thomas hirschhorn
the procession
24 march to 28 may 2006
The kestnergesellschaft is presenting for the first time in Germany the current installation The Procession (2005), a space-filling, walk-in work by the artist Thomas Hirschhorn.
Thomas Hirschhorn (born in 1957 in Bern, currently living in Paris) has attracted international attention since the middle of the 1990s with his works, which always consist of simple, everyday materials such as bands of adhesive tape, plastic film or cardboard boxes. The utilization of "humble" materials is for Hirschhorn just as deliberate a political decision, in the sense of a democratic-egalitarian manner of proceeding, as is the transfer of certain works into a public space and the collaboration with local youths, such as during the Documenta 11. Thus in the past Hirschhorn has constructed – predominantly at "non-sites" that are inhospitable to art, such as underpasses or depressing urban outskirts – "altars" or "monuments" which he dedicated to writers or philosophers such as Spinoza (Amsterdam, 1999), Deleuze (Avignon, 2000) or Bataille (Documenta 11, 2002). Nonetheless: Hirschhorn conceives of himself neither as a social worker nor as a political artist. In his eyes art is a "tool for getting to know the world and encountering reality."
The walk-in sculpture The Procession (2005) which is being presented in the kestnergesellschaft numbers among the fundamental works of the artist. The materials of this work consist of a linoleum flooring which is provided with handwritten inscriptions and out of which hands stretch upwards, four coffins coloured red, green, black and white, along with text-and picture-collages which revolve around the thematic fields of violence, war and terrorism. According to Hirschhorn, The Procession is intended as a response to the absurdity of violent death, the absurdity of war, terrorism and martyrdom. At the same time, however, it is also a matter of encountering the beauty which lies concealed within those funerary rites.
Thomas Hirschhorn concerning The Procession:
"The Procession is a sculpture people can walk on and around it. (…) With this work I want to confront the absurdity of violent war deaths, of war crime, of terrorism, of martyrs. I want to confront the beauty of this ritualised scenery of burial. This work roots from and wants to go beyond the pictures I saw on television, in newspapers and magazines of people who have been killed, being carried in a coffin by thousands of hands; they are being carried by all these hands into their grave. This ritual gives the outlet for The Procession. It is a direct reference and inspiration: these sculptures people made to carry with them in protest-marches or in political demonstrations. I also like the aesthetics of agit-prop. (…). They are made with love and it is powerful, it is simple, it is easy, it is headless, it is explosive, it is funny, everybody can do it. I like it because these sculptures, with their cheap decoration, are handmade, these sculptures have quick made forms and are made with the will of absolute expression."