“Energy, yes; quality, no.” This is the feeling we have when we come into contact with the installations that Thomas Hirschhorn has been producing since the early 1980s, while submerged in the flood of information that they convey. Made from basic materials, they offer a saturation of images stemming from a range of media – press, television, and cinema – as well as texts, by the artist himself or by the politically-motivated intellectuals he affirms as influences, including Bataille, Deleuze, and Nietzsche.

A political artist, he presents himself – with very Nietzschean rhetoric – as “a warrior” and considers his work to be a struggle: an affirmation that art must represent. This philosophy applies to all domains: as a Swiss citizen, in 2004, he declared that he would refuse to exhibit his work in his native country for as long as a representative of the extreme right remained a member of parliament.

His work is entirely immersed in social and political considerations; hence his occasional use of public space and fostering of the participation of local residents, spurred by a faith in the “transformative power of art”. Deleuze Monument (2000), Bataille Monument (2002) or the Musée Précaire Albinet (2004) were thus installed in the heart of urban complexes.

Thomas Hirschhorn has received many prizes, including the Marcel Duchamp Prize (2000) and the Joseph Beuys Prize (2004).