In Chur, Thomas Hirschhorn maps his artistic journey as an atlas

Thomas Hirschhorn has turned four decades of artistic projects into an atlas rather than a conventional retrospective. “My Atlas,” now on view at the Museum of the Grisons in Chur, grew from an invitation by the Helga de Alvear Museum in Cáceres to create an anthology of his work.

The project takes its cue from Aby Warburg’s “Mnemosyne Atlas.” Warburg, the German art historian who lived from 1866 to 1929, arranged hundreds of images on panels in a method that broke with traditional ways of reading art history.

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freed the academic field of art history from its rigid categories and chronological constraints

Hirschhorn praises Warburg for having “freed the academic field of art history from its rigid categories and chronological constraints.” He also says he admires the “brilliant, powerful, audacious and universal” form Warburg gave his work.

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brilliant, powerful, audacious and universal

Warburg’s project remained unfinished at his death and had no accompanying text. Hirschhorn likewise chose not to add commentary to his panels, leaving room for “dynamics, amplifications, tensions, pendulum movements, juxtapositions and polarities.”

The installation consists of 45 cardboard panels, each 2.40 meters high, 1.60 meters wide and 10 centimeters thick. Covered with black tape, the panels echo Warburg’s boards while using the poor materials associated with Hirschhorn’s practice. He has arranged images, writing, drawings and sketches across them, most of them photocopies, with the originals protected under plastic. Display cases and floor installations extend several of the panels.

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dynamics, amplifications, tensions, pendulum movements, juxtapositions and polarities