Wednesday Artist: Thomas Hirschhorn

I try to give form to what I can't accept:

that someone else can decide for me what

I should do, see or think.

~ Thomas Hirschhorn

"I see life as a possible collage," says the award-winning Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn, whose large-scale work, which makes use of such ordinary materials as cardboard, duct tape, and plastic bags, never hides the violence, destruction, and gruesomeness of our world. Using the collage technique to interpret and critique, to "create a new world" from what already exists, Hirschhorn aims, he says, to reach "strangers, passers-by, and people from other cultures" to engage their senses in ways that open them to questions of moral responsibility, mass production and consumerism, aesthetics, and social justice issues.

Trained as a graphic designer, Hirschhorn, who lives and works in Paris, France, and is considered both an influential and uncompromising artist, exhibits his often political work throughout the world; moreover, his work can be found in the permanent collections of such museums as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In addition to sculptures, drawing, paintings, and assemblages, Hirschhorn creates videos and art for public spaces.

Below is a Louisiana Channel interview with Hirschhorn, conducted by Kasper Bech Dyg at Kunsthal Aarhus, in Denmark, in January 2017. 

Thomas Hirschhorn at Arndt, Art 21, Gladstone Gallery, and Stephen Friedman Gallery

See Angelo A. Ludin's insightful film about Thomas Hirschhorn's Gramsci Monument, a project at Forest Houses in the Bronx, New York. Also read Veronica Simpson's feature article about the project, "Thomas Hirschhorn: 'The Gramsci Monument, like all monuments, is made for eternity'" at Studio International.