The "Guggenheim dilemma"

Thomas Hirschhorn and Paul Pfeiffer ruffled feathers during a panel discussion at the opening of the Daskalopoulos collection at the Guggenheim Bilbao earlier this month by voicing concern over construction workers' conditions at the museum's Abu Dhabi branch, which is being built on Saadiyat Island. Speaking of a petition he had signed calling on artists to boycott the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Hirschhorn described the predicament as his "Guggenheim dilemma", adding: "My signature only makes sense if I have a price to pay for it." Daskalopoulos was quick to defend the institution in front of a packed auditorium that included Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong, saying: "If we have a dilemma, we are on the same side. The Guggenheim is not the perpetrator, we are the agents of change."

Published online 21 Apr 11. The Art Newspaper.