Hirschhorn's new installation grounded in the Concordia disaster

When the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground off Isola del Giglio, its captain made headlines because he abandoned ship and was ordered by a coast guard officer to return to the boat. Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn found poetry in the situation. "I liked that a lot," he said in a recent interview. "You have to come back on the boat - you know, 'Man there is no escape in our time!' There is no escaping, you cannot escape."

The disaster inspired Hirschhorn's latest installation Concordia, Concordia at the Gladstone Gallery where he has created a room inside a room, a giant box built from plywood and decorated in cruise-ship chintz, and it is capsizing, not capsized. Read more...
Image: Thomas Hirschhorn Concordia, Concorda, Gladstone Gallery, NY

Starkwhite and BLACK magazine

Each issue of Auckland's BLACK magazine includes Gallery, an arts section featuring pages by New Zealand-based and international artists selected for the magazine by Starkwhite. The current issue features pages by Whitney Bedford, Michael Harrison and Thomas Hirschhorn.
Image: Thomas Hirschhorn, Poor-Racer, Sumner, Christchurch, 15 March 2009. Commissioned by The Physics Room in association with Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu for One Day Sculpture. Photo: Stephen Rowe.