ABOUT THIS BOOK

Thomas Hirschhorn, a leading installation artist whose work is owned and exhibited by modern art museums throughout Europe and the United States, is known for compelling, often site-specific and interactive environments tackling issues of critical theory, global politics, and consumerism. His work initially engages the viewer through sheer superabundance. Combining found images and texts, bound up in handcrafted constructions of cardboard, foil, and packing tape, the artworks reflect the intellectual scavenging and sensory overload that characterize our own attempts to grapple with the excess of information in daily life. Christina Braun, the first to compile and systematically analyze the extensive source material on this artist’s theoretical principles, sheds light on the complicated yet constitutive relations between Hirschhorn’s work and theory. Her study, now translated into English, makes a major contribution to the study of contemporary art.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

CHRISTINA BRAUN received her PhD from the University of Cologne, Germany. She has been a freelance curator for the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and is currently working for documenta 14.

REVIEWS

“Thomas Hirschhorn’s statements are an integral part of his artistic practice. Christina Braun offers the first sustained analysis of them and their complex relation to the sculptural work. Elegantly navigating through Hirschhorn’s characteristic information overload in English, French, and German, this thoroughly researched book, which is grounded in Braun’s own direct exchanges with the artist, is invaluable for those studying Hirschhorn and also anyone more generally interested in the mechanics of how to engage with artists’ statements.”—Elisa Schaar, University of Oxford

“I know of few artists working in the expanded field of cultural production today whose passion for art matches that of the peerless Thomas Hirschhorn. Here is an artist who truly loves art, and whose love for the work of art ultimately drives the potent political charge that is so defining of his oeuvre. It takes some scholarly passion to parallel Hirschhorn’s energy in critical, discursive terms—which Christina Braun’s book has in spades. A tour de force.”—Dieter Roelstraete, curator, University of Chicago

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments • INTRODUCTION • Objectives and Structure • On the Sources • On the Current Status of Research • On the Method • PART 1: THE ARTIST’S THEORY AS A SOURCE AND OBJECT OF ANALYSIS • The Phenomenon of Artists’ Theories: A Historical Outline • Forms and Functions of Modern Artists’ Theories • On the Concept of the Artist’s Theory • The Platonic Topos of the Irrelevance of the Artist’s Theory • Four Theses on the Artist’s Theory as a Source and Object of Analysis • PART 2: AN INTERPRETATIVE PRESENTATION OF THE ARTIST’S THEORY • Formal and Rhetorical Stylistic Means • Characteristics and Function • Hirschhorn’s Understanding of Art: Central Concepts and Ideas • The Formation of Hirschhorn’s Theory in the Context of His Evolution as an Artist • PART 3: ANALYZING THOMAS HIRSCHHORN’S ARTIST’S THEORY • On the Iconography of Material • Critical Notes on the Process of Production • Hirschhorn’s Aesthetic-Political Concept of Work • “Constructing the Unconstructible”: “The Spirit of Utopia” in Thomas Hirschhorn’s Theory • Hirschhorn’s Elective Affinities: Genealogical System or Ingenious Self-Stylization? • Conclusion • Appendix • Notes • Bibliography