THOMAS HIRSCHHORN. PIXEL-COLLAGE

THOMAS HIRSCHHORN. PIXEL-COLLAGE
01.09.2017 — 22.10.2017
EXHIBITION OPENING: THURSDAY 31.08., 7 PM at FOTOGALLERIET

Fotogalleriet is pleased to announce its forthcoming exhibition with Thomas Hirschhorn. Thomas Hirschhorn’s exhibition Pixel-Collage is the third main exhibition of Fotogalleriet’s anniversary year programme, which aims to reflect on its own existence by mapping a constellation of photographic usages and presentation formats: Hirschhorn’s exhibition thus enters into dialogue with a new Nordic Anthology exhibition (#9) by Martinka Bobrikova & Oscar de Carmen and Camera Movement film (#17) showing Susanne M. Winterling’s Diademseeigel Immersion Prototyp.

Thomas Hirschhorn’s exhibition at Fotogalleriet will show six new Pixel-Collages in combination with a vitrine that contains important source material owned and selected by the artist himself. Pixel-Collage is a series of work Hirschhorn has continuously been developing since 2015, following earlier collage series like Easycollage (2014), Collage-Truth (2012) and Ur-Collage (2008). These works embody Hirschhorn’s demand to give form to the notions of equality, universality, justice and truth. The works shall act as a tool or weapon to confront the reality we live in, confront censorship and resist post-truth through his process of “de-pixelation.”

Thomas Hirschhorn states:
“I think that 'pixelation' or blurring, masking and furthermore censorship or self-censorship, is a growing and insidious problematic, also in regard to the new social media. Obviously I don't accept what has been pixelated in my place 'to protect me'. I consequently don't pixelate what is usually concealed or removed and meant to frustrate, censor or make non-visible. I can, I want and I need to use my own eyes as an act of emancipation - this is the detonator of 'De-Pixelation'. De-Pixelation is the term I want to use to manifest that pixelating is no longer necessary. The pixels, the blurring and the masking, and in general all kinds of censorships, can no longer prevent us from fake-news, facts, opinions and comments. We have definitely entered the post-truth world, and pixelation is the form of the agreement in this post-truth world.”

The Pixel-Collages are a direct reaction to the pixelation of images found in the media, and with it, react against growing (self-)censorship and viewer manipulation. In his desire for truth, Hirschhorn’s work opposes what is supposed to be “protected”. Through the physical process of pixelating collages, Hirschhorn lays bare the images’ pure form to make us understand the link between different realities –cruel and beautiful, hidden and visible, unspeakable and abstract.

Thomas Hirschhorn was born in 1957 in Bern, Switzerland. He studied at the Schule für Gestaltung, Zurich from 1978 to 1983 and moved to Paris in 1983, where he has been living since. Hirschhorn has shown his work widely internationally and has received substantial recognition for his encompassing, comprehensive sculptural installations made from ordinary everyday paraphernalia such as masking tape, cardboard, foil and plastic bags. A large part of his work also includes circulated image material collected from newspapers, magazines and the Internet. With each exhibition in museums, galleries and alternative spaces, or with specific works in public space, Thomas Hirschhorn asserts his commitment toward a non-exclusive public.

Hirschhorn’s work became widely known also due to his four Monuments dedicated to the theorists and writers Antonio Gramsci (conceived for Dia Art Foundation and located at Forest Houses, New York in 2013), Georges Bataille (conceived for Documenta11, located at Friedrich-Wöhler Siedlung, Kassel, 2002), Gilles Deleuze (conceived for La Beauté and located at Cité Champfleury, Avignon, 2000) and Baruch Spinoza (conceived for Midnight Walkers & City Sleepers and located in a public space in Amsterdam, 1999). His work has also received significant attention when he represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 2011, turning the Swiss pavilion into a large-scale walk-in installation featuring the crystal as a recurrent motif, drawing its relation to love, philosophy, politics and aesthetics.

Other notable solo exhibitions include Pixel Collage at Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus (2017), Reset-Thomas Hirschhorn Doppelgarage at Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2016), In-Between at South London Gallery, London (2015), Nachwirkung at Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen (2015), Flamme éternelle, L’état du Ciel at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, (2014), Diachronic Pool, Metamatics at Museum Tinguely, Basel (2013), Flugplatz Welt / World Airport at Mudam, Luxembourg or Untere Kontrolle at Sprengel Museum, Hanover (2011).

Major participations in group exhibitions include the 56th International Art Exhibition - All the World's Futures, Venice Biennale, Venice, (2015), Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015); Under the Clouds, Serralves Museum, Porto (2015), MANIFESTA 10, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Saint-Petersburg (2014), The Human Factor, Hayward Gallery, London (2014), 1984-1999. The Decade, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2014), Metamatic Reloaded, Museum Tinguely, Basel (2013-2014) and Only Sculpture! at Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim (2013).

Thomas Hirschhorn’s exhibition at Fotogalleriet is generously supported by Pro Helvetia and The Norwegian Ministry of Culture.