Thomas Hirschhorn

O Homem que abalou a pacatez helvética.

No one paid much heed last year when the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn stopped showing his work in Switzerland to protest a rightist populist's entry into the government. Now, in a new exhibition in Paris, a biting critique of Swiss democracy, Hirschhorn has provoked stormy scenes in the Swiss Parliament that have turned him into his country's most talked about artist overnight.

Hirschhorn is renowned on the international art scene for his bizarre, politically inspired installations. But conservatives are infuriated that his new show, "Swiss-Swiss Democracy," uses the Swiss Cultural Center in Paris to ridicule democracy in Switzerland and to attack the ultranationalist politician Christoph Blocher, the target of Hirschhorn's protest last year, who is now minister for justice and police.

A sprawling multimedia exhibition, it is unusual even by Hirschhorn's standards. He has covered the walls and doors of the two-floor Swiss center with multicolored cardboard, decorated with photographs, graffiti, posters, newspaper cuttings and official documents; all the furniture has been wrapped in duct tape. Every day the center puts out a newspaper prepared by Hirschhorn, presents a lecture by a philosopher and puts on a one-hour play.

"They said I was suggesting Switzerland tortured people," Hirschhorn said. "In fact, I was drawing a parallel with William Tell, who rebelled against Austrian occupiers. My point is that democracy does not start and end in Switzerland. Does it make sense to have a lot of democracy in a tiny Swiss canton and not in Africa, Asia and Latin America? Democracy only makes sense if it is universal.
"That's why I ask, is it legitimate to torture in the name of democracy?"

Alan Riding - The New York Times