"United Nations Miniature: Thomas Hirschhorn"
2003-09-22 until 2003-11-16
Contemporary Art Centre of Malaga
Malaga, , ES Spain

United Nations Miniature is the title of a large-scale exhibition which Thomas Hirschhorn (born Bern, 1957) will be presenting at the CAC Malaga from 20 September. In it, the Swiss artist conveys the viewer to a battle field to reveal the horrors and barbarity that result from war. In a totally committed spirit, Hirschhorn denounces inequalities and injustice while at the same time inviting us to reflect on the reality of current politics. United Nations Miniature represents a devastated, chaotic space, reflecting the full dimension of the tragedy through the appropriate, even inevitable, use of waste materials.

Thomas Hirschhorn studied graphic design in Zurich, a profession which he abandoned when he decided that it was too closely linked to commercial and private interests. From then on he has devoted himself to art, working in different media – sculpture, video and installation – considering art to be an inseparable part of social and political critique.

Through the use of everyday elements and recycled materials, Thomas Hirschhorn denounces the excessive consumerism of contemporary society. In the same way, his work is characterised by an abundance of images and text, sometimes resulting in a overloading of data which imitates the process of confrontation of the artist with the excess of information in our daily lives.

Thomas Hirschhorn lives and works in Paris. His installations and other works have been exhibited in centres and institutions such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Renaissance Society in Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona. In 1999 he took part in the Venice Biennial.

The CAC Malaga has a work by the artist in its permanent collection entitled Art Center 6 (Blow down, 2001). Currently on show to the public, it recreates the different rooms of a house. The work features all the characteristics that define Hirschhorn’s art: precarious and ephemeral construction in which recycled materials predominate, used by the artist to create small cosmologies and visual universes.

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