RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: A lot of people really hate contemporary art  Wed Oct 21, 2009 3:15 am | |
| A lot of people really hate contemporary art. That's a given. But there's one artist who has become the whipping boy for every section of the art world, from the old fogey traditionalists to the upstart emerging younger generation. His name is Damien Hirst.
Hirst's rise to prominence has been marked by his unapologetic ambition, the canny marketing of his art and the millionaire collectors who have patronised his career.
For his latest show in London, Hirst is exhibiting 25 paintings at the Wallace Collection, a London museum that usually houses the work of old masters such as Rembrandt, Velasquez, Titian and Hals. Hung among the masterworks the
exhibition, titled Damien Hirst: The Blue Paintings, makes a not-so-subtle allusion to Picasso's "blue period" and prompts unflattering comparisons to the masterpieces.
The critical savaging of the show is an example of the deep ambivalence felt towards this controversial artist.
Hirst has made a career from creating factory-made sculptures, or using real world objects like dead sharks, or employing art students to make his paintings. His decision to paint the new work himself has provided critics with multiple points of attack: He can't even paint! Where are the dead cows cut in half? He needs assistants! His work is rubbish!
In September last year Hirst sold £111 million of new work via Sotheby's, eliminating the need for a gallery by selling directly to high-end collectors. That the sale happened to coincide with the collapse of Lehman Brothers was interpreted to mean "something". That is, Hirst is emblematic of the greed infecting the system.
That many in the mainstream media openly dislike contemporary art, or choose to focus solely on the money, should come as no surprise. Nor should the disdain of traditional art lovers who like craft skills and morally uplifting subject matter. What is surprising is that Hirst is equally hated by the grassroots artists who you would imagine would at least admire his chutzpah.
Not so.
Hirst got into a stoush with a young graffiti artist named Cartrain over his unauthorised use of an image of Hirst's For the Love of God, the £50 million diamond-encrusted skull exhibited in 2007.
After being ordered by Hirst's people to cease and desist, Cartrain responded by stealing a box of pencils that was part of Hirst's Pharmacy, a permanent installation at Tate Modern. Cartrain offered to return the pencils if Hirst would allow him to use the skull image but the prank backfired. Hirst responded by sending in the police, claiming the pencils were a rare set of Faber Castells worth £500,000.
Using the only resource at his disposal, Cartrain started an online campaign to mount a legal defence. Tweets, blogs and websites carried the "save Cartrain" slogan and the anti-Hirst sentiment poured out in comments and reposts. The vehemence of the hate was startling.
What is so disturbing about all this is the way Hirst really has come to mean "something" - which is that if you hate contemporary art or dislike attempts to upset the cosy financial arrangements of the art world, well, line up - Damien Hirst is your boy.
He serves as an emblem for those who want to commune in their shared outrage and moral superiority while declaiming unfounded and unprovable accusations of plagiarism and dubious financial dealings. What Hirst makes is nothing more, or less, than art. That it is valued by some and detested by others is simply proof that works of art are contested objects whose meaning and monetary value rise and fall on the tides of public taste. What is forgotten is that the showbiz surrounding Hirst's career is a distraction from what he has set out to do, namely, to address the subject of death through art. His greatest work is the title to his notorious shark in formaldehyde - The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. The banality of his dot paintings, his obsession with medical imagery, his hubristic will to place himself in the pantheon of great artists is an art project that is yet to run its course.
Hirst's true value is yet to be determined. And his greatest legacy is the incomprehension such a long-view project creates in the minds of people lost in the hype.
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