On Thomas Hirschhorn: I LOVE TO PRODUCE MY WORK!
October 31, 2012
One has to wonder at times, given the state of the art market and a lackluster economy these past years, how (or even why) artists continue to make work. If you're lucky shows come, shows go, little if anything sells, the work comes back, you have to store it and somehow think about what happens next. In the September 2012 issue of Art Forum, on page 250, Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn had this to say -- and I love it:
I LOVE TO PRODUCE MY WORK!
To not produce, or to refuse to do something, or to not participate, can be as important as doing something. As an artist I have to confront this question every day. It is necessary to know what to produce and to decide to produce or not. It is not necessary to publicize not producing -- to do so is defensive or selfish, and, for sure, narcissistic. Because to produce -- to produce a work -- requires commitment:
To produce a work means giving form -- and giving form is the essential in Art.
To produce means establishing one's own vocabulary, creating new language in Art.
To produce means to establish a critical corpus.
To produce -- to produce in headlessness -- makes it possible to face and withstand the sense of ridiculousness that is inevitable when making a new form.
To produce means to resist -- through production -- the dictatorship of comments, facts, and opinions.
To produce -- to produce relentlessly -- means resisting cynicism and defeatism, to be free from focusing on the reception of the work, to not communicate "about" the work nor to disseminate information around it.
To produce means building a resistance to capitalization, correctness, manipulation, and calculation -- which is what consumption is based upon.
To produce means to create conditions for implying a nonexclusive audience. It's only by accepting that a work is produced with lacks and errors that one has the power to include the "other."
To produce means to understand Art as an assertion, as a statement, as an act of emancipation, and as something that I authorize myself to do.
To produce a work gives a chance to touch truth.
Installation by Thomas Hirschhorn
Installation by Thomas Hirschhorn
