Thomas Hirschhorn is a Swiss artist who is known for his sprawling works that transform traditional white cube spaces into environments taking on issues of critical theory, global politics, and consumerism. He engages the viewer through superabundance. Combining found imagery and texts, bound up in low-tech constructions of cardboard, foil, and packing tape, he props imagistic assaults in a DIY-fashion that correlates to the intellectual scavenging and sensory overload designed to simulate our own process of grappling with the excess of information in daily life. Created from the most basic everyday materials, his major works are concerned with issues of justice, injustice, power and powerlessness, and moral responsibility.
Thomas Hirschhorn studied from 1978 – 1983 at the University of Art in Zurich, Switzerland. His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museu d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona; Kunsthaus Zürich; Art Institute of Chicago; and Museum Ludwig, Cologne; and Secession, Vienna. Additionally, he has taken part in many international group exhibitions, including Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany, where his large-scale public work, Bataille Monument was on view; “Heart of Darkness” at the Walker Art Center; and “Life on Mars: the 55th Carnegie International.”
Hirschhorn was the recipient of the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2000 and the Joseph Beuys-Preis in 2004 and represented the Swiss Pavillon in the 54th Venice Biennial in 2011.
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