 13, 2015
Photography: Leo van Kampen and Ola Vasiljeva, images courtesy of the artist and Vleeshal, Middelburg
The exhibition borrows its title En Rachâchant from a short film by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet based on the children’s story Ah! Ernesto by Marguerite Duras. It takes a humorous look at de-hierarchising the educational process through the character of Ernesto, who insistently refuses to go to school because it teaches things he doesn’t know.
In En Rachâchant, Vasiljeva strategically approaches negation and the refusal to learn. In a time when the market logic dominates all fields of teaching and dictates that knowledge must be rentable in economic terms, this show mounts a playful assault on this ideology.
The exhibition takes the form of an anti-pedagogical stage, populated by mixed media works, sculptures and drawings that manipulate motifs related to the subject of disobedience as a course of learning. As part of the exhibition, Vasiljeva has developed two course programmes: The Course in Lying and The Course in Doubt, which will be incorporated within Vleeshal’s education programme during the exhibition.
Ola Vasiljeva (1981, Ventspils, LV) lives and works in Amsterdam. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘The Limp of A Letter’, BOZAR, Brussels (2015); ‘University’, Galerie Antoine Levi, Paris (2015), ‘Jargo’t, Art in General, NewYork (2014); ‘The Limp of A Letter’, Prix de Rome, de Appel, Amsterdam, (2013); ‘Cinq à sept’, kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2013). Her work has been recently included in the group exhibitions: XII Baltic Triennial, CAC, Vilnius (2015), ‘Society Acts’, Moderna Museet, Malmö (2014); ‘Last Seen Entering the Biltmore’, South London Gallery, London (2014); ‘What Were You Expecting, Mr. Milquetoast, a Plot?’, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2014); ‘Fusiform Gyrus’, Lisson Gallery, London (2013). Ola Vasiljeva is represented by Galerie Antoine Levi in Paris.
The exhibition runs parallel to and in dialogue with OAOA’s University at Vleeshal Zusterstraat.
