Damien Hirst
Jun. 24th, 2006 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloDamien Hurst has a thirty foot statue on exhibition in the courtyard of the Royal Academy. It's modelled on Degas' Little Dancer, only Hirst's dancer is pregnant and one half of her has been flayed, exposing her bones and the child in her womb.
It's the sort of thing Dali might have done (and how old hat is that?) only Dali would have been less literal and more dreamlike- more genuinely odd.
Dali got a bad press for chasing the dollar, but that was then and this is now and Hirst- a country house-dwelling multi-millionaire- gets little but respect for what he does.
I'm not saying Hirst's a phoney; things like his pickled shark and bisected cow have established themselves as modern icons; but his work has always been a bit obvious, a bit vulgar, a bit fairground freak-show (like Dali's) and all the signs are he's run out of ideas.
And so (still like Dali) he's gone for excess and scale. The flayed dancer is a dull idea and making it totally ginormous doesn't hide the poverty of inspiration. His latest project is reported to be a plantinum skull encrusted all over with diamonds.
A platinum skull encrusted with diamonds. I can see it in my mind's eye. It's a image from an unwritten Jacobean play (probably by John Webster). Cool. Now lets talk about something else.
You're not actually going to bother to make it, are you?
Dali, too, in his final phase, turned to jewellery.
It's the sort of thing Dali might have done (and how old hat is that?) only Dali would have been less literal and more dreamlike- more genuinely odd.
Dali got a bad press for chasing the dollar, but that was then and this is now and Hirst- a country house-dwelling multi-millionaire- gets little but respect for what he does.
I'm not saying Hirst's a phoney; things like his pickled shark and bisected cow have established themselves as modern icons; but his work has always been a bit obvious, a bit vulgar, a bit fairground freak-show (like Dali's) and all the signs are he's run out of ideas.
And so (still like Dali) he's gone for excess and scale. The flayed dancer is a dull idea and making it totally ginormous doesn't hide the poverty of inspiration. His latest project is reported to be a plantinum skull encrusted all over with diamonds.
A platinum skull encrusted with diamonds. I can see it in my mind's eye. It's a image from an unwritten Jacobean play (probably by John Webster). Cool. Now lets talk about something else.
You're not actually going to bother to make it, are you?
Dali, too, in his final phase, turned to jewellery.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:02 pm (UTC)You can love it, or hate it. It's all in your own perspective.
But it is still that... just art.
I see lots of stuff I don't like too.
The exhibit I saw with a chair made out of real rotting meat turned my stomach! (and the stomach of the poor museum guard that had to stand near it!) The stool topped with a sponge cake was amusing though... oh yes... and there were the crickets eating the bread inside of a box...
Don't take any of it too seriously please?
Oh... One of the Dali exhibits that I found very amusing years ago featured a real car with plants inside and water dripping all over it! I have no idea what the point of it was, but I still remember! *L*
Oh wait... it was SURREAL. That was the point!
If people buy Damien's work... that is their problem... no? *L*
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:13 pm (UTC)I HAVE actually seen Damien's work. One of the exhibits that my 8th graders went to see had one of his first "pieces" in it... a whole sheep in a box of formaldehyde. You can imagine their reactions! :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 05:12 pm (UTC)Besides, how do you improve on a dead sheep?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:16 pm (UTC)You're right; there's no point in getting all worked up. It's just that most of what's getting shouted about today seems to me to be simply ripping off stuff that was new and exciting about 50 and (in some cases) 100 years ago.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:35 pm (UTC)Have you seen the work of Moriko Mori?
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:43 pm (UTC)Those are SOME of my favorite contemporary artists.
I've met Sandy and Ed in person... they are/were super people, and Chuck is my idol! (you have to read about him as a person to understand why)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 04:57 pm (UTC)