A WORK IN PUBLIC SPACE BY THOMAS HIRSCHHORN, PRODUCED BY DIA ART FOUNDATION NEW YORK
LOCATED AT FOREST HOUSES, THE BRONX - NEW YORK CITY, SUMMER 2013
The role of ambassador has been identified as "the person who answers questions concerning
art" and hence questions of creativity and culture. But what exactly are the conditions
that help generate this kind of questions in the first place? After having completed
the first week I can say that the inquiries have been sudden and unpredictable. Early
this week a young boy (age 6-8) asked if we had a book on Leonardo Da Vinci in the
Gramsci library. Coincidently I remembered seeing a copy of Da Vinci's Notebooks
when we unpacked the library. Upon opening the book two handwritten notes offered
a touching reminder that these books bare traces of John Cammett's life. The first
quote was from the Renaissance artist himself: "Shun those studies in which the work
that results died with the worker." The second quote was penned on the title page
and the author was Harvard historian George Sarton: "His outstanding mind is to have
shown by his own example that the pursuit of beauty and the pursuit of truth are
not incompatible. He is the patron of all those men, few in number, who love art
and science with equal fervor...One might add...that without love there can be no
real knowledge." My young companion asked to see the pictures and we paged through
the book looking for the illustrations which were distributed throughout the fifty
chapters. The anatomical drawings of limbs and organs were of particular interest
to him but nothing beat the reaction when we found the portrait of the artist. He
understood immediately that this was a self-portrait, looked up and said "he used
a mirror."
