“They’re the last people who fight for the public space.” Artist Thomas Hirschhorn pulls out a photo from the treasury of his phone and reveals how sharing a public area with a group of alcoholics inadvertently changed one of his projects.

“It reminds me of this very fragile contact you can have with somebody who is a non-exclusive audience, and who perhaps finds a way to engage with you in a very precarious co-existence.” Hirschhorn did a project in a public space in Wiesbaden, Germany, and as it turned out, this site was also a hangout for a bunch of “hard-core drinkers” – one of these being the young man Fabian. The project involved the usage of letters written on t-shirts, and Fabian soon started to interact by insisting that they add the letter ‘F’ (for Fabian) to the project.

Thomas Hirschhorn (b. 1957) is an award-winning Swiss artist, who originally trained as a graphic designer. His often political work has been shown in prominent museums and venues such as the Istanbul Biennial, the Centre Georges Pompidou and Palais de Tokyo in Paris, documenta in Kassel, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate Modern in London. In 2011, Hirschhorn represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale. He lives and works in Paris.

Thomas Hirschhorn was interviewed by Kasper Bech Dyg at Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark, in January 2017.

Camera: Mathias Nyholm

Produced and edited by: Kasper Bech Dyg

Copyright: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2017

Supported by Nordea-fonden