Reading 0ne: Craig Garrett on Thomas Hirschhorn

Garrett, Craig. “Thomas Hirschhorn: Philosophical Battery.” Flash Art 238 (Oct. 2004): 90-93.

Craig Garrett is an art critic and journalist. He has written articles for Art Nexus, Flash Art and www.papercoffin.com. In October 2004 when he wrote Thomas “Hirschhorn: Philosophical Battery”, he was the managing editor for Art Flash magazine. He is particularly interested in individual artists’ practices and philosophies and he conducts interviews with the artists themselves to explore these.

Thomas Hirschhorn is a Swiss sculptor working in specifically in installation in Paris. He has a background in graphic design. Hirschhorn creates site-specific “hypersaturated” installations out of basic materials like tape, paper and cardboard, which often offer philosophical messages in written form to the observers. He is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery in Paris.
Hirschhorn defines himself having a fanatical rather than a fundamentalist response to the philosophical writings he uses as the physical material for his installations. He sees this fanaticism is the topic of his art rather than the theories that the philosophers espouse. He wants to work out the absolute truth and for his work to be precise and his ideas to be clearly expressed to the observer. His vehicle for achieving this however, is a language of excess (Garrett 90, 91).

In this sense the Hirschhorn is contradicting himself somewhat. When I think of seeking truth, I associate this process with stripping down of superficial layers to expose the brute facts that underlie life and existence. This could be seen as an act of “Rapport” as described by Irit Rogoff in “In conversation”. Hirschhorn on the other hand, uses a language of excess to access truth. This can be seen as colluding with the material in an act of “complicity”. This is consistent with the philosophies of truth held by Foucault whom Hirschhorn purports to not understand (Rogoff 84).

Because of this, it seems to me that Hirschhorn has more of an understanding for the philosophies that he speaks of than he lets on. He is utilising them in the creation of his work in a complicit was, which is not illustrative of the behaviour of a fan by his own definition:

”A fan is someone who shares with other fans the fact of being a fan, not the object of his love.” (Garret 92).

Is his work more effective if we believe he does not understand its content? Does this reduce him to fan status? Or perhaps he is unaware that the connection he has made between truth and layering is integral also to Foucault’s philosophy.

References

David, Catherine and Rogoff, Irit. “In Conversation” From Studio to Situation. Ed. Claire Doherty. London: Black Dog publishing. 2004 82-89