Born 1957 in Bern (Switzerland), based in Paris.

Hirschhorn is one of the leading artists of his generation and the distinguished recipient of many Prizes, including the Kurt Schwitters Prize (Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany) 2011, and the Prix Marcel Duchamp (Centre Pompidou, Paris, France) 2001. He is an artist whose commitment to art is understood as being a part of his commitment to humanity, and especially to social justice, to thinking, to beauty, to complexity, and to responsibility. He has made use of many kinds of material – mass produced or recycled - from everyday sources, a method that ensures his work is very directly connected to a common experience of life. His works are often built up from an obsessive conglomeration of materials, and are marked equally by their visceral quality, by their embodiment of emotions and by their reference to the world of ideas. Despite the exuberant and excessive ramifications of his installations, the thinking is precise and the energy is focused. The carefully chosen forms and materials from which he makes his work (including images, ideas and the language in which they are embedded) are a heartfelt address to the needs of contemporary life.

《Quiet Room with Tears》1996 courtesy of Galerie Susanna Kulli, CH-Zurich/Switzerland