Thomas Hirschhorn
Pixel-collage

Swiss artist, Thomas Hirschhorn, works with installations, collages and social happenings in public spaces. Hirschhorn is concerned with politics and culture, and there is always a strong political message embedded in his works. He uses commom materiales such as cardboard, foil, duct tape, recycled cans and plastic wrap.

At Kunsthal Aarhus, Hirschhorn will present a new series of Pixel-Collages. In these works the artist integrates the growing phenomena of facelessness in pictures reproduced in the media.

'Pixelation' has become increasingly used in today's newspapers and magazines to mask identity, sexuality and censor. Sometimes to mask the horror of damaged and destroyed bodies in the aftermath of war and terror.

Hirschhorn appropiates these images and enlarges them to the scale of advertising billboards. In many of these, the horrific is left uncovered and only portions of the collage with fashion images are pixelated. Hirschhorn wants to use pixels as an instrument to link the unspeakable with an abstract version of present realities, and link the hidden with the known.

Supported by Danish Arts Council, Aarhus Kommune and Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council.

Image: Thomas Hirschhorn, Pixel-Collage n°15, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris. © Photo: Florian Kleinefenn

Exhibition period: 21 January - 19 March 2017

Opening: 20 January, 5pm (cancelled)