The one that got away?

July 8, 2006 3:26 AM

The one that got away? GIVE a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a world-famous English artist a fish, however, and he'll pickle it in formaldehyde, flog it to a South Korean art gallery for $5.7 million, and trouser the difference.. A controversial shark hunter learns of Damien Hirst adding value to "a freebie".
posted by bunglin jones (54 comments total)

"Look, Damien likes doing sharks," he said.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 4:19 AM on July 8, 2006

Heh, StrasbourgSecaucus, I'd just copied that and was primed to paste.

Is this supposed to be a controversy or something? Your man gave Hirst a shark, what did he imagine he'd do with it, make soup?
posted by jack_mo at 4:23 AM on July 8, 2006

Those urinal manufacturers must have been pissed at Duchamp, too.
posted by rory at 4:25 AM on July 8, 2006

"Look, Damien likes doing sharks," he said.

Kinky. Dangerously kinky. Probably not in the Dolphin FAQ.
posted by loquacious at 4:35 AM on July 8, 2006

rory said 'Those urinal manufacturers must have been pissed at Duchamp, too.'

Duchamp bought the first urinal fair an square, but that was lost in 1917 - the eight copies made in 1964 were, if memory serves, commissioned casts. So, no urinal manufacturers were harmed in the making of Fountain ;-)
posted by jack_mo at 4:36 AM on July 8, 2006

Anything can be art. Literally, anything. I don't have a problem with that. It's the value aspect that pisses me off.

Who decides a shark in formaldehyde is worth millions? Especially when anyone (with a little effort) can go out, get a shark, pickle it, and toss it in an aquarium full of chemicals.

Little did all those natural museums know that their own preserved specimens could be worth so much. Just call it art.
posted by neek at 5:03 AM on July 8, 2006

neek : Who decides a shark in formaldehyde is worth millions?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say ... the people who bought it?
posted by kaemaril at 5:12 AM on July 8, 2006

posted by trinarian at 5:12 AM on July 8, 2006

posted by elpapacito at 5:57 AM on July 8, 2006

This guy makes the lowest form of art. The kind that requires no skill to produce. This is fraud, but the guy is smart enough to leave his victims smiling.
posted by 517 at 6:29 AM on July 8, 2006

"...requires no skill to produce. This is fraud, but the guy is smart enough to leave his victims smiling."

And that is his skill.

The idiots are buying, and presumably smiling.
posted by parki at 6:49 AM on July 8, 2006

nice, trinarian
posted by tsarfan at 6:57 AM on July 8, 2006

517 : "This is fraud, but the guy is smart enough to leave his victims smiling."

Man makes thing. Sells thing to other person. Other person is happy. Man is happy. But other person paid more than I think he should have paid, so man is bad.
posted by Bugbread at 6:57 AM on July 8, 2006

More on embalming^{^} at Rotten.com (NSFLunch.) Hirst had better be Getting Back to the Basics:

Without adequate preservation, the body becomes a medium for the growth of pathogenic microbes that continue to mutate and become opportunistic in character...

If bodies are not saturated with quality germicidal arterial fluids, we have not truly achieved depth preservation and areas that could support microbial growth could be present. It is the body tissue mass as well as the enzymes that must be inactivated. It is the operator's option as to method of embalming, what anatomical point of injection to use and how to control the drainage that will result in sufficient chemical saturation.

Formaldehyde, obviously, is not very pleasant stuff.
posted by cenoxo at 7:09 AM on July 8, 2006

"...so man is bad."

No, I'm just jealous of the guy. And, um, I have this turtle, in a bottle. It's really a very power comment on the containment of nature. You can see it at my latest show, here. If you're interested in this kind of stuff I can make a much more reasonable price for you. Just tell the gallery owner that you're down with metafilter.
posted by 517 at 7:27 AM on July 8, 2006

Man makes thing

Even that's not really true in Hirst's case - he rarely actually makes his 'work' himself, instead essentially subcontracting it out to his lackeys.
posted by influx at 8:09 AM on July 8, 2006

The canned shit art is cool. I've always loved it, and I would gladly buy some for... maybe $10 at the most.
posted by neek at 8:36 AM on July 8, 2006

Man makes thing. Sells thing to other person. Other person is happy. Man is happy. But other person paid more than I think he should have paid, so man is bad.

Slight correction:

Man makes thing. Sells thing to art gallery that uses taxpayer's money to buy it. Art gallery puts art in gallery.

People come and look at it and say, "Why did you spend a million dollars on this?"

Art gallery says, "You don't know art like we know art. This is good stuff."

People say, "It may be good, but you spent a million on it -- using our money. You are insane and weird and we no longer like you."

Art gallery says, "We don't care what you think, and will continue doing as we please. We are the experts. You are losers. But thanks for the coin."

People say, "Damn. I wish democracy actually allowed me some control over how my tax dollars are spent."

The end.

(And again, let me state -- it's not whether or not it's art that irks me. It's the insane price tag.)
posted by neek at 8:42 AM on July 8, 2006

neek--welcome to the wonderful world of supply & demand.
posted by maxreax at 8:47 AM on July 8, 2006

"...supply & demand".

This has nothing to do with that concept.
posted by 517 at 8:54 AM on July 8, 2006

neek : "Sells thing to art gallery that uses taxpayer's money to buy it."

The Samsung Museum of Art uses taxpayer's money?
posted by Bugbread at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2006

Besides the obvious "I am a taxpayer. I also bought a Samsung monitor. Samsung spent some of the money from my monitor purchase to buy a shark. Hence the gallery spent a taxpayer's money on the shark" approach.
posted by Bugbread at 9:02 AM on July 8, 2006

Or are you talking about Hirst's work in general, like all the pieces bought by the Saatchi Gallery?

The privately funded Saatchi Gallery
posted by Bugbread at 9:17 AM on July 8, 2006

517 said 'This guy makes the lowest form of art. The kind that requires no skill to produce. This is fraud, but the guy is smart enough to leave his victims smiling.'

influx said 'Man makes thing

'Even that's not really true in Hirst's case - he rarely actually makes his "work" himself, instead essentially subcontracting it out to his lackeys.'

Oh yeah, that makes it a lesser work. I was looking at Tintoretto's 'The Ordeal of Tuccia' (c. 1555) last Thursday, and was completely transfixed, but as soon as I remembered apprentices at his workshop did the background, I stormed off in disgust.

Sure, Hirst's work is grotesquely overpriced, but the idea that an artist must make the work himself was old hat by the Rennaissance, and that people still regard artists who choose not to demonstrate traditional skills as fraudsters nigh-on a century after Duchamp's first readymades is plain depressing.
posted by jack_mo at 9:38 AM on July 8, 2006

'Even that's not really true in Hirst's case - he rarely actually makes his "work" himself, instead essentially subcontracting it out to his lackeys.'

... and don't even get me started about architects. I have yet to see one of those jackasses on the jobsite pouring concrete.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:13 AM on July 8, 2006

Wow, didn't realize mefi had so many Victorians.

It's really not that dumb to buy a Hirst piece, considering that he's fairly hot (but IMO his star is falling pretty quick) and big-time art buyers usually aren't dummies. They're going to hang onto this shark for a while and probably sell it at a profit.

Hate the game, not the playa and all that.
posted by bardic at 10:44 AM on July 8, 2006

I just don't get it though, why pay so much money for something you could make yourself, or hire someone to make for a few thousand dollars? There's nothing 'unique' abotu Hirsts' idea. Does he own some kind of copyright or something?
posted by delmoi at 10:45 AM on July 8, 2006

Really? Have you ever seen a bissected shark in formaldehyde set in a glass display case before Hirst did it?

Btw, I'm not a big Hirst fan myself, and I'm not going to defend him so much if you think he's a hack, but I'd have to say his approach is fairly unique. Most artists don't have a tank of rotting animal carcasses taking up most of their space (although he probably has multiple studios by now).
posted by bardic at 10:48 AM on July 8, 2006

(And the display cases arranged so that one could walk "though" the animal in question?

OK, maybe I like Hirst more than I admitted at first.)
posted by bardic at 10:50 AM on July 8, 2006

Hirst's impossibility was a conceptual deadringer. But this shit? What the hell??

Corporate art, has a nice ring to it...
posted by stratastar at 11:33 AM on July 8, 2006

Bardic,

If I'm interpreting delmoi right (and I don't know if I am), he really meant "There's nothing irreproducible about Hirst's ideas". That is, try as I might, I couldn't replicate a Bosch painting, so if I wanted one, I'd have to buy it. However, Hirst's is a simple execution of an unusual idea, and once you've got the idea, it would be relatively easy to reproduce it. If I really wanted a shark in formaldehyde, I could make one probably as good as Hirst's for much less money. So if the goal is to have a shark in formaldehyde, as opposed to having a Hirst Piece, why not make it oneself?

(Note: none of this is meant to be derogatory of Hirst. I liked his pieces in the Saatchi Gallery, though I confess I liked his square of flies and tar more than his formaldehyde pieces)
posted by Bugbread at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2006

Walter Benjamin talked about "aura" in art, but it's a complicated usage to say the least. Even in an age when anyone with enough money and time could buy the carcasses and the chemicals and the glass and such, Hirst's early work was pretty amazing for its originality (my own problem with him is that he hasn't progressed as much as I'd have liked, but I think that's part of his point, IMO).

That said, I think this argument ("It can't be art if I could do it myself") gets far too much traction, if you think about it. To put it bluntly, "it's harder than it looks." I got to see Christo speak once about his work, and he spent most of the time discussing what an artist has to do to get permits, what it takes to purchase several tons of colored fabric, how you need to custom design special fasteners and it's quicker to just fly to Malaysia or wherever and actually rent a factory for a few months than it is to custom order the things, etc. (And people have every right to dislike Christo, but they can't deny that his pieces, while involving work being "subcontracted" to others, aren't mammoth efforts in their own right--again, that's the central point I believe). Brute materiality in itself can be enough to meet the criterion of Benjamin's "auracular" art if it's massive enough.

So this is a long way of calling bullshit on the claim that the Hirst piece is easily reproduceable. If so, go for it. You'll then fall into an even more grievous trap--you aren't being original.
posted by bardic at 11:54 AM on July 8, 2006

bugbread,

The reason the Hirst piece is desirable is because it was made by Hirst. This is an age old lesson in art theory that goes back to sketch drawings by Da Vinci that sell for astronomical values, as exemplified by Duchamp in Mona Lisa vs LHOOQ. Duchamp made the serious conceptual step with LHOOQ Rasé which asks the question, is there any difference between the original and the replica besides the name? Read Arthur Danto's art theory articles for a more indepth understanding of what a title means to an artwork in a postmodern landscape.

Hirst's new piece is a diluted simulation of his original, akin to the work of a copycat. Perhaps he's commenting on that very notion in art? I don't give him that much credit though. I think Hirst is riding a trend in an art industry that is looking to grab onto an artist that can create seminal works of art and thus make egregious amounts of money off of the notion of that artist.

It's akin to the concept of aura; it's what drives the buyer/spectator to an artist's works; it is what rationalized any shitty work that artist does as valid. Unfortunately, I believe that aura died with the end of modernism and its transition into postmodernism (the last bastion of abstract expressionism, brutally murdered by Andy Warhol). In this little observed historical discontinuity (Foucaultian extrapolation, if you will), it will take time for aura to return to the artist. For now it is dead (at least according to my thesis dissertation).
posted by stratastar at 11:59 AM on July 8, 2006

re bardic, exactly. The issue is aura. It can be conceptualized through the theoretical lens of Benjamin.
posted by stratastar at 12:00 PM on July 8, 2006

Philistines.
posted by unmake at 12:29 PM on July 8, 2006

Heh, I was going to link to some Danto. I like his books a lot. Hell, I'm pretty sure there are some Columbia mefites--get that redoubtable man of letters and criticism an account!

His 1997 book After the End of Art is fairly readable for being an academic work, but like stratastar says his essay are often more accessible and enjoyable.

I'm actually very curioius to know what he thinks of Hirst now--I'd imagine he'd see him as being very much a student of Warhol's, and not much of an innovator at all. Which is fine by me. I just think friggin' sharks bissected in glass cases is cool. And provocative. Maybe not so much the fourth or fifth time though.
posted by bardic at 12:45 PM on July 8, 2006

bardic : "That said, I think this argument ('It can't be art if I could do it myself') gets far too much traction"

While that argument does get too much traction, I don't think it's fair to use the phrase "this argument", since that isn't an argument that's been made here (except maybe by neek). Most of this discussion is about people saying, yes, it's art, and then disagreeing about whether it is or isn't worth the money.

bardic : "So this is a long way of calling bullshit on the claim that the Hirst piece is easily reproduceable. If so, go for it."

I don't know if that argument has been made, either. The argument is just that one could get people to assemble the art for less than 5.7 million. I personally think that's true. Perhaps reproducing a Hirst could be done for, let's be really conservative and say $500,000. Do I want a shark in a tank? No. Am I absolutely loaded, so that I can spend $500,000 on a shark in a tank I don't want? No. So I'm not going to "go for it", but my lack of "going for it" isn't evidence that the shark in the tank can't be made for less than $5.7 million.

bardic : "You'll then fall into an even more grievous trap--you aren't being original."

Er, wait a minute, we're talking about purchasing or reproducing art. I know that artists have to be original, but do purchasers also have to be original? My dad has some art books. Does that mean he has fallen into a grievous trap by not painting his own paintings instead? Delmoi's question was "If you see a Hirst shark in a tank, and think 'that's really cool looking. I want a shark in a tank', then why not just make a shark in a tank yourself instead of paying $5.7 million for it?" That question neither assumes that a shark in a tank is an easy thing to make, nor that the person's goal is to create new and original art: it is just assuming that there exists a person who wants a shark in a tank as an aesthetic object, and that a shark in a tank would cost less than $5.7 million to make oneself (or have made for one).

I think, overall, you're misreading delmoi's comment, and my own, as the types of comments that usually happen in a thread about Hirst, which is "that takes no skill" "that's not art", etc. But that's NOT what I'm saying, and I don't think it's what delmoi is saying either.

Of course, in the end, I know it's about "aura" or "cachet" or the like, and I suspect delmoi realizes this too, and that his question was rhetorical (though I am curious if there is some sort of intellectual property right such that one might get sued for putting a shark in a formaldehyde tank as art).
posted by Bugbread at 12:53 PM on July 8, 2006

I'm speaking far too much for delmoi. I should clarify and say "I don't know what delmoi is thinking, but I didn't read it the way you apparently did. And I certainly am not saying that which you are arguing against, though perhaps delmoi is."
posted by Bugbread at 1:02 PM on July 8, 2006

ergh, bugbread the discussion is centered around an artist, and thus is an issue of aesthetics. But if one would like to have a shark in a tank, by all means they could go ahead and make one...
posted by stratastar at 1:06 PM on July 8, 2006

Is this supposed to be a controversy or something? Your man gave Hirst a shark, what did he imagine he'd do with it, make soup?

actually, I didn't think there WAS much controversy in this episode. What I did find interesting, and actually quite nice in its way, was that the shark hunting guy was surprised but didn't seem AT ALL put out by what Hirst had done.
posted by bunglin jones at 1:20 PM on July 8, 2006

I'm surprised nobody's made a Fonzie joke yet.
posted by bardic at 1:27 PM on July 8, 2006

stratastar : "bugbread the discussion is centered around an artist, and thus is an issue of aesthetics."

I'm sorry, I don't follow. Why would a discussion about an artist therefore necessarily be about aesthetics? I've read plenty of discussions about Darger that have almost nothing about aesthetics.

But, regardless, the whole "made to order non-brand shark in a tank" thing was just a bit of a tangent based on bardic and I reading delmoi differently, and unless delmoi jumps back in, there's not much more point in pursuing it.
posted by Bugbread at 2:16 PM on July 8, 2006

bardic : "I'm surprised nobody's made a Fonzie joke yet."

You mean the episode where Fonzie jumped his motorcycle over a plexiglass case containing a rotting bull's head?

That was my favorite episode.
posted by Bugbread at 2:17 PM on July 8, 2006

I'm not going to comment on art vs. not-art, but I do find it depressing that if Mr. Hirst hired some kid to run down to the shop and assemble a computer out of cheap Taiwanese parts, that PC would probably be worth more than the result of me spending $500,000 to have a shark dropped into a tank of formaldehyde.
posted by bashos_frog at 6:08 PM on July 8, 2006

The original is rotting. Apparently they don't have that great of a shelf-life. "Formaldehyde may have been the wrong chemical for Hirst to use..." "the artist should have used an alcohol-based solution for long-term protection."

At least they come with a warranty.

"In a frank admission about the longevity of some of Hirst's works, Science, the company the artist runs to help him make his installations, said in a statement to The Art Newspaper: "Damien will happily help to refurbish [the shark] as he would with any of his works that are over 10 years old."

posted by shoepal at 6:43 PM on July 8, 2006

More Hirst on Mefi:

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/20662
http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/40402
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/21962
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/11640
posted by shoepal at 6:46 PM on July 8, 2006

Rodin used to have his assistants make a great deal of his work.

But the difference is that a Rodin sculpture - which was really a Rodin-factory work - is a stunningly beautiful and moving piece of art, explanation unnecessary, while Hirst's are a shark hanging in a tank. The shark is striking in a modernist sort of way, but too low contrast and ultimately cold and boring. The titles implyu some kind of deep statement about modern life, but the art fails to deliver. Nothing against Hirst as a person, but it's just not very good. Unfortunately, these days the artists' statements matter more than the product.

yeah, forget about the player - hate the game. It's destroying art.
posted by jb at 3:45 AM on July 9, 2006

jb : "The shark is striking in a modernist sort of way, but too low contrast and ultimately cold and boring."

You say this as if it is objective fact. Personally, I find Rodin's sculptures quite boring, as well as the shark, but enjoy some of Hirst's other work more than I enjoy Rodin's.
posted by Bugbread at 5:24 AM on July 9, 2006

"In a frank admission about the longevity of some of Hirst's works, Science, the company the artist runs to help him make his installations, said in a statement to The Art Newspaper: "Damien will happily help to refurbish [the shark] as he would with any of his works that are over 10 years old."

Ha! Say, what you like about Hirst but (unlike, say, the Mona Lisa) at least his stuff comes with a warranty :)
posted by kaemaril at 7:40 AM on July 9, 2006

That warranty is pretty funny - if I'd bought a Hirst, I'd want it to rot, though. The use of formaldehyde is clearly an aesthetic choice based on the associations that chemical has in the popular consciousness, and watching such a visually pristine sculpture turn into manky shark gubbins would be really satisfying, because rotting is an interesting process in and of itself, and because it would add an interesting durational aspect to the sculpture. Not to mention a nice inbuilt meta-commentary on the value of work itself: I think you could reasonably argue that the contrast between the high prices Hirst commands and the widely perceived low value of his works is now an integral part of his practice, eg. his very public buying back of pieces from Saatchi at great expense and his ongoing construction of a vast vainglorious museum to house them counts as a conceptual work in its own right, if you ask me. He could call it Warhol II: The Expensive Boogaloo ;-)
posted by jack_mo at 11:06 AM on July 9, 2006

jack_mo writes "watching such a visually pristine sculpture turn into manky shark gubbins would be really satisfying, because rotting is an interesting process in and of itself, and because it would add an interesting durational aspect to the sculpture"

But it might also bring to mind the dead goldfish in Disco Stu's platform shoes.
posted by krinklyfig at 11:40 AM on July 9, 2006

You can't be much more ignorant of the history of art (or production and manufacture of any kind) than by suggesting that the use of subcontractors and apprentices degrades the work, or contaminates authorship.

Mastering every skill a project demands, and executing each step entirely yourself, is a great way to create very little.

Dumb people rarely appreciate good labor management.
posted by techgnollogic at 2:55 PM on July 9, 2006

Takashi Murakami also runs a sort of "factory" where his works are output by others at his direction.
posted by shoepal at 12:02 AM on July 12, 2006

Anothony Gormley is another fantastic artist who doesn't touch his work (and it's worth noting that both he and Murakami are skilled in the traditional sense, but choose to make work that doesn't always involve using those skills).
posted by jack_mo at 6:36 AM on July 12, 2006