MANNHEIM.- The Bernese artist Thomas Hirschhorn (*1957, lives in Paris) is one of the most important artists in the international art scene. It became clear in 2004, at the latest, when in his scandalous show, Swiss Swiss Democracy (Paris), an actor in a symbolic act urinated on the picture of the Swiss minister Christoph Blocher, that Hirschhorn seeks confrontation with his art. From 12 March to 13 June, 2011, the Kunsthalle Mannheim presents the 300-square-metre material collage, It’s burning every-where, with which the artist was included in the series of 3sat and Monopol, Stations. Meisterwerke zeitgenössischer Kunst.

With his flaming, expansive battle of material, It’s burning every-where, Hirschhorn continues the project he started at DCA in Dundee, Scotland, in 2009. The untiring artist transforms the exhibition space into an artificial conflict zone – a trouble spot – by means of innumerable “poor” universally used materials such as wood, plastic, packaging, silver foil and tape. A flood of horrifying media images from magazines and the Internet line the path of the exhibition visitors, who move through the rough terrain of this jungle as if traversing a minefield. A fallen tree measuring several metres dominates the odd scenery of this landscape of apocalyptic associations. All around there are fires blazing in different colours. From a forest fire, to explosions, all the way to a cosy campfire: “Chaos is the world in which I live,” is how the artist describes the impetus for his energetic and explosive art.

Like hardly any other artist, the multiple Biennale and documenta participant reveals not only the human condition, but also the com-placency of the art world.

After Magdalena Jetelová’s statement on the theme of human rights (2010) and Enrique Marty’s commentary on the problem of fanaticism (until 20 February, 2011), the Kunsthalle Mannheim again features a controversial representative of contemporary art with Thomas Hirschhorn.