A WORK IN PUBLIC SPACE BY THOMAS HIRSCHHORN, PRODUCED BY DIA ART FOUNDATION NEW YORK
LOCATED AT FOREST HOUSES, THE BRONX - NEW YORK CITY, SUMMER 2013
I’m beginning to see that the role of “ambassador” is already having a subtle modification
from the earlier conceptualization. Although questions concerning art and culture
continue to come up, the majority of the conversations have been extending into topics
such as unemployment, immigration, and the problems of political leadership. I was
in the library when a visitor walked in and introduced himself in Spanish as Felipe
and added, "I am a communist and I love Gramsci." He described how he watched the
construction of the monument from his apartment window but had to travel to Boston
to visit family and missed the last weeks. He admitted that he was surprised when
he saw the graffiti with a portrait of Antonio Gramsci, "one of my heroes," as he
called him. Soon after we found a shade in a corner of the "Antonio Lounge" and talked
about his past involvement in education and politics, his professorship at the public
university UASD (Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo), his role in worker's study
circles and the fact that he has been living in New York for the past years unable
to find a way to learn English. As it often happens during these interplay of contradictions,
we are confronted with the dictatorship of inequality and the potentiality of collective
consciousness.
