Cargo and cult: The displays of Thomas Hirschhorn.

It has proved difficult to imagine what sculpture could be at the beginning of the new century. Indeed, the concept and category appear strained in the expanded field of Thomas Hirschhorn's displays, ephemeral and unstable constructions of cardboard and foil. The artist insists on the term "display" to distinguish his work explicitly from a putative tradition or genre of "installation"--the contemporary doxa of sculptural production and the target of his taxonomic gesture.

Hirschhorn's terminology seems to be critical regardless of whether "installation" ...

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