thomas hirschhorn

I first encountered Thomas Hirschhorn’s immersive spatial collages at The Mistake Room in 2016 (his work is also in MOCA’s collection and periodically on view). A viscerally repulsive experience - painful graffiti aesthetics, gory images, detritus everywhere - and yet I found solace in the respite from the sinisterly tasteful and benign style of social media and news media. I still think about this piece Stand Alone often, and the reports from Hirschhorn’s 2013 interactive installation cum workshop Gramsci Monument, a tribute to Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s prison notebooks on the grounds of a public housing project in the Bronx.

Frieze magazine identified Gramsci Monument as one of the best of the 21st century, writing “The work became a living reminder that political transformation demands cultural awakening – and that art can be its staging ground.”