Charlie don ’ t surf Maurizio Cattelan (b.1960 Padua Italy) also exhibited the stuffed horse Twentieth Century and the suicide squirrel Bidibidobidiboo Charlie don ’ t surf - the title originates from the 1980s Clash sound track-itself a quote from Francis Ford Coppola ’ s Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now Charlie -the American slang for the Vietcong -the outsider, the other, the opponent who does not enjoy the regular all American pursuits. Powerful piece - evocative of horror movies - can ’ t see the face its turned to the wall - fear of the unknown >> Isolation -vulnerability -individual against the system Last min -recognise that the hands are pinned down by pencils - I ’ ve chosen Charlie don ’ t Surf as an introduction to this session because, notwithstanding the artist ’ s intention, the schoolchild, its back turned to the real world pinned down by pencils provides a metaphor for school art with its reluctance to engage with contemporary visual and material cultural and its surrounding discourses. Trapped(pinned) into a Modernist education system, the Art teacher has little room to maneuver -despite the rhetoric of creativity and risk Steven Ball >> aligns such Standards discourses with managerialism and anti-intellectualism. He suggests too that they are related to the exercises in performativity of inspection and league tables which are such an obsession in the whole of the educational scene in the United Kingdom and other developed countries today G.Politi 2004 Killing Me Softly- A conversation with Maurizio Cattalan Flash Arts vol 17 No 23 7