Dislocacion Project
Made in Tunnel of Politics

During his visit to Santiago on July 2009, Hirschhorn got very interested on Galeria Metropolitana due to its relation with the community (La Victoria Neighbor). He proposes: “I would like to do a simple work; it must be clear and economical. I would like to work with the Ranger model on the Ford pick up trucks, because when I did visit Santiago de Chile I saw lots of them on the streets. I would like to work with this pick-up truck because I think that it reflects on its hybrid character the abysm between “economics” and “politics”.
The artist would cut a Ford pick-up truck on two halves, and then he will bind them with adhesive tape – a recurrent material on his master pieces. With this operation, the rearmed pick-up truck will be a dislocated object and a way, a claiming for the difficult exit from the complex history of Chile. A shape that is positioned facing the non-possibility of continuing living the precariousness of the non-classified recent history of Chile.
“I would like to do a work in which the precariousness finds its sense of life, resistance, invention, cruelty, creativity, universality, sharpness”.

“I think that the Shape of the cut and rearmed pick-up truck gives an understanding of how with precariousness I can face the History and the stories of which one is responsible, even when there is no responsibility. To assume the responsibility of the History that you are not responsible.
I just can do it when the shape of this – the precariousness – agrees with the World.
The World in which I am living – the Whole World. In this opportunity Chile, but also the whole World - the only world we have, the only Chile we have.

Thomas Hirschhorn 1957

The public installations of Thomas Hirschhorn englobe four fields : love, politics, philosophy and aesthetics. He maintains a concern for politics and culture, a hypersaturated quality in his works and social messages that are strategically placed in public spaces.
His public installations include works with people from difficult neighbourhoods. In Musée Précaire Albinet (2004) he works in the outskirts of Paris where he proposes to neighbours and outsiders the possibility to administer a community art project, strengthening their managing skills and confidence.

/ Created and curated by Ingrid Wildi Merino in Santiago, Chile and curated by Ingrid Wildi Merino and Kathleen Bühler at the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland. wildimerino.curatorial@gmail.com