"For The Love of God" by Damien Hirst

One contemporary artist who caught my interest was Damien Hirst. His artwork shaped and shared interests developing during the decade 1987-1997 to reflect changes in contemporary life. In the age of art as a commodity, Hirst made spot paintings that became luxury designer goods. He later moved to hands-on art in his spin-paintings which expressed his accidental and expressive energy of the haphazard. Hirst’s art is all about death including, his famous portrayal of sharks and bovine bisector. “Hirst’s work is an examination of the processes of life and death: the ironies, falsehoods and desires we have. His makings can be roughly grouped into three areas: paintings, cabinet sculptures and the glass tank pieces”. After looking at several pieces of Hirst’s artwork, his artwork does fit into these categories mostly depicting death.
The sculpture that I find the most fascinating is titled "For The Love of God," and he got this name from his mother who asked him, “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?” According to the New York Times, “this piece which was cast from an 18th century skull be bought in London, was influenced by Mexican skulls encrusted in turquoise.” Hirst thought it would be interesting to do a skull in all diamonds, but costly which had him thinking it might be the right thing to do. Hirst argued that “Death is such a heavy subject, it would be good to make something that laughed in the face of it”. The skull is propped behind reinforced glass in a darkened room in the White cube gallery in East London. The skull is covered with 8,601 flawless diamonds which is three times the number on the crown the Queen wears on state occasions. Even the eye sockets and the holes for the nose have been filled with hundreds of jewels. A 52 carat pear shaped stone is set into the forehead, surrounded by 14 diamonds. The work took 18 months to make and the diamonds worth $20 million were paid for by Hirst and the gallery.
This piece will likely sell for as much as $100 million, making it the priciest contemporary artwork ever made. This brings up the issue of how art is spiraling out of control and becoming more costly. According to the New York Times, the art market has become drunk with money lately, with major auctions routinely raising record prices for artists old and new. White Cube gallery is selling several limited edition silkscreen prints of the work, priced from $1450 to $16,000 for ones sprinkled with diamond dust. In his glittering career this is Hirst’s most audacious effort yet and being worth 80 million, his most expensive too. Hirst claims that this piece signifies victory of death, however, think about how many lives he could have saved with this 80 million dollars.

Also Hirst who financed this piece himself watched for months as the price of international diamonds rose while the Bond Street gem dealer Bently & Skinner tried to corner the market for Hirst’s benefit. Given the ongoing controversy over the blood diamonds from Africa, the sculpture now has the potential to be about death in a more literal way. I feel that this is not a fair accusation towards Hirst because it can then be said that every couple looking at an engagement ring should have to worry about how the diamonds were mined. Hirst should not feel guilty because if he wasn’t going to be buying the diamonds, someone else would have. Hirst might have created something that people actually died over which makes one think if this sculpture actually cost people there lives, is it something that can be idolized and sold as art. There have been a variety of remarks pertaining to this piece. Some think of it as a publicity stunt from the man best known for pickling cows and sheep in the name of art, while others see it as a profound statement about death. Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal, said “All of Hirst’s works are stunts, but this one is just a more expensive stunt. It’s vacuous nonsense”. All of Hirst’s glass tank pieces and other work including the skull are not even made by Hirst. He comes up with the concepts and then has trained specialists in their field do the rest. I agree in some extent with the criticisms that have been made towards Hirst because he himself is not creating the art, rather workers that he has hired who are trained in their field. However, he is the one who designs the art and has the idea to make a diamond skull. Without Hirst’s artistic style, the art world would be missing a variety of very unique pieces.
Damien Hirst have made several comments about this piece of work, such as; “I hope it makes the people who see it feel good, that it’s uplifting, that it takes your breath away," and "it works much better than I imagined. You just want it to be flawless, like a diamond is a flawless”. In class we learned that originally, Hirst wanted this piece to be darker; however, the piece is more of a symbol of victory of life over death. I personally feel that Damien Hirst a unique contemporary artist who’s artwork is like no other. Although other artists have made art out of everyday items such as Andy Warhol with his Brillo boxes and Campbell’s soup cans, they do not compare to the creations that Hirst has imagined and displayed.
Personally I feel that the skull symbolizes that there is a life after death, one that bright and glamorous. Death is not something dark and mysterious, rather inevitable and it should be something that one accepts. The shining and glittery piece symbolizes the deceased shining down on us portraying a happy afterlife. Hirst was able to make even the scariest and depressing thing in this world, death, less fearful, dark and depressing. The fact that I as well as everyone else who has seen this piece of art has had a reaction and felt emotion shows what a great artist Damien Hirst truly is.

Whose Utopia? by Cao Fei

It is customary for people to only accept a work of art as “art” or a work of beauty if it appeals to them from their first sight. I do this on a daily basis myself but the article, “What Makes Good Art,” brings the issue of how you should really give artistic works a chance to the foreground.

I chose a contemporary piece from a simple search at random that seemed unusual even comparing to Picasso and surrealistic works. The work I chose is Whose Utopia? by Cao Fei. To really make it different for me to decipher this work I chose a non-painted and very unfamiliar medium of just a simple high definition camera.

At first look this picture is taken in some sort of warehouse with pallets with products wrapped up on them on shelving much like you would see in any normal warehouse. However, in the middle of the isle there is a woman dressed in a white and blue polka dotted dress in some sort of dancing motion. The first thing that comes to mind is why is there a dressed up dancer practicing in a warehouse? Asking myself this question I drew no real conclusion what Fei wanted to get across by this. But I noticed that the woman seemed as though to be deliberately placed far away and the picture not cropped so that she’s in the dead center. Why would this be?

Yes she is in the middle as should the only human in this work of are but why seeming to make her seem small and surrounded. In my opinion the reason for this was to depict her to be overcome or overwhelmed by all the complicated things in the world.

Or since Fei didn’t crop off much of the higher up shelving it could be possible to show that at any moment someone could be surrounded and at any moment be toppled on, even a graceful dancer such as her.

It is easy enough to be overcome with ideas for art when you get on a roll and especially when you think about the artist and just keep asking yourself, “What does he or she mean by this?” It is almost frustrating at times, just as this piece is for me. Why did he choose this warehouse? Maybe because it was high up and has simple boxes wrapped up not to be too specific to any certain product in the world. Or maybe it was just close by and suited his idea. I rather like the latter.

Or could it have been an accident? Just something he stumbled upon and ideas started flying through his head and this is the by-product. All the more reason to look into works of art, more than what you perceive at face value.

Butterfly: Thomas Deininger's Contemporary Artwork

The contemporary artwork that I choose was Thomas Deininger’s work of art titled, Butterfly. The work is set on a light box which was built to illuminate a butterfly made from chain store plastic bags. After looking at this artwork more in-depth I realized that caution tape was used to block out the light which could symbolize how we should be concerned about polluting the environment. In this example by using plastic bags which can be harmful to what we treasure such as nature and beautiful butterflies. I feel that he is using irony to show that he used plastic which is hurting the environment to make something that is visually pleasing to an audience such as the colorful butterfly. Before researching the arts background I never realized how meaningful a picture could be or how someone could consider plastic bags and caution tape to be art. However, I now consider this to be a great piece of art full of meaning and lessons. I also enjoy the simple beauty of the piece due to the careful selection of colors he used from the plastic bags to form the butterfly.

Thomas Deininger’s background definitely influences his artwork. He is not only an artist but also an environmentalist and iconoclast. Therefore his artwork portrays his knowledge about the environment in very original and appealing traditions. He often uses untraditional materials such as; unrecyclable debris along with iconography to make his own definition of art and beauty. In this piece of art, similar to his other works, he skillfully arranges plastic bags and other nonessential material and creates an appealing image. He uses his artwork to raise questions about human consumerism and the environment by painting or using material we don’t really care about or that is harmful to the environment with something we care deeply for such as the beauty of nature and its creatures. Deininger feels that these opposites are what truly represent the world in which we live in and an honest expression of who we are in life.

This artwork is serious and addresses some very important environmental issues; however, it was also designed for viewers to enjoy and to be intrigued by. After thinking more about this artwork, I feel that he might have designed this on a light box to portray the fact that we are blocking the light and beauty of the world by harmful waste. Also, it is important to remember that in a world full of debris to still look for the beauty of nature. I feel that the cautioned tape was used to block the light to warm the viewers that this beauty might not be as prevalent in the world if we continue to harm the environment and to think about the beauty of a simple butterfly the next time you use a plastic bag or other object that is harmful for the atmosphere. I did not quite understand this work of art until I thought more carefully and researched the background of the artwork as well as the artist; however, I now see new meaning and enjoy the thought behind Butterfly. When Margot Livesely a guest columnist for the Boston Globe was discussing Josef Beuys and his globules of fat she stated, “What he was doing was boring, but also fascinating. And I began to grasp that if I watched patiently and gave up my own ideas of what made something interesting, of what made art, I had the chance to experience something profound”. After blocking out all of my judgments and ideas of what I felt was art, similar to Livesely, I was able to see the beauty and meaning behind Deininger’s artwork, which I feel can be seen in any form of art that at first doesn’t appeal to ones eye.