The Roland Prize for Public Art 2003 goes to the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn who was born 1957 in Bern and lives in Paris.
“Thomas Hirschhorn receives the Roland Prize for Public Art by the foundation Bremen Sculptor Prize due to his outstanding conceptual and aesthetic significance for the international art scene of the past ten years and especially for art in public space. In 1997 Hirschhorn became known to a larger audience for the first time at Skulptur.Projekte Muenster, one of the big internationally emanating projects for public art. Thomas Hirschhorn takes up concrete societal, social and political topics of everyday culture with his installations in public space using deliberately ‘poor’, short-lived materials. Moreover, he focuses on the motif of collective remembrance he includes into altars and monuments and are dedicated to historical persons.
In 2002 his contribution to the documenta11 in Kassel caused an international sensation. His ‘Bataille-Monument’ appeared like a village with its number of huts and buildings including a library. Thomas Hirschhorn had deliberately placed this installation outside the official exhibition grounds in a quarter of Kassel that is mainly inhabited by immigrants.”
(Laudation of the jury 2003)
According to his own wish Thomas Hirschhorn shares the prize money with Lothar Kannenberg, the founder of the “Boxing-Camp” in Philippinenhof-Nordstadt in Kassel, who together with Thomas Hirschhorn supervised the project “Bataille-Monument” in Kassel during the 100 days documenta11 in the summer 2002 and who played an important role in making this monument and its library a much frequented public art location of an own cultural imprint and lively discussions.
Presumably in the years 2006/2007 Thomas Hirschhorn will realise a project for the public space in Bremen.
