Thomas Hirschhorn. Equality Float

Every summer Es Baluard invites an international artist to present an individual themed exhibition in the Aljub and in 2016, it is the turn of Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn with the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

Prior to his project, Flamme éternelle[1], in early 2007, Thomas Hirschhorn wrote about the philosopher Jacques Rancière, and mentioned that when the young people of the suburbs of Paris, or of any city in the world, expressed themselves by burning cars in front of their homes, they ignited the fire of anguish, the flame of alarm. They attracted universal attention, and reminded people that the flame of equality would always remain lit.

Through Jacques Rancière’s book Le maître ignorant, and the character of the schoolmaster Joseph Jacotot, the artist had interpreted that the flame of equality is an eternal flame, and that therefore the vindications or signs to maintain that flame would never pass. And the essential thing, in the words of the artist himself:The game is not over.

Time has shown us that, in effect, the game, and the fire, are not over. We live in an age when the emergence of anguish, wars, borders, social movements, violence in the name of freedom and equality, have not ceased to increase. Events that indicate to us that that flame will never be extinguished.

[1]Thomas Hirschhorn. “Eternal Flame. On Jacques Rancière”.Text written for Artforum, XLV, no. 7, March 2007, p. 268

Curator: Ignacio Cabrero