“Belief may be no more, in the end, than a source of energy, like a battery which one clips into an idea to make it run.”
-in Elizabeth Costello, by J.M. Coetzee, via Ivar Hagendoorn.
From an interview with Thomas Hirschorn by Craig Garrett:
“I am not a social worker”
“I love the power of forms made in urgency and necessity. These forms have an explosive density. They are untameable and rebellious. These forms are very far from ‘over-design’ and ‘over-architecture’ everywhere! The legitimacy of these forms comes from commitment, from determination, from the heart. These forms do not want to impress by overeducating aesthetics or by mainstream aesthetical concerns, and these forms are not subject to changes of lifestyle. These forms have nothing to do with fashion.”
“Love is important, not the object of love.”
“I am against the inconsiderate pretentiousness of narcissistic self-fulfillment. I want to act, I want to hope, and I want to be happy!”
“I am not interested in failure. I do not want to fail, but I do not exclude that I can fail, that my work can fail. But it is not an obsession for me. I am interested in energy, not quality. This is why my work looks as it looks! Energy yes! Quality no!”
And from an article on Thomas Hirschhorn entitled no heroics please
“To encounter a sculpture by Thomas Hirschhorn is to be caught within an electric field generated by these forces. It is a bit like being electrocuted-not in the sense of capital punishment or electroshock therapy but, rather, in suddenly finding oneself to be an electrical conductor within a network of cultural circuits not of one’s own making”
“…in Bordeaux, Hirschhorn used multiple sites, including the checkout line at a Burger King…”
“The motor of my creation is not aesthetic questions or art questions. Rather, it is the human condition and questions of life giving me the energy to work.”
And From Ivar Hagendoorn’s post on Anschool:
“I don’t make political art. I work politically. Working politically means working without cynicism, without negativity and without self-satisfying criticism”
“A recurring line in his statements is ‘I want’. ‘I want to work simply and economically. I want my work to be dense and charged. I want to over-work my work. I want to work politically. I want to face up to the World around me, I want to remain attentive and lucid.’”
“This is what I like about Thomas Hirschhorn, he is serious, he cares and he is willing to fight for his ideas, but he is not pretentious.”