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Philippe Hirshhorn. Nothing about him has changed over the years gone by. The feeling I get pronouncing (writing) his name is still the same – the stinging of vinegar on an open wound. I tell myself – don't scratch it!
A great master of the Italian Renaissance exclaimed once with horror: "O, time, destroyer of things!" In Hirshhorn's portrait, there is nothing to be destroyed, nothing to decay in the grave. Materiality is absent. What we have is the memory of Phaeton – a blinding flash which gives rise to myths. "The myth of Hirshhorn" – why not? As a mythical figure, he could be the hero in a movie bearing his name. Starring Alain Delon, Vittorio Gassman, Gerard Philippe… Three points, three notes, each a third higher than the last. The triad is always in minor, even when it is written in major.
Leonid Girshovich