Superficial Engagement Thomas Hirschhorn

Superficial Engagement by Thomas Hirschhorn
Saw a very powerful exhibit at Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea, this weekend. It is a series of platforms exploring the intersection of the destruction of war and the creation of art. Created by multi media artist, Thomas Hirschhorn who was born in 1957, in Bern, Switzerland, and now lives and works in Paris.
The work is composed of found imagery and texts, bound up in constructions of cardboard, foil and packing tape. His work is inspired by Emma Kunz, a Swiss artist, healer and medium, and his own interest with nail and wire crafts. His work is an optical assault meant to override the terror and oppression of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with images of beauty. His four platforms create differentiated spaces dealing with war and beauty. The artist believes that to go deeply into something he needs to start at the surface. "The truth of things, its own logic, is reflected on the surface". He tries to understand the world through fashion adds and photojournalism.
The images of the two naked fashion models with nails all over them, was very powerful, as were the image of the lone man and a group of hands that normally would model diamond rings littered with nails all over them. Juxtaposed with these naked images were pictures of dead, bloodied men massacred at war, and lots of news sound bytes "like a man for the people" and "no cause for panic".
The exhibit was packed with people, but everyone was silent as they tried to take in all that the artist was trying to say.