"I'm interested in the 'too much,' doing too much, giving too much, putting too much of an effort into something. Wastefulness as a tool or weapon."

Thomas Hirschhorn

Urban Interventionism

In the 1980s he worked in Paris as a graphic artist. He was part of the group of Communist graphic designers called Grapus. These artists were concerned with politics and culture, displaying impromptu creations and posters on the street mostly using the language of advertisement. He left Grapus to create the hypersaturated installations he is known for today, using common materials such as cardboard, foil, duct tape, and plastic wrap. These installations are often site specific and outside the gallery, and/or interactive. Unlike much total installation work, the viewer is an observer not an actor in the spaces he creates because of the way he continues to offer messages in his work as he did with Grapus. Austrian author and Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek takes issue with the artist's views on Marxism. In a 2008 interview the artist said that he was not aware of her concerns.
For his piece Cavemanman, he transformed a gallery space into a cave using wood, cardboard, and tape and put various philosophical and pop culture symbols throughout it.

He received the (2000/2001) Marcel Duchamp Prize and the Joseph Beuys Prize in 2004. His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Tate.

He presented a lecture as part of the "Image & Text: Writing Off The Page" lecture series through the Visiting Artists Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Spring, 2006.

In summer 2009 his work Cavemanman was recreated for the exhibition Walking in my Mind at London's Hayward Gallery.