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
By now there is the appearance that a certain routine has been established at the
monument. Janet unlocks all the pavilions and turns on the lights, fans and air conditioners
a quarter to ten o’clock. The team at the bar prepares coffee and improvises breakfast
according to their mood. The librarian Marcella replaces the daily rose and checks
for water leaks in the exhibition space. Lakesha, one of the newspaper editors is
always the first to arrive to the newsroom, she prints the daily issue and stacks
the desk in my “office.” Thomas can be found either on stage preparing the banner
for the main event of the day or updating the information on the boards. And at the
radio station Phil sets up the equipment and prepares to go on "air" by 11 am. The
children have also figured out their own flow, there is a group that walks straight
to the Internet Corner to secure a computer while the rest march to the Workshop
for Lex’s daily art class. With this informal choreography, a kind of “warm up” the
form is restored to the monument on a daily basis. Put differently, the nature of
social life itself is a reconstruction, situations are constantly surfacing, something
or someone needs attention, a problem arises and needs to be resolved, and a position
needs to be rearticulated. The monument seems to be regularly actualizing itself,
self-producing and self-referencing its own present in a sequences of spontaneous
movements and improvisations. All the parts can be readjusted.
