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
Although it was written in haste on a scrap of paper, the note retained the desire
for a practical outcome that is typical of a letter. “You must help me best friend
because I don’t know English well,” read the opening sentence. “If I get a best friend
everyday, he/she speak me everyday in English, we lecture together one day. I [will]
understand English well. IR[S] tell me about it.” The author of the note is a recent
immigrant to New York, a resident of Forest Houses and a regular visitor to the monument.
The note came into being in the middle of a conversation in which he was trying to
explain his situation, namely, his determination to learn English. It goes without
saying, fully aware of the pitfalls of well-meaning platitudes, that it is from such
a common aspiration that a reconceptualization of the "monument" starts. The condition
of possibility of such a form, seems to me, arise from the activation of empathic
action that designate new kinds of friendship in the conquest of indifference.
