2005

Camo-Outgrowth (Winter)

Swiss, born 1957

In Camo-Outgrowth (Winter), Thomas Hirschhorn uses the artistic strategies and precarious materials—in this case, masking tape and images of camouflage costumes from magazines and newspapers—that have come to represent his work. This piece is a meditation on conflict and our inexplicable fascination with it. The distorted sequence of the modified globes responds to the repetitive impulse of Minimal art and to the oppressive omnipresence of war in the twentieth century, arguably one of the bloodiest ever. The pervasiveness of camouflage—from fashion to war—attests to the troubled relationship with violence that seems to characterize modern times.