Leading artist of a generation spends time with Fine Art students

Lucky students were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pick up tips from an internationally acclaimed artist at the University of Northampton, this week.

Widely regarded as a leading artist of his generation, Thomas Hirschhorn took time out of his busy schedule to spend Wednesday with Fine Art undergraduates.

The Swiss-born artist gave an inspiring – and occasionally shocking – presentation about his latest project, Pixel-Collage, to a capacity audience at Avenue Campus, before taking part in an engaging question and answer session.

Thomas then spent time with smaller groups of students during a specially arranged seminar.

“It was a great experience to be able to hear the ideas of such a prominent artist, and to be able to hear, first hand, the rationale behind his work,” said Michael Sheppard, who is in the second year of his Fine Art Painting and Drawing course.

Michael’s course-mate, Annie Zaneboni, added: “Talks like these as so valuable for us. The course is just fantastic, you get to interact with different people who have so much passion for what they do and it really takes you out of your comfort zone and develops you as an artist.

“We all dread the day when we leave the University of Northampton, simply because we will miss the atmosphere, the camaraderie, our friends and the support we receive from the tutors.”

Andy Hewitt, Senior Lecturer in Art and the Public Sphere, said: “It’s our aim to bring in leading practitioners and theorists to discuss the critical issues of the day in relation to art and design.

“Thomas Hirschhorn makes very challenging artwork, it is very important for our students to see him talk as his art practice asks questions of the social conditions under neo-liberalism.

“His response is to think publicly and to be public at a time when all things public are under attack.”

For more details and pictures of Thomas’s Pixel-Collage exhibition, which was recently hosted in Paris, visit the Galerie Chantal Crousel website.