Purple Diary
[February 24 2009]
Ur-Collage by Thomas Hirschhorn
An “Ur-Collage” is a simple, primitive, prehistoric collage. I want to make collages that are evidence in themselves. I want to give form to the origin (ur-spring) of a collage: They are called “Ur-Collage” because they are original collages; I would not like to be able to make any simpler collage. The obvious feature of an “Ur-Collage” consists in its creating a new world from only two elements of the existing world. These two elements or images are printed matter, and it is that which associates the two images, namely, that they are printed matter.
One of the elements of printed matter is a double-page advertisement, and the other element is an image printed out on a home printer. I don’t say that this latter image, the picture of a dead, destroyed person, comes from the internet as if it came from another world.
The one image is not accused, and the other is not accusing, and the other is not accusing; rather, I want to connect the two images with one another, to bring them together; I want to glue them together into a new worldview. What connects the two elements before I have glued them together is that they are both images of the existing world surrounding me.
They are elements, images of our undivided world, of our only world.
An excerpt from the introduction to Thomas Hirschhorn’s book.
