Para um jovem de brilhante futuro/en

Para um jovem de brilhante futuro

Carlos Zílio

The postcard Para um jovem de brilhante futuro [To a young man of bright future] is one of the developments of the work of the same title, the valise with nails that appears on the photo of the postcard.

Although the work was created from the social and political situation of the time, it does not lose its current form in any way. The object of the work, the suitcase, continues to make reference to businessmen as a symbol of power and social status. Moreover, the title is also updated with the increase of the Economically Active Population [1] and the proliferation of vocational courses in the country aiming at the labor market: today it seems that there are more young people expecting their bright future than ever before. The actions with the suitcase, resemble the advertising images, in which one intends to sell the object-suitcase - the very idea of ​​a bright future.

In the same year in which the work was done, Zílio wrote a testimony to the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo: "In our country, the artist is an element usually coming from the middle sectors of the population. Its intellectual collection is a sampling of the possibilities of a cultural formation called university. Living in an individualistic social structure, his artistic expression is predominantly based on his personal experience."

Added to this image is the artist's option to transform it into a postcard that, in addition to being extremely connected to the tourism industry, is an instrument created by an institution that symbolizes state power in the management of the flow of communication: the post office, or mail. Thus, Zilio seems to double his irony, when suggesting the image of the man with the suitcase of nails as a landscape, a portrait of a certain place, city or country, that very well could be Av. Paulista.

[1] The Economically Active Population (EAP) comprises all persons 10 years of age or older who constitute the workforce of the country. Due to the decrease in mortality and birth rates and the increase in life expectancy in the last decades, the EAP is in a rising process.