Archive for the ‘Laundrette’ tag
Hirschhorn’s Laundrette
When visiting Brooke Singer’s prints at the Hudson Valley
Center for Contemporary Art (HVCAA) as part of the ambitious Peekskill Project V, I documented Thomas Hirschhorn’s Laundrette installation that is part of the HVCCA’s permanent collection. I was immediately enthralled by Hirschhorn’s installation as I found it much more approachable than more recent sprawling installations with little way in to the tumultuous sea of media.
Laundrette of course presents a ton of appropriated media from video to magazine, newspaper, audio, book excerpts, stickers, but it is all framed in a laundromat. I spent countless hours of my childhood at a laundromat near the corner of Mission and Kingston or Eugenia Avenue, right near 30th and Mission in San Francisco and Hirschhorn’s Laundrette immediately felt familiar from the variable sized washer and driers to the soap dispensing machine.
I love the framing of this critical content – that immediately alludes to having to wash all our dirty laundry generated by the Capitalism’s insatiable desire for capital. And to inform the audience beyond the video news snippets, day time television excerpts and a gluttony of disturbing media that is being cycled in the washing and drying machines, Laundrette is fortified with quotes and texts from Nietzsche, Spinoza, Klein, Popper, Deleuze and Guatarri. And as usual with this sort of work, I love it, but walk away wondering what the point is. The people viewing it are left leaning artists or collectors that may feel guilt at their wealth, but are comforted by the labor of the artists that they support.
