An illustrated examination of one of Hirschhorn's "precarious"
monuments, now dismantled.
Part-text, part-sculpture, part-architecture, part-junk heap, Thomas
Hirschhorn's often monumental but precarious works offer a commentary on
the spectacle of late-capitalist consumerism and the global
proliferation of commodities. Made from ephemeral materials--cardboard,
foil, plastic bags, and packing tape--that the artist describes as
"universal, economic, inclusive, and [without] any plus-value," these
works also engage issues of justice, power, and moral responsibility.
Hirschhorn (born in Switzerland in 1957) often chooses to place his work
in non-art settings, saying that he wants it to "fight for its own
existence." In this book, Anna Dezeuze offers a generously illustrated
examination of Hirschhorn's Deleuze Monument (2000), the second in his
series of four Monuments.
Deleuze Monument--a sculpture, an altar, and a library dedicated to
Gilles Deleuze--was conceived as a work open to visitors twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week. Part of the exhibition "La Beauté" in
Avignon, Deleuze Monument was controversial from the start, and it was
dismantled two months before the end of the exhibition after being
vandalized. Dezeuze describes the chronology of the project, including
negotiations with local residents; the dynamic between affirmation and
vulnerability in Hirschhorn's work; failure and "scatter art" in the
1990s; participatory practices; and problems of presence, maintenance,
and appearance, raised by Hirschhorn's acknowledgement of "error" in his
discontinuous presence on site following the installation of Deleuze
Monument.
