The happily marginalized art of Thomas Hirschhorn, who has been a major presence in Europe for nearly a decade, has pretty much evaded New York until now. His slapdash kiosks, scrappy pavilions, and seemingly improvised shrines to failed modernists and social theorists (Popova, Léger, Deleuze) deploy political smarts as well as childlike pleasure and anti-aesthetic charm. On the biennial circuit, his excessive accumulations of simple stuff tend to cause a stir. Some of us love them. Others loathe them. In Lyons in 2000, his mini-golf terrain of charred towns, refugee tents, and peacekeeper vehicles had signposts pointing the way to Srebrenica and Kosovo. In Kassel last summer, his makeshift monument to Bataille in the courtyard of an immigrant housing development did double duty as a community center. But except for a terrifically trashy piece crammed into the shop window of the former Soho Gugg a few years ago, the Swiss-born, Paris-based artist—who insists he doesn't make political art—has remained... More >>>