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
At one point during the final days of construction I overhead one of the residents
who worked in the crew say, “It looks like a bucket of money!” He was referring to
something he had finished building and concluded that it was beautiful. In fact,
a bucket or even an envelope of that object which pays for goods and services can
be deceptively attractive. Naturally, this attempt to qualify material objects as
beautiful has systematically distorted our expectations of art. “Does art need to
be beautiful?” This was one of the most debated of the daily questions at Gramsci
Radio last week. “No. Ironically, yes,” would probably have been Marcel Duchamp’s
answer. Let’s once again let Gramsci answer: “Quality should be attributed to [humankind],
and not to things.”
