The Berlage Between Artwork and Architecture
Author Pavel Bouse Advisors Olaf Gipser Coordinator Salomon Frausto (salomon@theberlage.nl)
The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design
Between Artwork and Architecture Thomas Hirschhorn’s Bataille Monument
Author: Pavel Bouse Advisors: Olaf Gipser
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Between Artwork and Architecture Thomas Hirschhorn’s Bataille Monument
Introduction This short text will look at Thomas Hirschhorn’s Bataille Monument, and more particularly it will be looking at a library conceived as one of the parts of the monument, offering a collection of information about its subject. The text will explore the library through the author’s understanding of a monument, and try to position the work of the artist within broader architectural discourse. In doing so it will challenge the political aspects of Hirschhorn’s project in relation to its form and materiality.This short text will look at Thomas Hirschhorn’s Bataille Monument, and more particularly it will be looking at a library conceived as one of the parts of the monument, offering a collection of information about its subject. The text will explore the library through the author’s understanding of a monument, and try to position the work of the artist within broader architectural discourse. In doing so it will challenge the political aspects of Hirschhorn’s project in relation to its form and materiality.
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Figure 1. Georges Bataille library in Friedrich Wöhler Siedlung
The temporary art installation credited to the Swiss artist Thomas Hirshhorn was created for Documenta 11 hosted in the museum of Kassel, Germany in 2002. Consisting of a library, snack bar, TV studio and a public sculpture, it was the third in his monument series and was dedicated to the French intellectual and philosopher Georges Bataille. Although the work was funded by Documenta, the artist has decided to situate his work outside of the main site, in Friedrich Wöhler Siedlung —a working class Turkish neighborhood, far from the crowds of Fridericianum. (fig. 01) Situated on a slightly sloping lawn between two longitudinal buildings of the estate, the library of was a part of an ensemble which constituted the monument, presenting a wad of information about its subject. The Hirschhorn’s deliberate diffusion of the monument’s outline is that which defines its individual parts. It is therefore crucial that any reading of the library, its form and contents should be understood from within the author’s articulation of the monument. Only then we might be able to look and assess the library as an architectural project with respect to its own genre. A Weak Monument? At the 16th International Architectural Exhibition—La Birnnale di Venezia , the curatorial team of Estonia presented their refreshing response to
the foggy theme “Free Space.” With their curatorial project entitled “Weak Monument; Architectures beyond the Plinth”, they have set on to explore the broad spectrum between the explicit representation of a monument and the implicit politics of everyday architectures. As part of their working method, the authors have proposed a spectrum between two extreme conditions; The Monument to the Third International by Vladimir Tatlin from 1920, as a long established position within the architectural discourse on one hand, and its less known counter-form, its architectural inversion—a shed-like Monument to the Anti-International designed by Leonhard Laplin in 1979.1 It was from within that spectrum they decided to investigate the very possibilities of monument in our present condition. While it might seem that the work of Thomas Hirschorn leans more towards the shed-like structure of Leonhard Laplin on this imaginary spectrum, it is worth looking at it a bit more closely, with respect to the political agency of the artistic form, and unfold the many ambiguities of the project. Hirschhorn showed how can a monument be formed by a temporary structure. In doing so, he questioned its reliance on physical form, challenging the logical preconditions of the modern monument. Engaging with the local residents during its creation, and thus by elevating the social
1. Roland Reemaa Tadeas Riha, Laura Lindsi, ed. Weak Monument; Architectures Beyond the Plinth (Zurich: Park Books, 2018).
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Figure 2. Axonometric, accessibility
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network needed and created by monuments, he aspired to reinvent the term monument altogether. A type of monument that does not need great powers, but always requires a collective force.2 Maybe also because of that, the form of the monument were its contents, and the actions and interactions induced by its form were the very essence of the project. A Library A monument can be considered an extreme form of an architectural project. It demarcates the discipline’s margin while still being able to keep some of its most central ambitions at its core.3 Relation to the site, capacity to represent, and delineation of public space are just some of these. The politics of the Bataille Monument reveal something of the politics of architecture at large. If architectural form is at all political, it is mostly political by implication. To think of the library then from within the frame of Hirschhorn’s monument is to shed light on this implicitness. Situated in a suburban housing estate, the “Georges Bataille” library was not a civic building that occupied a central spot in the city, nor was it a spectacular building that represented a center of knowledge. As a shed-like structure, the library, as well as other parts of the monument became assemblages made of reclaimed wood, foil, tape, board, plastic,
paper, and other found and ephemeral materials. subverting the idea of the building type both in terms of urban disposition as well as architectural diagram. Nevertheless, some of the features might remind us of the tropes that we may find across the broad spectrum of this building type. The library was still elevated above the terrain with a base, which resulted in a ramp that lead one to the entrance, providing access for disabled people. As it was the only entrance, one could not thus avoid the act of ascending towards the library’s contents. (fig. 02)The facade and the entrance was anything but monumental. The information about the structure’s contents, in other words the architecture’s capacity to represent was here dissolved in cans of spray paint. Intending to facilitate mere connections based on the work of Georges Bataille, there were no books in the library by or about Georges Bataille. Hirschhorn had the contents arranged based on five subjects: word, image, art, sports, and sex. The space with chairs, sofas, and armchairs was a room and a meeting place for the young people from the housing complex. (fig. 03)This led in isolated cases to residents of the estate borrowing books.4 The library was meant as an open space where visitors and residents, especially the young people, could meet. Video recorders and monitors were immediately occupied by the children. The space has turned into a small youth hostel. Those who
2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. B.H.D. Bucloh, “An Interview with Thomas Hirschhorn,” 113, no. Summer (2005).
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sit long enough at the snack bar or in the library quickly get into conversation with them. Critique The base, as an intermediate link between the ground and the object, is a classical category both in architectural and monumental terms. It is a structure robust enough to carry the weight of an idea or set of ideas it was designed to elevate, and to resist the hostile forces it was built to oppose. Here, the definition of a base is extended as it is mainly the economical support structure of Documenta 11, that attains the implicit but fundamental role of the pedestal. Hirschhorn in his works is often critical of capitalism, however, not only he operates with economic affiliations to Documenta 11, but he also uses neoliberal tropes of management. The often tempting readings of Hirschhorn’s monuments as “democratic” forms, due to their material qualities or perhaps lack thereof, is here rather inconsistent with the hierarchies established sustained on site.5 While initiating participation and collaboration with local residents and amplifying the social agency of the genre, Hirschhorn remained the genius who claimed the authorship and affirmed its pivotal position in the project as a project manager.
Where the Estonian pavilion at the biennale employed the Laplin’s donkey stable as a way to ridicule the architect as an all-powerful , heroic figure, it is clear that Hirschhorn’s project has no such ambitions. The author determines the subject as well as the very terms of commemoration of the monument, employing its form to his own artistic ends. The work can hardly be described as a “weak monument“ as it can be considered the author’s deliberate act of resistance, whose incentives came from outside of any political agency of the local community. In other words, it attempted to create new values whilst having only affirmed other traditionally sanctioned ones.6 The work clearly cannot be separated from the very forces it tries to oppose. That is the paradox from which the work of Hirschhorn emerges.
5. Margrethe Troensegaard, “What’s in a Name?; Questions for a New Monument,” Stedelijk Studies, no. 4 (2016). 6. B.H.D. Gingeras Bucloh, A.M., Basualdo. C., Thomas Hirschhorn (London: Phaidon, 2004).
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Figure 2. Axonometric, content orgnisation
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Bibliography: Bucloh, B.H.D. “An Interview with Thomas Hirschhorn.” 113, no. Summer (2005): 77-100. Bucloh, B.H.D. Gingeras, A.M., Basualdo. C. Thomas Hirschhorn. London: Phaidon, 2004. Tadeas Riha, Roland Reemaa, Laura Lindsi, ed. Weak Monument; Architectures Beyond the Plinth. Zurich: Park Books, 2018. Troensegaard, Margrethe. “What’s in a Name?; Questions for a New Monument.” Stedelijk Studies, no. 4 (2016).
Images: Figure 1. Georges Bataille library in Friedrich Wöhler Siedlung, 2019 author’s drawing Figure 2. Axonometric accessibility, 2019 author’s drawing Figure 3 Axonometric content organisation, 2019 author’s drawing
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