Thomas Hirschhorn (born 16 May 1957) is a

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artist. He lives and works in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

.Randy Kennedy (June 27, 2013)
Bringing Art and Change to Bronx
''

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''.

Life and works

In the 1980s, Thomas Hirschhorn came to Paris with the will to take part in the 'Grapus'-collective as graphic designer, because he was impressed by the way their graphic work was also politically engaged. Although he and the Grapus people were good friends, working with them wasn't what he wanted to do. He didn't want to work for clients, but wanted to create for his own. During the long years that followed, he developed his own visual research based on the principle of Collage. In the beginning, he claimed these as 'Graphic design from myself,' but was not more successful until he decided to clearly position his Collage-work in the field of art and history of art. He then started to create the hypersaturated works he is known for today, using common materials such as cardboard, foil, duct tape, and plastic wrap. He has described his choice to use everyday materials in his work as "political" and that he only uses materials that are “universal, economic, inclusive, and don’t bear any plus-value”. He has said that he is interested in the “hard core of reality”, without illusions, and has displayed a strong commitment to his work and role as an artist.Cruzvillegas, Abraham http://bombsite.com/issues/113/articles/3621 “Thomas Hirschorn” in '' BOMB Magazine'', Fall 2010. Retrieved July 26, 2011 He has described working and production as “necessary”, discounting anyone who encourages him to not work hard, and says “I want to be overgiving in my work”. For his piece ''Cavemanman'', he transformed a gallery space into a cave using wood, cardboard, and tape and put various philosophical and pop culture symbols throughout it. ''Gramsci Monument'' (2013), named after the Italian thinker

Antonio Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , , ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, linguist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a fo ...

, is the first project that Hirschhorn has built in the United States and the fourth and final such work in a series he began many years ago dedicated to his favorite philosophers, following a monument dedicated to

Baruch Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

in 1999, one to

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label= Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. Located on the left bank of the river Rhône, the commune had ...

, France, in 2000, and a third to

Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 9 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, in 2002. From the beginning, the monuments have been planned and constructed in housing projects occupied mostly by the poor and working class, with their agreement and help. He presented a lecture as part of the "Image & Text: Writing Off The Page" lecture series through the Visiting Artists Program at the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

in Spring, 2006.

Exhibitions

Hirschhorn's work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including the Institute of Contemporary Art,

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

;

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, Paris
Chantal Crousel
Paris; Museu d'Art Contemporani,

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

; MAAXI, Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo,

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; Kunsthaus Zürich;

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

;

Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lic ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

; and Wiener Secession,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. In the summer of 2009, his work ''Cavemanman'' was recreated for the exhibition Walking in my Mind at London's

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...

. ''Cavemanman'' was recreated once again in 2022 at the exhibition ''Dream On'' by NEON showcasing works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection Gift at the former Public Tobacco Factory of

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

, Greece.

Collections

Hirschhorn's works are held in collections worldwide, which include the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

, the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

, and the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

among others.Tate - Art & artists
tate.org.uk

Recognition

Hirschhorn received the (2000/2001)

Marcel Duchamp Prize The Marcel Duchamp Prize (in French : ''Prix Marcel Duchamp'') is an annual award given to a young artist by the Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l'Art Français (ADIAF). The winner receives €35,000 personally and up to €30,000 ...

, the

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...

Prize in 2004 and the Meret Oppenheim Prize in 2018. In June 2011, Hirschhorn represented Switzerland at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. Thomas Hirschhorn is represented by Gladstone Gallery, New York
Chantal Crousel
Paris; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; Alfonso Artiaco,

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...

and Dvir Gallery,

Tel-Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

Bibliography

Benjamin H. D. Buchloh Benjamin Heinz-Dieter Buchloh (born November 15, 1941) is a German art historian. Between 2005 and 2021 he was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art in the History of Art and Architecture department at Harvard University. Education and ca ...

, Alison M. Gingeras, Carlos Basualdo, ''Thomas Hirschhorn'', Phaidon, London, 2004 *

Claire Bishop Claire Bishop is a British art historian, critic, and Professor of Art History at The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York where she has taught since September 2008. Bishop is known as one of the central theorists of participation in visual art and ...

Hal Foster Harold Rudolf Foster, FRSA (August 16, 1892 – July 25, 1982) was a Canadian-American comic strip artist and writer best known as the creator of the comic strip '' Prince Valiant''. His drawing style is noted for its high level of draftsmanship ...

Yasmil Raymond Yasmil Raymond is a visual art curator and the rector of the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Education Raymond received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Master of Arts from the Center for Curatorial Studi ...

, ''Thomas Hirschhorn: Establishing a Critical Corpus'', JRP-Ringier, Zurich, 2011 *Lisa Lee, Hal Foster (eds), ''Critical Laboratory: The Writings of Thomas Hirschhorn'', MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2013 *Anna Dezeuze, ''Thomas Hirschhorn: Deleuze Monument'', Afterall Books, London, 2014

References

External links

* Artist's web-sit
Thomas Hirschhorn at Stephen Friedman Gallery
* 2008 ''Life on Mars,'' the 2008 ''Carnegie International'

* 2007–08 "Thomas Hirshhorn at Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal

* Haidu, Rachel
"The imaginary space of the wishful other: Thomas Hirschhorn’s Cardboard Utopias." ''Vector e-zine'', January 2006.
* 2006 "Someone Cares," in '' Fillip'

* 2001 "Thomas Hirshhorn at Stalingrad Station", Paris, ''Sculpture'' magazin

* Artist's short biograph

*
TateShots at the Venice Biennale 2011: Thomas Hirschhorn at the Swiss Pavilion
The artist talks about his contribution to the

, 2011-06-08 * Thomas Hirschhorn by

Museo Cantonale d’Arte Museo may refer to: * Museo, 2018 Mexican drama heist film * Museo (Naples Metro), station on line 1 of the Naples Metro * Museo, Seville, neighborhood of Seville, Spain {{disambiguation ...

Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label= Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Lugano has a populat ...

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirschhorn, Thomas 1957 births Living people Swiss contemporary artists Zurich University of the Arts alumni