Thursday, July 17, 2008

Piling on Damien Hirst, Why Not?

Leon Weseltier in The New Republic talks about Damien Hirst's latest marketing gambit in which he is directly bringing his latest work "The Golden Calf" to Sotheby's in London for auction in September, bypassing his galleries. As his galleries make oodles of money off of his work, all they can do is hope that this will enrich them all in the churn.

Weseltier uses an interesting phrase to describe this, he labels it a "pseudo-meaningful stunt." He further describes the copy of the press release as reminding him of "real-estate porn; but in these straitened times art-porn is replacing real-estate porn."

I have been trying to understand and place such "happenings" as Chris Burden's reception of a 22 bullett, Yves Klein's models drenched in blue paint, and Damien Hirst's sharks, Koons' giant balloons, and other such anti-art events and things into some kind of scheme. I have come up with the usual, 'anti-museum,' 'anti-art,' 'subject matter as the lack of longevity as an object,' the 'captured moment,' and leaving just a 'residue of documentation.' But I like and I am going to use Weseltier's phrase "the pseudo-meaningful stunt."

I close with this quote from my art-mother, Agnes Martin, "I paint to make friends and hope I will have as many as Mozart." [p. 78, Kunstraum catalogue, December 1973] Damien Hirst has many friends that he enriched beyond their wildest dreams has he not?

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