Thomas Hirschhorn

Swiss-born, Paris-based artist Thomas Hirschhorn talks with Tania Ketenjian about his camouflage-covered installation Utopia/Utopia One at the Wattis Institute in San Francisco, and why he wants his work to sit inside the chaos and density of the world rather than bring order to it. Recorded in 2006 for Sight Unseen.

TRANSCRIPT:

Tania Ketenjian:
Hello, KALX listeners. This is Sight Unseen, and my name is Tania Ketenjian. Sight Unseen brings you the words and thoughts of artists of different mediums, talking about what they do, why they do it, and how it affects or reflects on the world around them. A few days ago, I went to an opening of an installation by a Swiss-born, Paris-based artist named Thomas Hirschhorn. I'd heard of Hirschhorn before. I knew his work was contemporary, conceptual, based in 3-dimensional objects, and often representing an ignored aspect of common existence. When I crossed the door into the gallery space, a space that I've been to many times before and know well, I was shocked by what I saw.

The gallery had been completely transformed. Everywhere I turned my head, there were images of camouflage on tables and chairs. Collected photos of people wearing camouflage were placed on the walls. Camouflage tape, mannequins with camouflage vests and trousers of camouflage, bulbous, amorphous camouflage-esque pieces. Hanging from the ceiling. The room itself didn't have a clear trajectory. I wasn't sure where to turn, and I had no idea what to expect on the other side. Text is intrinsic to Thomas Hirschhorn's work, and in this case, it's the text of philosopher Marcus Steinweg that adorns the walls. Philosophy means a great deal to Hirschhorn, and its incorporation into art, or its association with art, is inherent in the work that he produces.

Art, culture, and politics are the foundations of life, and while Hirschhorn creates other worlds, he wants that world to resonate with the one we experience every day. For that reason, all of these play a role in Hirschhorn's work. The show that I saw is at the Wattis Institute in San Francisco, and it's titled Utopia/Utopia One. One World, One War, One Army, One Dress. And while it may seem to address issues of conflict and war through the ubiquitous symbol of camouflage, the project goes much deeper to reveal that we all use certain things to connect to one another. We all find ways to feel safe and strong, and sometimes that thing is something we least expect.

Something we're almost completely unaware of. We're all connected somehow, and what better way to explore that connection through that which seems completely disconnecting, a symbol of combat? I spoke with Hirschhorn in the lounge area of the exhibit. We sat on a couch that was completely taped up with camouflage tape. During the interview, Hirschhorn was taking notes. Trying to explore what is important to him, a topic he was going to address in a symposium that evening. I asked Hirschhorn what those things are.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Important to me is, for example, to give form, to give form to only what I feel and only what I see. So this is always the attempt, I think, when I'm doing a new project, a new exhibition?

Tania Ketenjian:
Well, I think that's actually a really— giving form to what you see is kind of a through-line of artists. They give form to what they see. And therefore, they offer a new way of seeing, to a certain extent. But when someone asked me this morning what I thought of this show, I didn't think it necessarily offered me a new way of seeing. It placed me in the way in which you see it. It placed me, I thought, this looked like the formation of your thoughts, the way your brain works, so to speak. Would you agree with that? Is it possible to comment on that?

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Yeah, of course, it's nice that you think this. Of course, at a point, you have to go out of my brain because when not, I have no more space inside when every spectator goes into my brain. But of course, what I believe as an artist is that the artwork can create the condition, because it's an artwork, to enter in a dialogue or a confrontation from one to one directly without any information. And this is what I think is beautiful in art, and that's what I try with this artwork, but also with the other artworks I do. This is an artwork who is quite big, who the spectator is completely inside in the artwork, the floors and the walls are covered.

So he is in a kind— perhaps this is what you mean in a mind, in my brain, because the spectator is in a kind of world I create, an artificial world I create for him.

Tania Ketenjian:
That's part of the reason why. I think the other reason is just because there's no linear direction to this. I mean, something I read in the Bouclot interview was that there's never one moment where you have one point of view, that you're always— there are always different things, different ways in which your viewpoint can go. And that's the way I see thought working, is that it's not linear. It's constantly moving in all these different directions. So, which makes me think of the idea of restraint. And a really interesting line you said is when you see limitation, it's almost like you cannot continue creating. And this is very unlimited. Can you comment on that?

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Yeah, of course. It has to be unlimited. Art has no limits. And in a way, it goes off of control, of my own control also. What is important, I think, is— I mean, we are living in a chaotic, complex, in a dense, and also an uncl— world of unclarity. And to me, I don't see my goal as an artist to bring clarity into the world or to give order in this chaos or to work out the density. I want to work in this unclarity, in this chaos, and in this density. So, the work looks— has to look like this. There is no possibility to step back, I believe, today.

And I want, in my work, to give form to this no possibility to get a distance, no possibility to switch yourself out of this world we are living in.

Tania Ketenjian:
So what that makes me think of is that you don't want this to be a separate space from the space we exist in every, in every moment.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's a part of the world. It's a part of the spaces of the world. Yes, it's important, especially this exhibition. To me, the, the one of the sense— I mean, one of the One of the missions of this exhibition is to get through a dystopic nightmare vision and to obtain the certainty that we are really on one world. This is one of the wills of mine with this artwork.

Tania Ketenjian:
That one world in this specific exhibition, the oneness that you're talking about, the connectivity that you're talking about, is based on camouflage.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
This is the simple dressing where a lot of people like and share behind religious, behind political, economical, social, cultural connections. They seem to like camouflage and to wear camouflage all over the world. So I did take this as a common measure, as a common thing, who is, of course, empty of big ideas and empty of big human achievements, but who is something who people shares. So why not begin with this? And I'd like to work out from this, this universal vision from One World.

Tania Ketenjian:
Now, it's interesting that you picked camouflage, and I'm sure you've probably reflected upon this yourself. There are other things that connect us that we don't really see, other things that are not immediate connectors, but, in fact, remind us that we're all connected. It's just the camouflage one is an interesting choice of all. I mean, I guess especially because of the, you know, very serious dichotomy between the idea of camouflage, which is usually associated with war or combat, and making combat a representation of oneness, which is, you know, kind of a contradiction.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Yeah, but the contradiction is not the dress. The contradiction is the use of the dress. Dress. But because, as you know, a lot of people does wear camouflage without real necessity. I mean, for example, the, the, the Volga fisherman, and, or the, or the Swiss anti-global street fighter, he likes to wear camouflage also. So there is no, but there is no really, um, a reason to wear camouflage, or there is another reason than the reason of militarians. So I'm interested in these different reasons, and that's why I wanted to work with camouflage. It's not about bad or good. It's not about right or not right or left, or it's not about east and west and south and north.

It's rich or poor. It's about this sexiness. Who camouflage pattern owns, and also about the capacity to speak to the other, in a way. So I meet, as an example, I meet a young woman in Boston with this exhibition, and she told me, I'm wearing camouflage. And when I asked her why, she said, yes, because then I feel stronger. And then she added, and I feel less alone. So, of course, it's also a kind of warrior, perhaps alone. She's also a warrior, a lonely warrior. And it helps her in her life. I don't know, but it's interesting, her reason, I think.

Tania Ketenjian:
Yeah, and that was a really interesting statement that you, you know, you mentioned that yesterday when we were walking through this together. I'm surprised that it makes her feel less alone. And to that, I asked you if you ever wear camouflage, whether it would make you feel less alone. Your answer to that was no. Is there something that you wear personally, something that you have that either makes you feel stronger or less alone?

Thomas Hirschhorn:
No, not me personally, because I did wear camouflage when I was in the Swiss Army. I read about this experience in the integrated brochure who is here available for free. And because it's a part of the artwork, I read about my experience. So I did wear camouflage. I had to wear camouflage. So for me, it's behind me. I don't need more wearing camouflage myself.

Tania Ketenjian:
How about anything that you wear? Do you— is there something that you put on yourself, maybe your watch, your glasses, maybe this suit that makes you feel stronger, that makes you feel more connected to people?

Thomas Hirschhorn:
No, it's not that makes me stronger or feels me so. It's just to feel— I'm feeling comfortable.

Tania Ketenjian:
Well, I think the element of oneness and the, the idea of a larger picture is one of the most attractive things about this show and most likely about your work, about incorporating everyone. You know, there was some point you said that your work is only political because it doesn't It doesn't want to be exclusionary. I think philosophy at times does a similar thing. It attempts to understand the ways in which we are all connected and to answer much larger questions than ones that we might ponder on a day-to-day basis in our own smaller worlds. You make this correlation between philosophy and art, its interchangeability, and it's evidenced here by philosophical writings that are all over the wall.

My first question is, how does that interchangeability work for you? Is art philosophy? Is philosophy art? Is that what you are attempting to represent? Is that how you think?

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Even art is not philosophy and philosophy is not art, but you can replace the term of art with philosophy and vice versa, because there is something I believe they share. It's the constitutive creative act to set down an artwork and to assert the artwork in its form is the same, I think, like to set down philosophy and its concept and to assert that its concept. It's a creation, it's a new thing, nobody before did think it and nobody before did made these forms, for example. So this, I think, is something who brings together art and philosophy. So for myself, I don't need philosophy to do my artwork.

I do need philosophy as a human being, as a man, as somebody in everyday life. Of course, philosophy interests me also because It's something who myself sometimes cannot understand, or do not understand, or I'm not enough patient to understand. So it's still a kind of resistance to me that it's interesting me. And this is also, I think, a link to art, who has also to be something who resists to the consumption and who still has a mystery and still has a kind of kind of capacity, because it's art, to really change the vision of the world, as philosophy also.

Tania Ketenjian:
Well, I agree with that. And I think that the idea of forming something that hasn't been formed before is similar to the way in which you address sculpture. You kind of break boundaries of what sculpture is supposed to be. I'm curious about your idea of working in that third dimension, so to speak, the third dimension of sculpture. I mean, a lot of the pieces here are sculpted. They can be called sculpture to a certain extent. I mean, whether it be this, for instance, this table of images and text is not a sculpture by common ideas. Maybe it's a tribute to something. But there are definitely things within this show that are constructed 3-dimensional forms. What is your thought of sculpting something, of your own forming of something?

Thomas Hirschhorn:
I mean, this table, it's not a sculpture. It's only an element of the whole work here, of the whole sculpture. So the whole thing is a sculpture. The whole thing is a sculpture. In the third dimension, outcoming of a two-dimensional thought. So what interests me is to go out from a very simple two dimension. A collage means to put together existing things, existing elements, and to create because I put them together, a new thing, to create a new world. So, and I try to do this with collage, but I try to do this also with collages in the third dimension. And in this work now, here we are in a way in a collage in the third dimension. So people can walk through and be involved completely, merge completely into this collage.

Tania Ketenjian:
You know, so you're creating a new world, yet you don't want to create a world that's totally different than what we normally experience.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
It's not as it's totally different or not totally different. I mean, it's my vision, my world. It's always— when you're making a collage, it's always something who comes out from existing things. So you have always a point, a remember point, in a way, you know. And because then it's a collage, it's a juxtaposition or a confrontation with another picture, then it makes— it gives another sense. This is then what is new, you know, not the element of the collage is new. What's new is the composition or the confrontation, and important to me is to go out of these existing elements because I believe these existing elements has the the capacity or the power to involve the other because he knows these elements.

He uses perhaps these elements. Perhaps these elements are close to him, not in why he uses them, but because just simply in his everyday life, there are elements that are not intimidating him also. There are no elements who have with them a kind of mystery or a kind of plus-value also. So there are simple things like tape, like cardboard, like land maps, like globes, etc.,

Tania Ketenjian:
etc. Well, there are 2 things that I think are really— I mean, there are lots of things I think that are really strong about this show, and 2 of them are based on a couple of things that you just mentioned, and one of them is the use of these raw materials. I think there are a lot of artists that use these materials that are everyday materials, and it comes out looking really sloppy. And there's, for some reason, even though these have been kind of thrown up, it's not like these cutouts are perfect or that the tape has been perfectly placed, there's a cohesiveness and a kind of It doesn't make me feel uncomfortable or messy. I'm wondering why that is, in the sense that how can a space that looks so overwhelming still look so clean in a way?

Thomas Hirschhorn:
To me, it has not to be clean or not clean. It has, in fact, to reflect a kind of density, also a kind of urgency, a kind of working in excess. Not because I cannot retain myself, but because I think the excess is important to go through to the will and to reach a kind of distance that people can do after with what you propose. And then I think it's important to be precise in this excess. I mean, it's not made chaotically. It's made quickly, in urgency, because there is a lot to do. I have no time to make it really completely straight, but it has to be— every picture, every text has his place and has to be placed.

So this is what I call preciseness. I think I need this preciseness, important. So this, together with the excess, with the overwhelming feeling, gives, I hope, a new sense also a plastical new sense to this work, to this form.

Tania Ketenjian:
You're listening to an interview with Swiss-born, Paris-based artist Thomas Hirschhorn about his most recent show titled Utopia/Utopia: One World, One War, One Army, One Dress. So we're sitting on a couch that's been taped up in camouflage, and The gallery happens to be open, so we're seeing people wandering in and out. There's so much text on the wall, and I haven't really seen someone spend the time to read most of this text. To what extent is it necessary? The text is extremely important to you, and that's obvious. Yesterday, one thing that you said was that you kind of— you associate these texts and images based on your own experience.

We can associate different text to the images. So that puts into question the importance of this text. It seems extremely important, and yet, you know, its importance is very personal. So I'd like to explore that.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
As always, it's very important, but the importance comes not from me. The importance comes from you, what you found is important. That's, that's the point, not what I think is important. The text works also as a door or an invitation for the spectator to go into the complexity after of the, of the, of the whole philosophy of Marcuse, or perhaps in general. So, because you can perhaps only read a sentence or 2 words. Here we read Absolute Neighbourhood. Perhaps this is just cut out, so perhaps it gives you the possibility to go into or to interest you and then to begin to read. And that's why also it's important to let this possibility.

And it's also important that there are only words or some small sentences. That perhaps you can understand, because I believe you have not everything to understand. You can begin to understand. There is some beginning all over, and also here is a beginning, so you have to begin, and perhaps you can begin with a word or with 2 words, and then you can go farther away. So this is why the text is important, but not, of course, as explication of the images here, but as constitution element like tape, cardboard, photocopied pictures of this exhibition.

Tania Ketenjian:
It's a medium.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Yes.

Tania Ketenjian:
It can be in the same way that you said that camouflage can be just shapes and colors.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
It's a material.

Tania Ketenjian:
So the words, for instance, restriction, which is the word I'm looking at right now, is a word, and yet it is a shape of black against a white background, in the sense that I don't really need to see or understand that word. It's just a shape.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Yes, of course. It's, uh, as every other element is, uh, it's a word. He may— it can make sense to you. Perhaps it don't make sense, but it's a word who has his own resistance, who has his own autonomy. And this interests me. And for coming back perhaps to your first question or your first thought also. That's like, like in a brain, the things are not— it's not— they are not linked. They are mixed. They're in movement. There is a dynamic. And I think, to me, what I would like is this dynamic comes, of course, out of from my work, but is prolonged or taken over from the spectator.

Tania Ketenjian:
You're listening to an interview with Swiss-born, Paris-based artist Thomas Hirschhorn. About his most recent show titled Utopia/Utopia: One World, One War, One Army, One Dress. Here we discuss his past experience as a graphic designer.

Thomas Hirschhorn:
I wanted to be a graphic designer, and I wanted not to be an artist, you know, and it was not the contrary that I wanted to be an artist and I learned graphic design, you know, it's very important, and this is my personal point, you know, so that's— but it's only personal. It has nothing— it's just It's just like this, you know, so, but it has not to be more interpreted. Of course, something after comes together when I look at my artwork myself, that there is, there is what I always loved in graphic design, for example. And when I say graphic design, I, I only think the graphic design of the Russian revolutionary graphic designers where art and design and fashion and every other creative expression was connected to the revolutionary élan, you know?

And there was no question being a designer or an artist or so on. So, of course, these are my models in a way, and there is my first love, when you want, with this, with text, with pictures, with forms, with colors, with a layout here in the space because also, of course, then the Dadaism also is for me very, very important because as they really try to, to intervene in the everyday life and to go out and to confront the third dimension with their collages. So in fact, there is a line, there is a line, there is a kind of, there is a kind of root, you know.

But it has nothing to do— it has to do with love for these forms, you know? Even before you realize graphic design, what means graphic design, publicity, and all this kind of thing, just love to work with forms, existing forms, for example.

Tania Ketenjian:
Andy Warhol, I read that is kind of one of your teachers, so to speak. And the thing about Andy Warhol is that although he's his works are so highly valuable. He really wanted them to be disposable, to be low art, low-tech, so to speak, not necessarily high art. And that brings me to these materials that you use. They're very accessible by the everyday person. There's nothing kind of high-minded about it. I guess I'd like to get to that issue of this being for everybody, for every person, from material to idea?

Thomas Hirschhorn:
Yes, of course. I think what makes sense as an artist is to— what makes sense for me as artist is to try to reach the other. Reaching the other means not the art world or not this or this person or not a big audience. The other is your next. I mean, somebody who you don't know, you will not exclude. So the other is also your neighbor. The other is also somebody you don't know. The other is somebody who is stranger. So this interests me, touching the other and working in confidence, in faith that my work can do this. And then every material, every element has to follow this will to touch the area.

Tania Ketenjian:
Those were the words of artist Thomas Hirschhorn, whose most recent exhibit, Utopia/Utopia: One World, One War, One Army, One Dress, is at the Wattis Institute in San Francisco. To learn more about the work, please visit wattis.org. And thank you to Sight Unseeners Lee Montgomery, Anthony Bone, and Tyler McCauley. To hear this or other shows that have played on Sight Unseen, Unseen, please visit radiotania— that's T-A-N-I-A— .org. Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for great programming. And have a lovely, lovely weekend.