thomas hirschhorn - active work
from Anschool II (4.11.2005 - 29.1.2006, Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal)
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"I do not want the audience to participate in my work, because i am not an animator, teacher or social worker. rather than participation i want to implicate the audience, I want to force the audience to confront my work. I want to give, to give first and i want to do too much, because it is only when the eyes and the brain get exhausted that there are no lies anymore and you can get to the truth. I want to give for myself, in an offensive and aggressive manner. I want to create space and time within my work. This is why there are often massive amounts of information. This is the exchange my work wants to propose. My work is not about communication, I hate communication. It is about art, and i do not want to do art that has to be completed by the audience. My art does not ask for participation, I do not want to an interactive work. I want to do an active work. To me, the most important activity that an artwork can provoke is the activity of thinking."
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Provocateur
Hirschorn's work is one of provocation, in the same way Bataille provocated thinking in his magazine 'Document'. Whether Hirschorn wishes to admit it or not there is a collaborative effort to make work through participation. Whether he regards the youths that he worked with on the project with him as fellow artists or the audience becomes questionable.
He has made it quite clear that he doesn't wish to be seen as an agent of social agitation to participate but to provocate thinking