Thomas Hirschhorn
in conversation
in conversation
How are you feeling after the opening of the exhibition “Fake it, Fake it – till you fake it.”?
I’m fine and I’m happy. I’m happy about my work because I gave everything I could, because I tried everything to make the work as clear, as accurate and as radiant as I could. I can’t do it better, I can’t do it differently, everything is as it should be, I have nothing to complain about, I don’t see errors and I wouldn't know what to change. That’s what makes me happy, not that the work might be good, that it might hold up or might even be a success.
Your work addresses how to deal with the current crises and how to make art in them. You ask yourself whether art can achieve an alternative understanding of the world. We often perceive your work as politically motivated, and we are therefore interested to know whether you are sometimes tempted to move from art to politics.
I define art as a tool, as my tool. Politics is and never has been my tool. Art is my tool to understand the world that surrounds me, art is my tool to work with and in reality – my reality – and art is my tool to deal with the time in which I live today. But your question shows me that my art has a certain meaning, perhaps even an effect, because then the question of politics does come up, giving politics, seemingly, [more] importance than art.
You are addressing an interesting topic. You probably have a greater significance and a greater impact through your work as an artist than if you were involved in politics. Indeed, your art could even be seen as actual realpolitik. Would you agree with that?
Again, I am making art, not politics. If my art has an impact, it is because it has a form. Form is the crucial thing, the most important thing, the most difficult thing to achieve, the thing that can only be achieved through grace, hence perhaps the misunderstanding that my art is ‘political art’.
The exhibition is about the conflict between the analog and the digital world and how to make art today, in a time of crisis. Can you say a few words about what concerns you about this conflict and how you use the term ‘fake utopia’?
Yesterday I saw on X how someone reproduced my work “Fake it, Fake it – till you Fake it.” through AI. He or she has converted my analog and three-dimensional work into the digital, two-dimensional – there you have the ‘fake utopia’! This ‘fake utopia’ creates amazing images and I see it as an (unexpected) result to see “Fake it, Fake it – till you Fake it.” so quickly 'faked‘. It’s a beautiful, funny and successful example of what I wanted when I state and try to create in my work, a form or a dynamic for a confrontation between the virtual and the real. The ‘fake utopian’ is what you don't actually believe in, but you can do it, and the only reason for doing it, is ‘because you can do it’. The ‘dystopian’, on the other hand, is the result of a utopian thought or action – which you believe in – but that doesn’t ‘work’. That's why the dystopian is always interesting.
Do you think the farmers in France and Germany are currently in a fake-utopian or dystopian mood? Are they protesting purely because they can, or because it has become clear to them that democracy as it is practiced in these countries is a dystopia?
The problem with politics and politicians is that they are not – or at least not enough – pro-active. Too often, politics and politicians’ response is only reaction. Reaction to protest, reaction to pressure, sometimes even reaction to violence or destruction. Too often, the only way to get things moving in politics, is to exert pressure or threaten violence. That is why many people only achieve something by protesting, striking, blockading or using violence.
You once said that you were a fan of Antonio Gramsci and that – as a fan – you choose something blindly and loyally. You ended the series of four monuments dedicated to philosophers with the Gramsci Monument in 2013. What does it take to become someone to whom you pay tribute and honor with your work – what does it take for you to become a fan?
To be a fan means to approve of something, to love something or someone – more than anything else. A fan is someone who endorses everything, who criticizes nothing, who questions nothing – as far as it concerns the reason or object of his/her ‘being a fan’. A fan is therefore willing to pay the price. Being a ‘fan’ is directed against criticism, against skepticism, against ‘doing better’ and ‘knowing better’. Doing a piece of work – as a fan – gives unimagined energy, it allows to be absolutely focused and it allows to cross insurmountable obstacles.
Your definition of fandom is an unconditional one. Do you understand when people are prepared to give everything for the reason or the object of their ‘being a fan’? If they even use violence for this?
Using violence is not part of ‘being a fan’. So, violence is never an option, not in art and not elsewhere. Art – because it’s art – excludes violence, hatred, resentment, exclusivity or exclusion of others and discrimination of any kind. Art is: assertion, positivity, experience, exchange, dialogue or conflict, problematization, emancipation, production, inclusion, daring, passion, love, beauty, mystery, grace.
You were trained as a graphic designer. How does this influence your work?
What shapes my work is not my previous training – I also trained as a typesetter – but my first love of two-dimensional collage. I always made collages and have remained true to collage. Making a collage means starting from existing elements of the world and putting them together in a new way. Making a collage means rethinking and reinventing the existing world. The scale of my work has changed, but even when I work in the third or fourth dimension, I always work from two-dimensions.
