Margrethe Troensegaard

This study sets out to examine Gramsci Monument (2013), the fourth and final in a series of monuments constructed by Thomas Hirschhorn, from a form-oriented perspective. This was done in order to identify the sculptural premises of the work and to evaluate to what extent this project really did establish a new term of monument, as Hirschhorn proclaimed. The second objective of the study was to assess the role of Dia Art Foundation (Dia) as exhibiting institution. The analysis of Gramsci Monument was based on my personal observation and professional experience through a temporary collaboration with Dia on this project, and a number of site visits during the running of the monument (1 July – 15 September, 2013), in conjunction with the sculptural theories of Alois Riegl, Rosalind Krauss, and the writings of more recent scholars, Miwon Kwon and Claire Bishop. Through an examination of the location, materiality, and function of Gramsci Monument, and the role of Hirschhorn as artist, I have argued that these components were all subsumed by the same aesthetics, and that the social, commemorative and event-based element of this monument were thus as integral to its medium as its physical traits. Hirschhorn’s active employment of the social as form was the element that strongest redefined the monument as a sculptural category. This expanded notion of form extended into the exhibiting institution by dictating the manner of its engagement; Dia’s role was that of an invisible facilitator with a personal investment. Gramsci Monument hereby challenged the notion of ‘curator’, ‘exhibition’ and ‘audience’ as distinctive and distinguishable categories and instituted a temporary but fully functioning institution based on the ideology of the encounter. This monument was consecrated not just to the commemoration of Gramsci, but also to the assertion of the necessity of resistance within forms, whether institutional, sculptural or social.