Thomas Hirschhorn in "Investigation" - Season 7 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

[child yelling]

- We'd like to thank y'all.

You know, I thank y'all
personally, you know,

for coming out.

[applause]

Please.

Please.

Thank you, DJ Baby Dee.

[laughter]

- Say it again.

- DJ Baby Dee..

[laughter]

This day is an exceptional day,

because it's the day
of the opening.

So what counts now
and what is the change

and what is
the most important thing

to me as an artist
is every day–

to be every day here,

every day here to be present
and to produce something.

Why the presence and the
production is so important?

Because I believe
only with the presence

and the production,

we can create the condition

that the residents
are implicated.

So every day we will be here,

and we will be present and
produce the Gramsci Monument.

Because this, what you see,
is not the Gramsci monument.

It's only the structure
of the Gramsci monument.

'Cause what I want to do
is a new kind of monument.

So this new kind of monument,

I have to construct it
every day in being here,

in being present
and in producing

and in addressing it first

to the family who lives
in fifth floor there

or the family who lives there
in first floor

or the woman who lives up there
in the fifth floor.

They are my public.

This is the challenge.

This what's about,
the Gramsci monument:

To create memory,
a common memory.

- Ace, deuce, and no use.

[laughter]

- The three the hard way.

- Yo!

- These are my buddies here.

I could tease 'em all day long.

But they--I know not to get out
of line with 'em neither too,

'cause they'll slap me around

like if I'm one of
their children.

- You wouldn't
have never figured

it would've been like this
when they first started out.

- I believe that every human being
has an understanding of art.

What is separating us is smaller
than what is unifying us.

But in order to unify,

you have really to take
something who goes beyond.

And this is art to me.

What I wanted, actually,

is to establish a new term
of monument.

Why it's new?

Its location.

It is not in a park.

It's not in a city center.

It's where people are living.

Why where people are living?

Because I want to address it

to what I call
a nonexclusive audience.

It is new because its duration
has no ambition of eternity.

It wants to create memory.

Actually, in every artwork,
I would like to establish

a new term of form,
a new term of art.

This is my big ambition,
of course.

- There's a lot of people
came walkin' around,

looking while they was
building it.

- Right.

- And they wasn't sure at all.

- A lot of people call
this place the wood.

- Yeah, the wood.

- What did he call it?

- The little rascals.

- Oh, yeah,
the little rascal clubhouse.

- Yeah, that's what I call it.

- That's the best one.

The one that Phil
had called it, he said,

"Little House on the Prairie
meets the Bronx."

I was like, "That's it.

Michael Landon's
nowhere around."

[laughs]
Yup.

Because I decided to do it
where people are living,

I must find somebody
who agree with my project.

I call it the key figure,
Erik Farmer.

Erik is the president
of forest houses,

the key to the neighborhood.

ERIK FARMER: The first response was,
"What is this?"

Like, "What is this about?"

You know, I don't know anything
about art.

I don't know
who Antonio Gramsci is.

I didn't know
who Thomas Hirschhorn was.

My understanding
of a monument

was something that–
it pretty much doesn't move.

It just– you know,
it stays there.

So I'm like,
"How can it be a monument

but you're saying
you're gonna take it down?"

So he was explaining to me
this is, like, a new concept.

And he actually brought me
some books,

some past work he did.

You know, I read up on him
and all that.

It's a monument,
but it's a temporary monument.

Once he told me that,

I got a understanding
of what he wanted to do.

And I knew
he was into tape before this.

He's, like, a tape freak
or something.

I never– he loves tape.

I never seen nobody
like that before.

And he tells me, you know,
"You can use tape for anything."

How can you use tape
for anything?

But he really does it, really.

Thomas is–
he's definitely out there.

But he got me out there
with him.

Then– then a banner.

- So then we do one banner more.

Can we hang it in your house?

- Of course, I told you.

Whenever you're ready.

Whenever– yes.

- I asked Erik to compose a team
of 15 people

to build the structure.

[saw whirring]

What was important,
I didn't tell him I need some specificity.

I just needed residents.

And he composed the team.

And I'm very proud,
even when it was very difficult,

to go to the end with the team.

I told it in the beginning, but
when you are doing an artwork.

And especially in public space,
it's never a completely success.

But what is nice,
it's never a completely failure.

- Thomas uses me
as one of his main carpenters.

He'll tell me to do something,

and I'll take my construction experience
to try to add something to it.

But if he doesn't want to do it
that way, you know,

Thomas is the boss.

We have to do it his way.

A lot of times, Thomas listens
to how I do things.

So when they walk on it,
everything is balanced.

- Oh.

- He's not a construction guy.

You know, as he say,
he's an artist.

You know what I'm saying?

He's not a construction guy
at all.

- Well, we had plans
made by an architect

but only to get permission.

[laughs]

And, I mean–
but also it was helpful,

because, for example, I learned

a staircase have
a certain dimension.

So that I try to do–
not so good, but we tried.

The same with the ramp.

I mean, it has to have a kind
of level, of course, to go up.

- I would go backwards,

and then when it turned up,
I would turn around.

So it's fine, Thomas.

- Okay.

To me, it seems the only way
to work together.

Which I would like to call
in coexistence.

Seems to me much more honest
to say "Coexistence"

than "Collaboration."

They will be paid
for their work,

because it's like
I'm coming in a gallery

And working with the people
who are working for the gallery

or for the museum.

They're paid as well.

- When he first got there,

he didn't want people to focus
on making money

and people just focused
on doing a job.

He wanted people to understand
what this gentleman was about, Antonio Gramsci.

- I was very happy that in the
neighborhood of forest houses,

people who didn't know
Antonio Gramsci

made very immediately
the connection

To Nelson Mandela or Malcolm X.

Gramsci is a philosopher
of Marxist thinking,

and he comes from italy.

He went to prison
for his thinking.

He didn't made a book.

He made his notebooks, who are
like layers of thinkings,

always related to very practical things
but still with a big ambition.

This is not a cultural project
but an art project.

It's very important
to understand it as a sculpture,

as something who wants to engage
with the surrounding buildings.

Why these materials?

Because they're materials
that everybody use and knows.

It's not because
it's in forest houses,

in a socially
not favorite neighborhood

that it is with cardboard
or with tape and with wood.

No, it belongs
to my aesthetic vocabulary.

- Shotgun, too hot to trot.

Yo, we're here live, 91.9 fm.

Don't forget to stop by
The Gramsci bar and grill,

Where they've got all the
beautiful food and everything.

It is so...

- [singing]
♪early in the morning♪

♪drive into the street♪

That's it.

[indistinct conversation]

- No, island.

Do you know how to spell?

- Island?

- On 5:00 sunday,
we got Mr. Marcus steinweg

with the daily lecture.

Mondays, we got our Gramsci theater.

[people talking at once]

- I'm going mad!

People: Whoo!

- Capitalism?

Capitalism?

Capitalism.

- You learn.

I met people
from all walk of life.

I love that.

That was– that was the best.

- All over the world.

- That's right.

- The second part of my work

is what I call
public interventions.

I go out of the museum
and gallery world,

And I try to reach an audience
that is larger

than the small audience that
we know goes to the art world.

And the third part
of my practice is teaching.

That's fine, yeah.

This is working?

Okay, okay.

- Sorry.

- It's okay.

- And if it wasn't here,
they wouldn't have came.

- Right.

- 'Cause why would they want
to come here?

- On fridays,
Mr. Thomas Hirschhorn himself

At 11:00 in the morning
to 3:00 in the afternoon

with his art school.

His art school is very good.

I've been to the class
and everything,

and it's right here
on the Gramsci monument stage.

Thomas Hirshhorn's art school class,
11:00 in the morning.

And his art school class,
it contains energy, yes; quality, no.

- Never about judging a person, never.

But judging a work with it, yes,

because I believe
only the judgment of something

we did ourself
or some other else did

can help us to go forward.

- If you can't take criticism...

- Don't come.

- Don't come to the class.

- Energy, yes.

Quality, no.

I'm not interested
in the criteria of quality,

because I think the criteria
of quality is exclusive.

So that's why I try to invent
another criteria

who replace the criteria
of quality,

the criteria of energy.

- It was kind of rough.

- And make brown, right?

- Can red and blue and orange?

- Yeah, the last one,

Because they're opposites.

Orange and blue are opposites,
because orange...

Thomas came to my school.

I graduated from Princeton University.

And he did a lecture, and I had
a studio visit with him.

And his expression
"energy, yes; quality, no"

is something
that really resonated with me.

So I emailed him afterwards,
asking if I could be involved

in his next project,
and he said yes.

In the beginning,
it was more like a class.

Like, for the first
five or six weeks,

there was very, like,
specific activities

that we were doing
about different artists,

different ideas in art,

different technical
art concepts.

But then in the last few weeks,

it's been more kind of just,
like, an open workshop,

'cause now the kids
are coming in,

and they have a lot more
of their own ideas.

You want to spray the inside?

- No, don't spray the inside.

- All right.

You could spray the inside.

- This is not a collaboration.

This is work in coexistence

That me, I do it 100%,
but the other also 100%.

So I cannot interfere.

I don't want to interfere.

And I want to take
the responsibility– and I can–

of 100%
of what the other does also.

That I call
unshared authorship.

So, for example,
in the radio station,

what the DJ Gucci
Or DJ Baby Dee told

and how they told it, I take
100% responsibility about.

- Offices have a certain amount
of collars to get monthly,

I was told.

I was told, when I was writing tickets,
that I had a minimum of 27 tickets

I had to write per month minimum.

Look around you.

Notice that when you enter
upon a projects,

what is it
that you're walking through?

Whereas it–
they were not there years ago.

- It's, like, gated.

- Raw iron gates.

- Yeah.

- Once you enter
upon those raw iron gates,

you're practically going
through a door.

That's the insignia
of trespassing.

- The thing is, do we go down?

Do we make a complaint?

- Of course.

- Do we fight the ticket?

Wait a minute.

Let me just finish.

Do we fight the ticket,
or do we just let it sit

and get a warrant
and then double up our problem?

- I think I have a solution.

- Yeah, yeah, solution.

Let's hear a solution.

- I've been going through it,
So...

- Then, at 4:00, we got the daily lecture
with Mr. Marcus Steinweg.

His daily lecture for today is
"For the Love of Philosophy."

- A kind of ontological void
or emptiness.

What does it mean, then,
for the change

now transform situation
of the human subject?

What does it mean for the
definition of what thinking is?

So thinking is first
to deal with this lack,

with this void,
with this emptiness.

call it the inexistence of God.

Call it simply a kind of–
Call it a kind of–

the whole of freedom,

like Jean-Paul Sartre
is claiming that.

- He said that yesterday
he don't believe in God.

And I said, "What you mean,
you don't believe in God?"

That, like, it got to me.

I had to get up and say– I had
to get up and say something.

"What you mean,
you don't believe in God?"

He said
he don't believe in nothing.

I said, "Okay."

- When I'm in front
of an artwork,

there are two questions.

Where do you stand?

What do you want?

- Without getting too deep,
too heavy–

- Yo, this next song is a joint
called I got it.

And this is basically based
on anybody

who's ever tried
to accomplish something

When the odds
was really against you

but you still pushed forward
anyway.

- Yeah, yeah.

- With that said, soundman.

[latin guitar music]

♪like flaunting these roses♪

♪so many phony imposers♪

♪so many days on the humble♪

♪now feel my attitude crumble♪

♪and I won't shut it off♪

♪I've paid every cost♪

♪so all that shots I call♪

♪who are you to doubt it?♪

♪many floors in entertainment♪

♪I bear my soul
'fore it's naked♪

♪too many dreams now faded♪

♪they're saying
I'll never make it♪

♪and I should fold my cards♪

♪damn, I've come too far♪

♪I shine above them all♪

♪and everything I love,
Man, I got it♪

Thanks for the love,
Forest Projects.

We out of here.

- I told y'all
I was gonna be crazy.

You didn't believe me.

I told you.

MARCELLA PARADISE:
Speaking and talking

to other people,

Listening
to other people lectures,

saying where they came from
and from where you came from,

we're gonna miss it.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- We ain't feel it yet.

We ain't feel it yet,
but it's gonna bring some tears.

It's gonna bring some tears
here.

- 'Cause that means
the people go.

- Right, and it's just gonna be
something loss here.

Just gonna be
like someone die.

- Mm-hmm.

- Now I understand
what a monument means.

It's something that stays in
your heart and in your memory,

because they only have it once.

- Yeah.