Curated by Yasmil Raymond

In the South Bronx’s Forest Houses development, Thomas Hirschhorn and a team of local residents will soon begin constructing the fourth and final of the Swiss artist’s “monuments” to philosophers. This tribute to the great Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci promises to be the most ambitious yet, with a significantly larger footprint than Hirschhorn’s previous ad hoc pavilions, including offices for a daily newspaper and a performance space for everything from poetry readings to philosophy lectures. This structural and functional complexity transcends mere public sculpture, testing Hirschhorn’s conviction that community-based and communally built architecture can generate a truly public space—one that might foster the intellectual life and social engagement both of the underserved population in which it is anchored and of the city at large. Following the project, Dia—which has commissioned the venture—will publish a book documenting Hirschhorn’s complete “Monument” series, 1999–2013.

— Julian Rose