Swiss-Swiss Democracy

The multi-media exhibition, “Swiss-Swiss Democracy” created by Thomas Hirschhorn is one of the most powerful and political driven exhibition’s to ever be created by Mr. Hirschhhorn. The exhibition was held and conducted at the Swiss Cultural Center (SCC) in Paris, France. It had several purposes that Hirschhorn had hoped the exhibition would create. Most importantly, he hoped it would stir debate and did just that. It was not one of the more common exhibitions created by Hirschhorn. The most notable similarities to his other works were the walls and doors were covered multi-colored cardboard, newspapers, graffiti, posters, photographs, official documents, and duct tape was used to wrap all the furniture. The exhibition or installation took Hirschhorn and eight others three weeks to complete. There was also a play included at the exhibition that was themed anti-democracy and anti Christoph Blocher. For Thomas Hirschhorn, the exhibition was another installation using simple objects to create not so simple meanings or purposes. For critics, conservatives, and democrats, the exhibition was a morbid display of insubordination.

The main incentive to produce the exhibition was to counter and attack Christoph Blocher , an ultranationalist politician and the current minister for justice and police. Another incentive for the creation of the exhibition was for Hirschhorn to voice his opinion on democracy in Switzerland and the rest of the world. This is made apparent in an article written by Alan Riding for The New York Times. Hirschhorn says, “My target is not Mr. Blocher, but what he represents; Blocher is not a dictator, but he legitimizes Swiss xenophobia, isolationism, nationalism; he legitimizes the feeling in Switzerland that all these foreigners want to come and take their money. He is a dangerous populist.” In this article Thomas Hirschhorn makes his concern for democracy very apparent. The exhibitions poster stated, “I love Democracy!” It was a poster of a naked Iraqi in prison with an armed American soldier. Although the meaning of this could be construed for accusing Switzerland for torturing, Mr. Hirschhorn clears this up when he says; “In fact, I was drawing a parallel with William Tell, who rebelled against Austrian occupiers.” I loved the political suspense at this point as it becomes obvious Hirshhorn knows how to create a quandary. The most powerful meaning from Thomas Hirschhorn’s “Swiss-Swiss Democracy” was a message he said himself: “Democracy only makes sense if it is universal. That’s why I ask, is it legitimate to torture in the name of democracy?”

Thomas Hirschhorn is definitely an uprising influential artist in the development of installation art. Thomas Hirschhorn may be a politically charged artist but I would like to point out a few similarities he shares with another great installation artist, Tadashi Kawamata. The Japanese artist my make installations of technological advancement in his ongoing battle with the laws of architecture, however both aritists are intriguing workers and have a common success of producing installations on extremely large scales. Both have viewers that are able to take away a meaning of true importance through their personal experience in the presentation created.


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Rush, Michael. “Art that Gives Meaning To Bits of This and That”. The New York Times. Oct. 27, 2002.



Rian, Jeff.. “Swiss Diss, Jeff Rian on Thomas Hirschhorn’s Swiss-Swiss Democracy” Art Forum International Magazine. 2005. .



CCA Wattis Institute Presents Thomas Hirschhorn, "Utopia, Utopia = One World, One War, One Army, One Dress". http://www.cca.edu/about/press/2006/hirschhornsfpr2.