The Gramsci Monument – a participatory wooden hut made of recycled
materials, located in a housing project in South Bronx – is meant to function
as a public artwork only communicating the artist’s vision of art. But, by
choosing Antonio Gramsci as his muse, Thomas Hirschhorn is also selecting a sociologically
charged figure.
Gramsci was an Italian supporter of Marxist
theories. He was convinced that a self-created and self-regulated
“counter-hegemony” could emerge and reverse the capitalist system. One might
think that Hirschhorn was going in that direction by erecting a monument to the
philosopher. But the Swiss artist in fact intended to “establish a definition
of monument, to provoke encounters, to create an event, and to think Gramsci
today.” Hirschhorn
is not speaking about acting on Gramsci’s theories; the artist is not meaning
to start up the revolution the philosopher thought of. This duality goes
further: Hirschhorn constructed the Gramsci Monument as a commission by the Dia
Foundation (fully part of the established American art world). Therefore, it
remains questionable what the intention of the artwork is: conveying Gramsci’s
revolutionary message, or Hirschhorn’s artistic approach.
The artist is here paradoxical
in his method, using a revolutionary image to crystalize concepts that are not
so revolutionary after all. If the message of the artwork might be sensed as
unclear, it nevertheless succeeds in waking up curiosity regarding its content.
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