Author Topic: Damien Hirst  (Read 12208 times)

Euan Uzami

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #25 on: 05 April, 2012, 02:40:52 pm »
I just had an idea for a huge bronze Elephant, upside down, in Hyde Park.  A bronze statue of Tony Blair is stood, on his head, next to it.  That's my idea for art.  I haven't got the talent to create it and I don't know what the fuck it means but I could get some talented people to create it for me.

Am I an artist?

Actually, I'm starting to like my Elephant idea...it's better than Hirst's cabinets and I bet there are many critics who could tell me what was going on in my mind that made me create it (none of them would guess it was to take the piss out of Damien Hirst on behalf of a cycle forum).
I think it sounds quite good, but it would be even better if instead of the top of their heads being on a level (i.e. on the floor), Tone was somehow suspended up so that their feet are on the same level, i.e. it's as if they were standing next to each other normally but then the whole scene was rotated upside down. ;D

Tigerrr

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Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #26 on: 05 April, 2012, 04:16:57 pm »
I just had an idea for a huge bronze Elephant, upside down, in Hyde Park.  A bronze statue of Tony Blair is stood, on his head, next to it.  That's my idea for art.  I haven't got the talent to create it and I don't know what the fuck it means but I could get some talented people to create it for me.

Am I an artist?

Actually, I'm starting to like my Elephant idea...it's better than Hirst's cabinets and I bet there are many critics who could tell me what was going on in my mind that made me create it (none of them would guess it was to take the piss out of Damien Hirst on behalf of a cycle forum).
I think it sounds quite good, but it would be even better if instead of the top of their heads being on a level (i.e. on the floor), Tone was somehow suspended up so that their feet are on the same level, i.e. it's as if they were standing next to each other normally but then the whole scene was rotated upside down. ;D
Unfortunately  your idea is not art. It is too literal.  It would be better to do a giant bronze mr potato head, or giant Barbie & Ken post coital and call it 'the eternal optimism of the proletariat' in which case it would be a searing critique of Blair and all he stood for. 
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clarion

  • Tyke
Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #27 on: 05 April, 2012, 04:19:39 pm »
...giant Barbie & Ken post coital ...

I think Jeff Koons may have done that already.  Of course, it might not be post...
Getting there...

Euan Uzami

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #28 on: 05 April, 2012, 04:27:07 pm »
I just had an idea for a huge bronze Elephant, upside down, in Hyde Park.  A bronze statue of Tony Blair is stood, on his head, next to it.  That's my idea for art.  I haven't got the talent to create it and I don't know what the fuck it means but I could get some talented people to create it for me.

Am I an artist?

Actually, I'm starting to like my Elephant idea...it's better than Hirst's cabinets and I bet there are many critics who could tell me what was going on in my mind that made me create it (none of them would guess it was to take the piss out of Damien Hirst on behalf of a cycle forum).
I think it sounds quite good, but it would be even better if instead of the top of their heads being on a level (i.e. on the floor), Tone was somehow suspended up so that their feet are on the same level, i.e. it's as if they were standing next to each other normally but then the whole scene was rotated upside down. ;D
Unfortunately  your idea is not art. It is too literal.  It would be better to do a giant bronze mr potato head, or giant Barbie & Ken post coital and call it 'the eternal optimism of the proletariat' in which case it would be a searing critique of Blair and all he stood for.

Oh yeah, sorry - I completely forgot, silly me - it would of course have to obfuscate what it's supposed to be in order to deflect any accusation of it being crap as the viewer not understanding it. You obviously understand it, so Lee clearly hasn't tried hard enough. (Forgive me Lee for my probably crap attempt to embellish your idea to the point of it passing as being art.)
Would it be ok if it were Dave, and he was silver but the elephant was still bronze? What about if Maggie was in there, and she was not only gold, but horizontal? That's got to be confusing enough, surely no-one's going to understand that!


Andrij

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Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #29 on: 05 April, 2012, 07:11:53 pm »
Quote from: Brian Sewell
To won a Hirst is to tell the world your bathroom taps are gilded and your Rolls-Royce is pink.

 ;D
;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup:

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #30 on: 05 April, 2012, 08:10:43 pm »
I like Hirst. He is the opposite of the "chocolate box" painting. I'm not choosing one over the other, just saying that there needs to be balance in all things.

He perhaps isn't an artist in the traditional sense, he is a producer/employer/ manufacturer; but is non the worse for that.

Art can please, remind, confirm - but it can also challenge how we see or encode the world we are in. This is what Hirst does - it isn't about the warm cuddly feeling of, say, a Farquharson painting of sheep in the snow - it's about how we deal with knowing that that sheep is going to die and be eaten, or rot.


Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #31 on: 05 April, 2012, 09:18:59 pm »

Art can please, remind, confirm - but it can also challenge how we see or encode the world we are in. This is what Hirst does - it isn't about the warm cuddly feeling of, say, a Farquharson painting of sheep in the snow - it's about how we deal with knowing that that sheep is going to die and be eaten, or rot.

Thank-you.

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #32 on: 07 April, 2012, 01:00:10 am »
Just back from the Damien Hirst Exhibition at Tate Modern.  Very interesting.  I'm no art-buff, but have arty daughters so I'm giving it a go, this weeks been quite an arty week.
Thus far I've seen a Rubens hanging in the Cathedral of Arras (France), the Hirst this morning and this aftenoon I stood in line for the Hockney 'Bigger Picture'. 
It's all been interesting and it all needs some sort of context to be fully appreciated.  Art should create interest, a reaction (+/-ve) it should make you look at something in a different way.  Hirst does that, there were a lot of wide-eyed people walking through the halls.  Yes, some of it is overated or overdone, but some of it just draws your interest, it fascinates.  Hirst might be the cocky commercial, sensationalist rock n roll enfent terrible of the art-world, but he seemed to be making a lot of people happy today.  I enjoyed it.
Then to Hockney, probably the first artist I ever appreciated and this was the first opportunity I've had to see some of his work up-close and personal and I wasn't dissapointed.  In some ways like Hirst, Hockney ploughs his own particular furrow and also pushes the boundaries of artistic technique and ways of looking at things.  Simply fabulous, a man in love with his soroundings.
And what of Rubens?  Not a clue frankly, but the detail, the shimmer of light from the clothes were beautiful enough, I'm sure there's a back story which will fill the context and improve ones appreciation and understanding.  Google is my friend.

Now I'm not saying that all art even in context is great, I've seen some real guff (to me at least) at the Guggenheim Bilbao over the years, however sometimes context makes the difference - having heard Tracy Emin talk about her work, then even 'Unmade bed' makes sense and can be appreciated.  Art is often easy to dismiss and hard to comprehend, but sometimes it's worth it ....  On balance I thought Hirst was worth a few hours of my time, interestingly concieved and beautifully executed.  Whether it's worth millions is somebody elses problem ....

Funnily enough, this was in yesterdays grauniad:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/06/damien-hirst-artist-we-deserve

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #33 on: 07 April, 2012, 03:42:32 pm »
I've walked and ridden past this many times over the last year or so but only yesterday did I notice that it's a Hirst.

http://rwa.org.uk/exhibitions-damien-hirst-charity



I always thought it was ugly and making a reasonably point clumsily.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #34 on: 07 April, 2012, 05:42:12 pm »
I like Hirst. He is the opposite of the "chocolate box" painting. I'm not choosing one over the other, just saying that there needs to be balance in all things.

He perhaps isn't an artist in the traditional sense, he is a producer/employer/ manufacturer; but is non the worse for that.

Art can please, remind, confirm - but it can also challenge how we see or encode the world we are in. This is what Hirst does - it isn't about the warm cuddly feeling of, say, a Farquharson painting of sheep in the snow - it's about how we deal with knowing that that sheep is going to die and be eaten, or rot.
Nah. That's all been done, & much, much better. Look up Marcel Duchamp. Hirst recycles old ideas, rather crudely, & is about as challenging as a woolly jumper.

He's a very good salesman, & a very bad artist. He's found a way to be a con artist legally. Fine - as long as no tax or major corporate (because there's a good chance some of my pension money is invested in any given major company) money is spent on his garbage. I object vehemently to that.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #35 on: 07 April, 2012, 06:02:17 pm »
I've walked and ridden past this many times over the last year or so but only yesterday did I notice that it's a Hirst.

http://rwa.org.uk/exhibitions-damien-hirst-charity



I always thought it was ugly and making a reasonably point clumsily.

Well, maybe this will help!

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=spastics+collecting+box&view=detail&id=74AD7865839E40A9E408572FF69E77DF972EAE71&first=0&FORM=IDFRIR

Those of us of a certain age remember these in the streets.

Rhys W

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Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #36 on: 07 April, 2012, 06:17:08 pm »
If you need to see a preserved shark to make you think about mortality and the futility of existence, go see some of Gunther von Hagens's work. You may even learn something interesting as well.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #37 on: 07 April, 2012, 07:42:17 pm »
I've walked and ridden past this many times over the last year or so but only yesterday did I notice that it's a Hirst.

http://rwa.org.uk/exhibitions-damien-hirst-charity



I always thought it was ugly and making a reasonably point clumsily.

Well, maybe this will help!

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=spastics+collecting+box&view=detail&id=74AD7865839E40A9E408572FF69E77DF972EAE71&first=0&FORM=IDFRIR

Those of us of a certain age remember these in the streets.
Yes, I just about remember those myself. I think. Maybe I just remember seeing photos of them, but I think I do remember seeing them in shops. The real ones were ugly and raised money for a good (presumably) cause, a 20-ft high one is even uglier and does no good. Obviously he wants this to make us think about our attitudes to charity and disability (or that's what the blurb says) but I don't think it's an effective way of promoting thought. And he's ripped off someone else's, ugly, design.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #38 on: 07 April, 2012, 07:46:14 pm »
Obviously he wants this to make us think about our attitudes to charity and disability (or that's what the blurb says) but I don't think it's an effective way of promoting thought. And he's ripped off someone else's, ugly, design.
I doubt it. I suspect he (or one of hist staff) had the idea first, then he or some of his people came up with a justification.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Clare

  • Is in NZ
Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #39 on: 07 April, 2012, 10:40:56 pm »
Well, he's got me agreeing with Brian Sewell which is pretty fucking amazing.


LEE

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #40 on: 10 April, 2012, 10:26:38 am »
Well, he's got me agreeing with Brian Sewell which is pretty fucking amazing.

If you are telling me that Brian Sewell doesn't like Damien Hirst then I may be forced to start liking Hirst.  I was rather hoping that Sewell would love him, thereby affirming my views.


Clare

  • Is in NZ
Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #41 on: 10 April, 2012, 10:39:38 am »
In a piece in the Ernie Stannit, Sewell basically said he's crap but a good saleman* there was a rather good one liner but I've forgotten it now.









*May contain some degree of summarising.

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #42 on: 10 April, 2012, 11:45:15 am »
Just back from the Damien Hirst Exhibition at Tate Modern.  Very interesting.  ...

Funnily enough, I was at the Tate Modern this weekend, with my parents.  I was there largely based on it's convenience to public transport, and being something entirely original, that my parents definitely hadn't seen before.  We didn't even vaguely consider queuing to pay money to see Damien Hirst's exhibition, and it seemed a bit of a waste of the Turbine Hall, which is really suited to huge exhibits, whereas the relatively small box they seemed to have built there for his stuff, could probably have been put in pretty much any art gallery with a moderate amount of space.

...Well, maybe this will help!

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=spastics+collecting+box&view=detail&id=74AD7865839E40A9E408572FF69E77DF972EAE71&first=0&FORM=IDFRIR

Dammit, you've got me agreeing with something in the Daily Wail!

Modern Art seems to be largely anything you say is art.  I can live with that as a basis for art, so long as that alone isn't the argument for something being art, and there's also some degree of originality, imagination, even discussion about it (although not simply whether it's art or not).

As said upthread, once you've seen one animal sawn in half, you've pretty much seen all of them.  Likewise making something bigger, and just copying it (and not terribly exactly) also doesn't seem to be that spectacular a concept or even original itself.  People have been scaling things to be enormously large or small for a very long time.

I can't say Damien Hirst appeals to me on any level, and even if there had been no queues for his exhibit, I certainly wouldn't have been interested to pay money, and quite possibly wouldn't have gone in if there was no charge.  There's plenty of strange stuff in the Tate Modern, that you can stare at and wonder if it's art, and there's a lot more variety and originality to it than there seems to be with Damien Hirst's stuff.
Actually, it is rocket science.
 

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #43 on: 10 April, 2012, 11:54:31 pm »
Modern Art seems to be largely anything you say is art.  I can live with that as a basis for art, so long as that alone isn't the argument for something being art, and there's also some degree of originality, imagination, even discussion about it (although not simply whether it's art or not).
I was thinking to myself the other day that the difference between modern art and traditional art is that the traditional stuff is obviously art independent of its context, whereas modern art may or may not seem to be art, all dependent on context. What prompted me to think this was popping into the Arnolfini and seeing an exhibition of models of book covers in metal, each of a real book that had been written using a pseudonym. There was a little note with each one explaining why the author had not used their real name. I'd actually seen part of the same exhibition already, in the children's section of the Central Library, and had taken it to be a way to get kids interested in the writers and writing as well as stories - had I not seen it in a gallery it would never have occurred to me to call it 'art'.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Andrij

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Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #44 on: 11 April, 2012, 09:34:26 am »
In a piece in the Ernie Stannit, Sewell basically said he's crap but a good saleman* there was a rather good one liner but I've forgotten it now.




*May contain some degree of summarising.

Reply #29, by chance?
;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup:

LEE

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #45 on: 11 April, 2012, 02:07:17 pm »
Modern Art seems to be largely anything you say is art.  I can live with that as a basis for art, so long as that alone isn't the argument for something being art, and there's also some degree of originality, imagination, even discussion about it (although not simply whether it's art or not).
I was thinking to myself the other day that the difference between modern art and traditional art is that the traditional stuff is obviously art independent of its context, whereas modern art may or may not seem to be art, all dependent on context. What prompted me to think this was popping into the Arnolfini and seeing an exhibition of models of book covers in metal, each of a real book that had been written using a pseudonym. There was a little note with each one explaining why the author had not used their real name. I'd actually seen part of the same exhibition already, in the children's section of the Central Library, and had taken it to be a way to get kids interested in the writers and writing as well as stories - had I not seen it in a gallery it would never have occurred to me to call it 'art'.

So anything is art if it's placed in an art gallery?

There is a lot of truth in that. 

At College we were taken to see an exhibition of Contemporary art at a Manchester Gallery.  I remember some step-ladders made of perspex and some broken chairs amongst the exhibits.

I also noticed 2 women looking intensely at an old Hoover Vacuum-cleaner.  It wasn't an exhibit, it belonged to the cleaner who had probably gone for a smoke.  As they moved through the gallery they paused to admire 4 small brass "wall-hangings" in a cluster.  They were light-switches and the 2 women were irretrievably stupid.

I guess the point is that, unless there's a big neon arrow telling people "This Vacuum cleaner is art" and "This is just a Vacuum cleaner" then how are we supposed to judge it?

I was recently in Brighton, sifting through piles of old furniture, in a warehouse frequented by students trying to furnish their flat for £20.  If I'd taken down the sign saying "Shit old furniture" (or whatever) and replaced it with "Contemporary Art Exhibition" then it would have been every bit as convincing as the Manchester gallery.

It's impossible to look at Damien Hirst's "Medicine Cabinets" and know that they are art unless you are told they are art.  Transferring them from the Tate to IKEA would make it hard to justfiy them as art when placed next to the same items in a utilitarian context.

Basically I don't get it so I'll leave it to people who either do or care enough to think they do.

Hats off to Hirst though, selling £14million worth of diamonds & old skull for £50million is bloody clever but not as clever as selling a £35 medicine cabinet for £3.6million.  At least the owner of the skull has £14million worth of diamonds.

Knowing my luck my pension fund probably invested in over-hyped medicine cabinets.

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #46 on: 11 April, 2012, 11:36:40 pm »
Just back from the Damien Hirst Exhibition at Tate Modern.  Very interesting.  ...

Funnily enough, I was at the Tate Modern this weekend, with my parents.  I was there largely based on it's convenience to public transport, and being something entirely original, that my parents definitely hadn't seen before.  We didn't even vaguely consider queuing to pay money to see Damien Hirst's exhibition, and it seemed a bit of a waste of the Turbine Hall, which is really suited to huge exhibits, whereas the relatively small box they seemed to have built there for his stuff, could probably have been put in pretty much any art gallery with a moderate amount of space.


Ahhh, the black box in the Turbine hall was just the diamoned skull.  The Hirst exhibition proper was in several rooms of the 3rd floor.  Many of the pieces are very large!

Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #47 on: 12 April, 2012, 08:36:29 am »
Aha, we only did some exhibits on the fifth floor (iirc), and the cafe, which was good but expensive, and with an excellent view!

Still, that seems an even poorer use of the turbine hall area.
Actually, it is rocket science.
 

Clare

  • Is in NZ
Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #48 on: 12 April, 2012, 08:56:53 am »
In a piece in the Ernie Stannit, Sewell basically said he's crap but a good saleman* there was a rather good one liner but I've forgotten it now.




*May contain some degree of summarising.

Reply #29, by chance?

That's the one, sorry I missed it first time Andrij.


David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: Damien Hirst
« Reply #49 on: 12 April, 2012, 11:40:51 am »
Gormley's work is limited in its range, but I like the way that people interact with it.




And yet another place..

DSC_9848 by davidmamartin, on Flickr
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes