Vittoria Martini and Thomas Hirschhorn discuss Martini’s new book Thomas Hirschhorn: The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival. The Ambassadors' Diary (Hatje Cantz, 2023). This conversation is the first occasion in which her experience as an 'Ambassador' is re-examined. Furthermore, Martini explains the approach of 'presence and production' experienced – as an art historian in Bijlmer – and share why and how she designed her text. She also talks about if and how this mission has changed her personally and professionally. Yasmil Raymond, rector of Städelschule, who happens to have been an ambassador of the Gramsci Monument in New York (2013) will also join the conversation.

Vittoria Martini (*1975), PhD, is an independent art historian living in Italy. Her research focuses on the institutional, geopolitical history of cultural institutions that produce exhibitions and the Venice Biennale in particular as a lens through which to read the various inconsistencies and urgencies of contemporaneity. The study of the Venice Biennale from this perspective has led her over the years to work with artists presenting critical projects such as Antoni Muntadas (Spanish Pavilion, 2005), Alfredo Jaar (Chile Pavilion, 2013), Maria Eichhorn (German Pavilion 2022 and 2023).  Since 2013 she teaches history of exhibitons and curatorial practices at CAMPO - Program of curatorial studies and practices established by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin, Italy). She recently published The Giardini: Status of the Property, in Maria Eichhorn: Relocating a structure (German Pavilion 2022, 59th Biennale di Venezia, Walther König, 2022) and The contextual relocation of Maria Eichhorn’s Relocating a Structure: in ARCH+ 252, Open for Maintenance / Wegen Umbau geöffnet, (German Pavillon, 18th Biennale Architettura 2023). 

Thomas Hirschhorn was born in 1957 in Bern, Switzerland. After studying at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich, he moved to Paris in 1983 where he has been living and working since. His work has been presented in many international exhibitions such as Skulptur Projekte Münster (1997), the Venice Biennale (1999 and 2015) where he represented Switzerland in 2011, Documenta11 (2002), 27th Sao Paolo Biennale (2006), 55th Carnegie International, Pittsburg (2008), La Triennale at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012), 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012), Manifesta 10 at Saint-Petersburg (2014), Atopolis Mons (2015), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2018), Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2021). Other venues have hosted solo exhibitions, among which the Art Institute of Chicago (1998), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1998), Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht (2005), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2005), Museum Tinguely, Basel (2013), South London Gallery (2015), Kunsthal Aarhus, (2017), Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2018), GL Strand, Copenhagen (2021). A complete survey of his Pixel Collage works is presented at Fondazione MAXXI, Rome (fall 2021). With each exhibition – in a museum, gallery or alternative space – and with every work in public space, Hirschhorn asserts his commitment toward a non-exclusive public.

The lecture will be held in English language.