I drew alot of inspiring views and insights From the Sculpture magazine interview. A few of them:
There is—for an artist—no distinction between “thinking” and “making.” It’s one movement, it’s one dynamic, it’s one moment—even when this moment is a long one. This is, I think, the beauty, and the absolute, in doing artwork. “To produce” means to understand art as an assertion, as a statement, as an act of emancipation, and as something that I authorize myself to do. I want to “give form”; therefore the making or the doing is only one step in the crucial mission: Giving Form. Form is the most important and essential question in art because it asks, How can I take a position? How can I give a form to this position? And how can this form create a truth? A universal truth?
He also answers the question 'in what context does it exist' himself:
How do you see your work today in relation to the state of things around you?
TH: I want, in doing my work, to insist on the very importance of art, and of philosophy and poetry, in our world, our own and unique world. I see my work as trying to stand up, as trying to be active. I am an activist of my own work, trying to get in relation with the world and—from the very beginning of my work as an artist—trying to emancipate myself. I want to be in relation with the world surrounding me. I want to relate to the world in giving form, my form. I want to confront the world’s incomprehensibility and uncertainty, not in bringing peace or quietness, but in working within the chaos and within the lack of clarity of the world.
My work of art is therefore the tool to engage, to create a relation with the world. I want to do something charged that reaches beauty in its necessity, in its emergency and its intensity. Something beautiful arises if there is an engagement, and if the mystery contained in this engagement remains. It is the autonomy and the absoluteness of the artwork that gives it its beauty. My work of art is the tool to confront the time I am living in, and my work is the tool to be in touch with reality, the reality of the world and my reality—as I tried to do with one of my last personal exhibitions, “The Purple Line” (2021) at MAXXI in Rome.
The context of Hirschhorn is definitely politically critical. He is a heard voice in contemporary art and he speaks out trough his art on social issues. Not only are his sculptures, often developed with low grade (waste)material, "These materials are not difficult to source and can be found everywhere, all around the world. They are universal." (and reminds me of the avant garde, recycling, dadaist, situationists, working with text etc etc.) I think Thomas Hirshhorn wants to critique art as an institutionalized environment, and therefore plays with relational art to create cooperative, particapatory artworks with many local people. This way he escapes the traditonal white cubes, and makes his work accessible to everybody.
The 'monuments' he creates are usually based around meetings.
- ChatGPT recommended me this artist. I googled him and liked his work alot. The first page I opened was from SMAK in Gent and it mentioned Rirkrit Tiravanija in the first sentence. I think I'm either circling in the same pond, or these are exactly the artists I should investigate.
- The KABK library offers a book on the artist. I brougth that home.
- The field work that he does inspires me: Presence and Production is to him important for creating art with non-artlovers, but locals and everybody involved. I decided to continue the research.
Thomas Hirschhorn believes in universality. This heavily influences his approach to art. He wants to engage with a "non-exclusive audience." This is why his projects almost always are critical of inequality, class, accessibility of art, and they question 'what is art'. For example, the "Gramsci Monument" (2013). A famous solo work by Hirshhorn in a housing project in The BronxNew York shows this drive he has to to participate with the environment, and the focus on community and sustainability in his work and artistic vision. For collaboration you need presence of others and to work and produce together. Creating a sense of empowerment amongst participants.
It also makes me want to read antonio gramsci's philosophy now.
The fact that Thomas Hirshhorn works in this doing is thinking manner, with as many people to talk to to do the field work, AND that he has all these philosophers in mind while working is amazingly inspiring to me.
This sums it up pretty well:
https://sculpturemagazine.art/tools-to-engage-a-conversation-with-thomas-hirschhorn/
Robert Preece: What would you describe as your main concerns over recent years? Have they changed much?
Thomas Hirschhorn: My mission to make art has not changed since I started my work more than 35 years ago, and this is still not a long enough experience. I want, and always wanted, to create my own term of art. It must be a precarious and critical art—an art that, in its precariousness, criticizes and can be criticized. With my work, I want to touch a “Non-Exclusive Public”—this has always been a guideline, and I’ve created new guidelines such as “Energy = Yes! Quality = No!,” “Presence and Production,” or “Non-shared Responsibility of Authorship” and ‘’Non-progammation.” My concern—in doing my work and in asserting my position—has not changed. Why should it, since I am still trying to strengthen and clarify it?
https://smak.be/nl/kunstenaars/thomas-hirschhorn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdsu0aCXctE&ab_channel=GuggenheimMuseum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7reNkai8H0I&ab_channel=Tate
https://www.thomashirschhorn.com/10-years-gramsci-monument/
https://artcritical.com/2013/10/13/gramsci-monument/
If I click around on his personal website I am becoming jealous.
The aesthetics of the work, the prints, magazines, posters, large works, public works, references to philosophers, maps, it's my kind of work.
I researched the situationists in the first assignment, woodworking. Thomas Hirshhorn uses alot of the same methods, materials, aesthetics, but took it to another, more contemporary art-level by himself.
I'm jealous.