Bored with submerged sharks already?

March 14, 2005 1:22 AM

Damien Hirst has a new show up in New York. (NYT link) The British artist (previously discussed here, here, and here) has turned away from sheep in boxes and towards photo-realist painting. His subject matter hasn't gotten any cheerier - "The Devastating Impact of Crack Cocaine" is downright frightening. Slightly more accessible is "Six Pills," which is reminiscent of his Pharmacy installation.
posted by grapefruitmoon (28 comments total)

I know I'm like a child; whining, fidgety and ever-hungry; but can I have some pictures please and not another NYT link?
posted by NinjaPirate at 3:23 AM on March 14, 2005

NinjaPirate : It's very hard to come by decent images by contemporary artists (copyright issues). All three links I included have image galleries - if I remember correctly, the Tate modern link (Pharmacy) has an extensive gallery.

While I try to find links that include image galleries, I don't think just posting to images or links to images makes a very good post. I like having information about the artist as well. There are few websites that integrate both well - most art sites tend to be bio pages or just pages of links to images, neither of which does anything for me.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:35 AM on March 14, 2005

The cocaine pictures seem familiar. Is Damian Hirst really saying this is his work?
posted by iffley at 3:47 AM on March 14, 2005

iffley : If you read the article, Hirst's images are paintings and are undoubtedly his work. That he didn't create the original photographs is hardly relevant as all artists copy from something.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:50 AM on March 14, 2005

sorry, grapefruitmoon, if it's an issue of there not being an online accompaniment to the exhibition I can't ask any more of you.
I was hoping that there would be further photographs of the current show rather than prior art, but I can understand the difficulties.

Grievence withdrawn. I shall go and find someone else to moan at.
posted by NinjaPirate at 4:00 AM on March 14, 2005

Quote from the NYT article: He readily admits that, as in the case of many artists working today, while his hand is involved in every painting, some of his assistants - most of whom are trained artists - do some of the painting for him. "I have a great team," he said.

Hmm. So these are exact copies of photos that have been used in police anti-crack campaigns, and the painting's likely to have been done largely by his team. Hope he's making good money. [BTW, I like his work. But it still looks like a scam]
posted by iffley at 4:04 AM on March 14, 2005

Slight derail, but one of those sites showing the original photos has an interesting article about the devastating impact of crack cocaine.
posted by iffley at 4:04 AM on March 14, 2005

In an interview in a UK paper a few weeks ago he actually said that his team did the majority of the painting. Can't find a link to it though.

I have never thought much of Damien Hirst as an artist but he's a very good salesman. It's funny how painting came back right after that big warehouse fire that destroyed so many pieces of BritArt last year.
posted by fshgrl at 4:13 AM on March 14, 2005

umm... Michelangelo had people carve and paint things for him. Does it make his work any less great?

Same goes for David (not the statue). Or pretty much everyone up until 1880 when paint tubes first came out on the market.

I suppose one could say something about evolving standards of craft and artistry, but hey, they just evolved again ;)
posted by Kattullus at 4:26 AM on March 14, 2005

You pretty much have to be a good salesman to be a successful artist. Much more so in today's art market than ever before: good-bye to brooding geniuses, and hello to slick art-school grads who know how to sell a provocative idea using artspeak, especially given the pomo attack on notions of craft (via readymades and found art, etc). More often than not, "artistic craft" these days is a retreat for the amateur and the idealistic.

There's a hell of a lot more artistically talented and skilled people working in fields like advertising than in art.
posted by DaShiv at 4:31 AM on March 14, 2005

The shark is disintegrating and will need extensive conservation...
posted by R. Mutt at 5:15 AM on March 14, 2005

I suppose one could say something about evolving standards of craft and artistry, but hey, they just evolved again ;)

Michelangelo conceived those pieces himself and did the important work. From what I understand Damien Hirst has basically paid a bunch of people* to copy some photographs and is selling the resulting canvases as his own. Maybe the art is in the creative marketing plan.

*we'll call them artists
posted by fshgrl at 5:39 AM on March 14, 2005

On Hirst and his assistants: The teams of assistants do most of the bread-and-butter copying — "If it was me I'd paint it monochrome and stick a fag packet in the middle" . . . they are not their paintings, they're his. And to ensure this is clear, he swaps the assistants around from picture to picture so nobody is ever responsible for the whole thing. A more sympathetic take on Hirst is here.

grapefruitmoon: Thanks for getting me looking at how people produce their work.
posted by iffley at 5:42 AM on March 14, 2005

DaShiv, while I appreciate your cynical view (as a painter in a "slick, po-mo" art grad program), I think the historical tide may be turning. I think the funniest thing about Hirst's work is that Charles Saatchi, the world's most prominent and invested art collector, based in London, recently announced that he is now more or less only interested in painting. Co-inky-dink?

I think the difference between Michelangelo and Hirst is that our historical evidence indicates that Michelangelo did a considerable amount of the painting in pieces attributed to him. In other words, it is clear that he has the skill and vision that we attribute to him through the experience of his works. Hirst has not demonstrated at all that he could do the paintings. If you want to be po-mo and say that's not important any more, that's fine. I think that involves a long conversation about what it is we experience when we see a work and what sort of expectations we have and even how the art world has conditioned those expectations (i.e. it's not cool to say "I don't like this work because the artist doesn't seem to have any talent"). As a painter, I find the images boring. I think the photos (and I am not a fan of photography) are marginally more interesting. I think the paintings are exactly what I would expect from someone who all but admits that he doesn't know and doesn't care to know how to paint.
posted by Slothrop at 6:22 AM on March 14, 2005

Hirst's Last Supper was amazing in person, but this is just a rip off.

I have a feeling the buyer of the Crack piece has never seen the source.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 6:49 AM on March 14, 2005

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a Hirst exhibition up currently. Its highlight is a lamb in formaldehyde ("Away From the Flock") which was surprisingly affecting when I saw it, especially as I went in skeptical of Hirst's animals. The butterfly wing mosaic is beautiful, especially because when you get up close the symmetry of it breaks down slightly and you stop seeing a pretty mural and start thinking about the dead butterflies. There is also a painting that is black and lumpy and is covered with dead flies, sort of a parody-homage to someone like Günter Umberg and his super-saturated monochrome black paintings. It's funny and it stinks to high heaven. Hirst's medicine cabinet display and a painting of dots (that is supposed to be some sort of statement about prescription drugs) are both meaningless and not much to look at. The point is that Hirst is frustrating, on and off, and I don't see why his paintings shouldn't be as well. I don't hold up much hope for them, but I didn't for the little MFA show either.

Also, supposedly the last couple of Whitney Biennials have been seen as "rebirth of painting" shows, FWIW.
posted by nflorin at 7:23 AM on March 14, 2005

(and I am not a fan of photography)

Infidel! I cut you now with my sword! :)

I have a great deal of respect for painters -- 95% of painters understand a great deal more about light, form, color, perspective, etc. than 95% of photographers -- yet I've always been at a loss to understand photorealism in paintings, such as Hirst's new pieces. That is to say, I understand it on various theoretical levels, but not in the relevant ways that would make me actually want to go out and do it myself, ever. Obviously it does the just trick for some painters, though. As Frank O'Hara would say, maybe that's why I am not a painter.

By the way, I don't think of what I had said earlier as being particularly cynical; it was merely a cautionary tale for those who might have otherwise ignored the business side of art.
posted by DaShiv at 7:38 AM on March 14, 2005

There is nothing at all new or uncommon about having your assistants and apprentices produce your art.

Warhol's studio was known as "The Factory" and he practically bragged about his assistants doing most of the work. Peter Paul Rubens's heavy use of assistants produced Anthony van Dyke - arguably the most celebrated portraitist ever, who also used assistants.

Rembrandt would usually either do a piece entirely by himself, or have a piece done entirely by an assistant. In the case of the latter, sometimes he would even have an assistant sign it for him.

". . .the use of assistants has been commonplace in art making since before the Egyptian sculptors had someone else polish the stone. The Renaissance masters had workshops with assistants who did much of their painting for them. One such master is reputed to have only painted the hands and faces of his pictures. Sculptors regularly hand off small studies to be enlarged for bronzes or carved into stone by skilled craftsmen."
posted by techgnollogic at 9:39 AM on March 14, 2005

techgnollogic, the distinction I'd like to make is that in each of the cases you mentioned (especially in apprentice/atelier models) the artist doing the 'foisting' is in fact capable of doing the work and likely directing the use of technique in an exacting and precise way. In Hirst's case, it isn't clear that he could paint the paintings (say, if he had the time) and by his own admission in the NYT article, doesn't have the skills to produce the paintings he wanted to exhibit. I think it's possible that Hirst is technically skilled, and skilled enough to produce a 'polished' painting. But he still isn't a painter, or at least can't produce a painting that is as worth looking at as others who work in painting as their primary mode (something I suspect he partly realizes).

I think my dissatisfaction with Hirst comes from his treatment of painting as a means to an end. That doesn't upset my delicate sensibilities about painting so much as it results in a painting that itself appears to be a means to an end. I don't like that kind of banality (oh, look it's about the horrors of crack abuse) in any experience. Idea-dominated art, such as this, always shrivels in the face of that which it is an idea of. Crack abuse is horrible and destroys many lives. I think highly commodified and disinterested paintings intending to 'teach' me about the horrors of crack abuse are ridiculous.

DaShiv, I'm not sure that I could speak to why painters might want to paint photo-realistically, particularly based on an image that is a photo (that is opposed to painting from life). But my own work is some sort of bastard child of Arshile Gorky and Paul Pope with William Hawkins midwifing.
posted by Slothrop at 10:36 AM on March 14, 2005

I one time ran into some interns working for Jeff Koons, the biggest art world con man, and found out that he too doesn't do the work himself.

At first I thought it was just ridiculous that he couldn't put the basketballs in the aquarium himself, but I eventually conceded. The piece is about the idea, not the craftsmanship, and that crappy idea is all his.

The more attention these things get for being "not art" rather than any sense of craftsmanship, the more they sell for.
posted by destro at 10:45 AM on March 14, 2005

Warhol used assistants as well and as an artist it never sat well with me because of how he used them. Some of Hirst's art isn't art at all (for me pharmacy is an example of this) and have to agree with fshgrl he's a good salesman (something most of the really famous artist seem to be first and foremost) and DaShiv's points, it's part of the reason I didn't pursue a career in this field, I got to see the pariah in action first hand ... it's not cynicism talking it is reality. Just like people who create fantastic works of art will be called "outsiders" and ignored because they didn't go to art school. The art world these days is filled with a lot of hogwash.

Whether he swaps assistants around or not it is still not his artwork, it is a collaboration of other artists. As an artist I think applying your name to something that is obviously not yours is a scuzzy thing to do.
posted by squeak at 1:39 PM on March 14, 2005

Maurizio Cattelan
Marina Abramovic
The Chapman Brothers
Tony Oursler
posted by mrs.pants at 2:47 PM on March 14, 2005

oh and Marc Quinn, I really thought his gardens and last collection of sculptures were some of the most beautifully articulated pieces of art ever....
posted by mrs.pants at 2:51 PM on March 14, 2005

Everybody knows that Dave Thomas doesn't flip every burger at Wendy's, or that Ralph Lauren doesn't sew all those little horsies on himself, and the knowledge that Levi Strauss has been dead for decades hasn't prevented generations of artists and other radicals and freethinkers from buying his lewd and suggestive pants. So what is the big deal if Hirst didn't "make" that million dollar sculpture, painting, or installation? He probably knew it was being made, and he might have even thought about the fact that it was being made. And anyway, it will just end up gracing some CEO's corner office or vacation home, the lobby of some corporate giant, or perhaps the dusty corner of a museum. At any rate, we common folk will be spared the sight of those ghastly and troubling objects, and can instead spend our time basking in the beautiful aura radiated by this exciting badboy artist. I would much rather read about the details of Hirsts' life and lifestyle (more about the sex please!) than see his questionable art (church and community leaders are, I have been assured, aghast). Thankfully, in the New York Times and other lifestyle publications I can escape the tedium of the everyday and read about this genius or others like him (troubled, tumultuous, difficult: brilliant!) and realize that they is just like me, but somehow different: more vital, more unique, and more important. Isn't this what art should do: put us little people in our place, and not fill our heads with dangerous ideas or impossible dreams. The paintings and sculptures that adorned medieval churches acted in a similar way, making certain that man would realize his own insignificance. It wasn't until the renaissance that artists began to step out of line and glorify man and the world. Hirst is restoring the balance, he realizes that man is insignificant, but instead of glorifying God he worships money and power. I am okay with that.

What we have to realize is that like any other busy executive, corporate figurehead, or media celebrity, big name contemporary artists have far more important things to do than waste their time and cloud their delicate heads with the servile drudgery of painting and sculpting or whatever that stuff is. I am glad that at least a few right-thinking artists, following the example of Warhol, Pollock and Picasso, have finally begun to see the light and realize that they themselves, and not some phoney-baloney crap on a wall, are the true art.

Stop critizing Hirst; I am sick of it! Let's face it people, the only judge that matters is the almighty dollar, and according to its verdict Hirst is the greatest artist who has ever lived, and perhaps ever will. Compared to him we are a mote, we are nothing! We should all just chill out and thank our lucky stars that we live in this amazing time when we no longer have to worry about what art means (who cares?) or even what it is (there will always be some sycophantic critic to do that anyway), and can instead bask in the glow of this incredibly brilliant shining star who seems to have come, like Paris Hilton and those perky little Olson twins, directly from the mind of God or Madison Avenue to add a little bit of excitement to an otherwise dull day simply by letting us into his strange and amazing world.
posted by mokujin at 3:33 PM on March 14, 2005

Shrill sarcasm is hard to pull off, isn't it?
posted by NinjaPirate at 4:07 PM on March 14, 2005

I see what you're saying about whether or not he has the technical ability, Slothrop. I don't know whether he does or not, and I can't say that it much matters to me personally, but depending on what you think of what painting is about, I can see how it would bother some people if he didn't have those skills.

On the other hand, I don't think we need to worry about Hirst ineptly advocating for crack abusers. In this interview he says of his source images: "Most of these are taken from news-papers and magazines - throwaway images that spoke to me. There's something factual that I like about that. But then by painting them you give them a value. You're saying: "Look at this a bit longer." I've been trying to make them like photographs to half-deny that they are paintings." They'd work just as well for his purposes hung upside down, if it weren't too disorienting.

And he also says "I decided recently that, in a way, all painting is sculpture. " Which, if he thinks that's his original idea, I find totally hilarious.

I composed this post earlier and now I notice when I try to load that interview it comes up as a premium article. It wasn't before, and I read the whole thing, but closed that window. It's still in the google cache hurry hurry.
posted by techgnollogic at 4:23 PM on March 14, 2005

techgnollogic, I think you're correct in saying that alot of this depends on what you think painting is about. I prefer to phrase that as what I want to experience in a painting. That's probably too long a conversation for here, really.

Thanks for that Hirst link to the Independent article. I think he said nearly every thing possible the opposite of what I think is 'true' about art. The interviewer did a terrific job of fellating him as well.

Honestly, I think hell is not flames and pain, but fame, because fame is the complete annihilation of the individual. I think poor Hirst is in hell.
posted by Slothrop at 5:24 PM on March 14, 2005

Mokujin: I know that was intended as sarcasm, but about 75% of it sounds fine to me.
posted by Bugbread at 12:30 AM on March 16, 2005