age = value?

Thomas Hirschhorn interview with Hans Ulrich Orbist. Thomas Boutoux ed., Hans Ulrich Orbist: Interviews volume 1, Milan: Charta, 2003, pp.393-400


Hirschhorn is a Swiss artist, born in 1957. He studied graphic design but prefers to work as a visual artist. He was working in France at the time of this interview with Swiss curator and art critic, Hans Ulrich Obrist in 2001.

In the beginning of this interview, Obrist brings up the interesting conversation in relation to Hirschhorn’s 2001 project Archaeology of Engagement. This project is dealing with prehistoric excavation sites regarding issues of the objects’ value over time. Hirschhorn discusses how his project reinterprets the way we see the value of objects and the way we regard art.

‘A soccer fan in the south of France was charged a fine because he had sprayed the graffiti “Allez I’O.M.” onto a prehistoric excavation site’ (393). Hirschhorn (393) explained since the sprayed rock contained carved prehistoric signs, the fan was charged for damaging cultural patrimony. In addition, he argues that the judge failed to see the possibility of this graffiti could be, in 20,000 years worth as much, or more than the carved prehistoric signs.

This example given by Hirschhorn made me question the value of current objects I own versus objects I once had when I was a little child. In addition, without any thinking at all, obviously, I could say the value of the objects in the past is more valuable to me. But why are we so obsessed with the objects or relics of the past? I guess with my personal case, it is because of the objects like books I read, toys I played with have my memories within them and through those objects I could revisit my precious memories. I think this could be the one of most important reasons why I value them so much more than any of my objects in the present. Furthermore, I think similar reasons can be viewed with the value of graffiti in present versus prehistoric signs. However, maybe, in a much broader sense, our own desire to preserve our culture, our existence, our identity within our history and relics from the past could be the way which allows us to access them. To provide more information about my personal collection, I love collecting objects like stamps and coins. For example, I consciously collected a handful of five cents New Zealand coins when I heard the news about them just about to discontinue. I guess I collected them because I knew they will be highly valuable after hundreds or thousands of years. However, maybe this act could be seen as my unconscious desire to preserve our rational culture within history?

Hirschhorn (394) suggested the graffiti artist hasn’t destroyed anything but built another layer. He questions why are the wall drawings that were made thousands of years ago considered art and the recently sprayed slogan considered vandalism. Can age create the value of certain objects or sites? It is true that antiques from older periods of time have higher value than others. This could be because as objects age, so does their cultural value. Back to the graffiti issues, can graffiti art be recognized as documentation of the present as Hirschhorn argues that the judge failed to see in the example of the soccer fan story “Allez I’O.M.” in the south of France. But I believe spraying over the historical site is not a good act as I too believe the present is equally important to the past. Graffiti may be highly valuable in the future, however I believe if we cannot respect our prehistoric objects or sites, we cannot expect our future to value what we have right now. To conclude, I believe there is not a bigger difference between cave drawings from ancient times and graffiti art on the streets in a broad sense. There are lots of discussions about the recognition of graffiti as an art form. It is true that graffiti art can be seen as a lack of form or other base aesthetic elements and a bit of a problem of presentation with the space. However like in the origins of graffiti which goes back to the beginning of human societal living, graffiti has been found on uncovered, ancient, Egyptian monuments, and graffiti was even preserved on walls in Pompeii. [1]


[1] Stowers, George C. “Graffiti Art: An Essay Concerning The Recognition of Some Forms of Graffiti As Art.” Art Crimes The Writing on the Wall. September 2009. 22 September 09
http://www.graffiti.org/faq/stowers.html