This Wednesday I decided to go check out The Power Plant’s International Lecture Series featuring Swiss-artist Thomas Hirschhorn. My day started out as it usually does when I plan to go to an art event. I sit at my desk and think of every conceivable excuse not to go; laundry, grocery shopping, headache, I even threw in grant writing for good measure. However, the excuse that weighed in most was this: I didn’t want to be disappointed again. The thought of sitting through 40 slides of cardboard with the inevitable verdict that “my art is/was/can save the world” seemed too much. That said, I went, if not to prove myself wrong.
Hirschhorns lecture was centered on his most recent public work in Amsterdam’s Bijlmer neighborhood, famed for its application of Corbusier’s architectural manifesto. The project, titled The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival (2009) was described as a two-month long festival that looked to create a place for thought and collaboration within the community. Within the first seconds of the talk my fears of the artist as self-righteous hero were calmed as he prefaced the project being un-related to relational aesthetics. Rather he made work because he believed in art, and perhaps what was more unnerving, he felt the public sphere could help facilitate that belief. In his mind the people did not need help, he needed help. The following are some terms, which have kept me up at night:
Production: He talked of production two fold, his own production, being on site and making (which he considered the role of the artist) and the production of assistants, which for this particular project he paid local.
Precariousness: Someone later told me that this was a “hot” term right now. I simply loved the complexity of it in offering a counterpoint to ‘conservativeness’.
Faith: Hirschhorn asked us why an artist would be an artist if they did not have faith in art? What an asshole! But seriously, why?
I left the talk confused, befuddled, angry, happy, excited, exhilarated, unnervered and -perhaps most importantly- encouraged.