Garrett, Craig. “Thomas Hirschhorn: Philosophical Battery.” Flash Art 238 (October 2004): 90-93.
Garrett Craig is an art critic and the managing editor of the Flash Art magazine. In this article he wrote in October 2004, thorough interview with Thomas Hirshhorn, the artist who works in the field of Philosophy.
In the article, Thomas Hirshhorn talks about his artworks employing philosophy just as any other material for his artworks.
"... So in my last two works, Unfinished Walls and Stand in, I tried to work with this material by cutting, enlarging, reducing, and extracting from it.”1
"... So in my last two works, Unfinished Walls and Stand in, I tried to work with this material by cutting, enlarging, reducing, and extracting from it.”1
This is an interesting point about precisely what and how Hirshhorn uses philosophy in his artworks. He talks about how he employed philosophy and added it into his work. This made me question about physically implying philosophy into the meanings of the artwork and putting philosophical meanings on to the actual artwork itself. From my point of view, photo copies and cut outs of enlarged, reduced texts from print out texts about philosophy could be using philosophy as a material but the action and the process- the method itself- more importantly gives the artwork philosophical meanings.
This has helped me to think that sometimes artists tends to limit themselves to strictly to the rules to themselves or thinking of that for example, philosophy has to be under-laid and be dissolved into the meanings of the artworks. But by using the words on to the actual objects, Hirshhorn is showing the viewers what philosophical materials he is presenting to be part of his sculptures and at the same time, by doing this the under-laid meaning is formed in viewers’ minds. . This point relates to my interest towards the relations between what is on the surface of the artwork and the under laying meanings.
This has helped me to think that sometimes artists tends to limit themselves to strictly to the rules to themselves or thinking of that for example, philosophy has to be under-laid and be dissolved into the meanings of the artworks. But by using the words on to the actual objects, Hirshhorn is showing the viewers what philosophical materials he is presenting to be part of his sculptures and at the same time, by doing this the under-laid meaning is formed in viewers’ minds. . This point relates to my interest towards the relations between what is on the surface of the artwork and the under laying meanings.
1.Garrett, Craig. “Thomas Hirschhorn: Philosophical Battery.” Flash Art 238 (October 2004), p 92.
You made a good comment about the act of photocopying and using the philosophical text as material and as an act of art-making. In a sense, Hirschhorn is referencing the ideas of the philosophers he admires through this act, and allowing for the ideas to be interpreted and discussed in a wider field and with multiple points of view in order to create a greater understanding of the world around us, which is what philosophy is all about.
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