Art as a Weapon: Context programme at Frascati Amsterdam
Three Times Left is Right context programme
31.03 – 02.04.2026
Location: Frascati Theatre (Nes 63, Amsterdam)
Art as a Weapon is a multi‑day public programme around cultural wars, propaganda, artistic resistance and humor curated by Studio Julian Hetzel in dialogue with DAS Theatre and Frascati Theatre. The programme is presented in the context of the performances Three Times Left is Right at Frascati.
Art no longer comments on politics from the sidelines; it operates at its core. At a moment of radical polarization, shifting geopolitical orders, and the normalization of right‑wing populism, culture has become a battlefield. Venues are being renamed, institutions shut down while images, slogans, narratives and emotions circulate faster than critical reflection. What is the role of artists and cultural institutions within this minefield? Can art resist without becoming propaganda itself?
The public programme of Art as a Weapon brings together artists, thinkers, performers, and students. Across several days, before the shows of Three Times Left is Right, audiences are invited to reflect on how enemies are constructed, how emotions are mobilized politically, and how language and images can be weaponized—or disarmed. How can creative resistance look like today?
Art as a Weapon is not a call for consensus, but for awareness: a proposition to treat art as a form of resistance, capable of exposing, redirecting, and reclaiming the cultural tools that shape political realities.
PROGRAMME OVERVIEW
TUESDAY 31 MARCH
19:00 – 20.00 | El sueño de la razón
Lecture by Fernando Sánchez Castillio
A lecture on art and propaganda, monuments and humour. In his work, Fernando Sánchez Castillo analyzes the relationship between art and (political) power. He does so—on the basis of strong social commitment—in a playful and humorous manner. Sánchez Castillo’s fascination with the history of Spain, with the civil war, the postwar era and the dictatorship, but also with today’s world, departs from a concern not only for the political and the revolutionary, but certainly for the social aspects of historical processes as well. Collective memory extends far beyond national boundaries and finds its way into the present.
Hosted by Julian Hetzel
WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL
19:00 – 20:00 | In the Belly of the Beast
Public Talk with Ine Gevers & Sruti Bala
Curator Ine Gevers and scholar Sruti Bala will offer critical insights and questions relating to some of the explosive debates on culture and the arts.
Ine Gevers states that the easier it has become these days—with all our self-branding and mirror worlds—to shift between worldviews in a split second, the more important art becomes as a weapon. Art operates as a soft weapon. Art is most dangerous when it is ambiguous, layered, and ironic, leaving the complexity of the world intact. That is why art is disruptive to fascist leaders. And it is unapologetic about it.
Sruti Bala questions the common assumption that art and culture are benign and either contribute to societal cohesion and understanding, or in the worst case, are useless and elitist. The talk argues that under the present conditions of unprecedented militarisation, art and culture can also do harm and serve as tools of inciting violence and manufacturing consent.
Hosted by Miguel Melgares
THURSDAY 2 APRIL
19:30 – 20:00 | In the Belly of the Beast
Performative re-action
A group of DAS Theatre students participates in an intensive four-day workshop led by Studio Julian Hetzel and the High on Type Collective, investigating propaganda, slogans and performative communication as tools of artistic resistance. The process culminates in a live intervention shared with the audience at Frascati.
Hosted by High on Type Collective