Kidney Stones of the Soul

Thomas Hirschhorn: Resistance-Subjecter (2011) 

Gladstone Gallery, NY and Brussels

According to folk psychologist James Hillman, there are psychic crystallizations formed by material experience and memories which potentially cause blockages in the unconscious. 

I suppose we might think of these as kidney stones of the soul; equally discomforting, though perhaps far more hazardous to the health and well-being of the individual if they can't find a way to dissolve these deposits and release the energy they contain in a positive manner. 

Ultimately, if you don't learn how to piss the past away then you run the risk of ever-increased calcification; that is to say, if you obsessively keep looking back upon a life gone by, then, like Lot's wife, you'll turn into a pillar of salt - and that's never pleasant.    

All of which brings us to Thomas Hirschhorn's terrifying sculpture entitled Resistance-Subjecter (2011), in which a group of mannequins - bodies violently exploded or eaten away from within as evidenced by gaping wounds and cavities - are in a process of becoming-mineral.     

I'm aware that the politically-engaged and philosophically-informed Hirschhorn has his own very clear ideas concerning his work. As a Marxist, he's obviously concerned with what he would think of as the hard reality of things and this piece could, for example, be read in these terms. 

But, for me, this work is more than that and more than simply a rather banal reflection on the objectification and commodification of the human being within consumer capitalism as one critic suggests; more too than merely a warning about the corrosive effect of the gaze. 

Rather, it's a reminder to drink plenty of water and never allow tiny elements of the self to harden too much: love that which melts into innocence and forgetfulness; hate that which solidifies and endures.      

Notes: 

The above work by Thomas Hirschhorn can be viewed as part of The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, an exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery, London (17 June - 14 September).

Thanks to Dr. Simon A. Thomas for the insight into James Hillman.