SmART Foundation - pole for art presents The invention of youth, an experimental educational project, culminating in an exhibition, involving the artists José Angelino, Giulio Catelli, Gianluca Concialdi, Lorenzo Modica, Marta Roberti and Caterina Silva, curated by Sarah Linford.

The invention of youth is one of the winning projects of the call for ideas Contemporary Education launched by the Foundation in October 2021, to develop ideas and educational initiatives in the field of contemporary visual arts.

The invention of youth questions: What is meant today by "artistic research"? How is it promoted? What are its criteria? Currently, those derived from standardized canons are no longer valid, neither aesthetically nor socially. The avant-garde dream of creating a new world has long since passed and the search for any revolutionary visual language has given way to practices that are articulated in post-conceptual devices and hybrid experiences.

If there is to be a form of " radical pedagogy " in artistic education and research, then, it is necessary to start by reversing the model of art education from top to bottom. It should not be based on normative knowledge or on the acquisition of technical skills or on conceptual frameworks to emulate. However, a " radical pedagogy ", however socially innovative, cannot have as its final goal the production of artists who limit themselves to making radical "contents" visible. If there is to be a change through practice, artistic research must be anchored in the radicality of the cognitive and physical actions put in place, not in programmatically reflecting on a social function. Radical teaching must instead "indicate" ways to perpetually reinvent acts of creation, challenging the presuppositions of the very conditions of creativity and, ultimately, displace the viewer.