DAMIEN HIRST
• British, 1965 – present
• Since 1987, 80+ solo and
250 group exhibitions
worldwide
• 1991 – ‘Natural History’
series
• 1995 – Awarded Turner Prize
• Special exhibition at Tate
Modern this year
DAMIEN HIRST: ‘THE PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY
OF DEATH IN THE MIND OF SOMEONE LIVING’
HIRST’S COMMENTARY ON THE PIECE
•
“I wanted to make it so that you walk into a gallery and are confronted by
something that would tap into your real fears, genuine things that you’re afraid
of…A painting of a shark would never have done it for me” [INT. 1].
•
“[Death] is every artist’s main theme…There isn’t really anything else. It just
depends how far you stand back from it…You try and avoid it, but it’s such a big
thing that you can’t” [INT. 1].
•
“The difference between art about death and actual death is that one’s a
celebration and the other’s a dull fact…You can frighten people with death or an
idea of their own mortality, or it can actually give them vigour, and they can go
away and appreciate their lives more” [INT. 1].
STYLE & METHOD OF CREATION
• Funding:
• Funded by Charles Saatchi
• In 1991, Saatchi offered to pay for whatever art Hirst wanted to
create
•
•
•
•
Materials:
Tank of painted steel and glass, divided into three cubes
Formaldehyde
13-foot tiger shark, caught in Queensland, Australia
In total, the piece weighs 23 tons and cost 50,000 pounds.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT & ART-HISTORICAL
MOVEMENT
• Britart or Young British
Artists (YBAs) – London,
1988
• Shocking, controversial
• Backed by Charles Saatchi
• Brought new life and
energy to British art
• Damien Hirst played
leading role in the group,
as well as Tracey Emin –
“My Bed”
“AWAY FROM THE FLOCK”
“THE DREAM”
CONTROVERSY
The Stuckists
• Eddie Saunders – 1989,
electrical supply store window
display
• The “original” shark – “A Dead
Shark Isn’t Art”
• Why didn’t it get the
recognition and praise as
groundbreaking art that Hirst’s
shark received?
LANGER AT A GLANCE
Langer’s definition of art:
“A work of art is an expressive FORM
created for our perception through sense
or imagination, and what it EXPRESSES
is human feeling” (168).
FORM
•
Remember logical form – the abstract sense of
“form,” or the articulation of the whole (169).
•
Logical form is “abstractable,” as we often
intuitively perceive it (170).
•
Expressive form – “any perceptible or
imaginable whole that exhibits relationships of
parts…so that it may be taken to represent
some other whole whose elements have
analogous relations” (170).
•
The intuitiveness of the process of
understanding A through B leads to a difficulty
sometimes in distinguishing symbol B through
what it conveys of A (170).
LIMITS OF FORM
•
Height of symbolic representation? Language - use is
called discourse, the pattern of which is termed discursive
form.
•
But, discursive form is limited to that which can be
verbally expressed.
•
The “subjective aspect” or “direct feeling” of experience
defies verbal expression, but plays a central role in
experience (171).
•
Discourse is limited to identifying these with generics:
‘love,’ ‘hate,’ ‘fear,’ etc.
•
How does human communication accommodate for such
expression? Metaphor, and the use of symbolic form –
“the principle of saying one thing and meaning another,
and expecting to be understood to mean the other” (171).
EXPRESSIVENESS
•
Expression in art need not be symptomatic – i.e., artist
composing a tragedy need not be despairing (172).
•
Self-expression of the most lucid nature is actually often
artistically undesirable (172).
•
Rather, “A work of art presents feeling…for our contemplation,
making it visible or audible or in some way perceivable through
a symbol…What is artistically good is whatever articulates and
presents feeling to our understanding” (172).
•
Form in this sense is not “abstractable,” as the feeling
presented in a good work of art seems “to be directly
contained in it…The congruence is so striking that symbol and
meaning appear as one reality” (172).
•
In this way, the artist “objectifies the subjective realm,”
expressing “not his own actual feelings, but what he knows
about human feeling” (173).
DAMIEN HIRST: ‘THE PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY
OF DEATH IN THE MIND OF SOMEONE LIVING’
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARTICLES:
“Damien Hirst.” Damien Hirst. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.
http://www.damienhirst.com/.
Langer, Susanne. “Expressiveness.” Art and Interpretation. Ed. Eric Dayton. Ontario:
Broadview, 1998. 168-73. Print.
The Stuckists. “A Dead Shark Is Not Art.” The Stuckism Website. N.p., n.d. Web. 26
Nov. 2012. http://www.stuckism.com/Shark.html.
“Young British Artists.” Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_British_Artists.
***All images and information not identified to be from one of the additionally
enumerated sources came from Damien Hirst’s official website.
BIBLIOGRAPHY, CONT.
IMAGES:
1.
N.d. Photograph. Wasp Reporter. Intelligent Life Magazine. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
http://www.waspreporter.nl/waspreporter/209841/.
2.
N.d. Photograph. White Water Valley Arts Fusion. Web. 25 Nov. 2012.
http://www.whitewatervalleyartsfusion.com/images/artist_sketch.jpg.
3.
Replogle Livingston 12-inch Diam. Tabletop Globe. N.d. Photograph. Worldglobes.com. Web. 25
Nov. 2012. http://www.worldglobes.com/tabletop-globes/traditional/livingstonworldglobe.cfm.
4.
My Bed. N.d. Photograph. Saatchi Gallery. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. http://www.saatchigallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/tracey_emin_my_bed.htm.
5.
Susanne Langer. N.d. Photograph. Krd24’s Blog. New Jersey Institute of Technology, 27 Sept.
2010. Web. 25. Nov. 2012.
https://blogs.njit.edu/krd24/2010/09/27/susanne-k-langer/.
INTERVIEWS:
1.
Sooke, Alastair. “Damien Hirst: ‘We’re Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time.’” The Telegraph.
N.p., 08 Jan. 2011. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artfeatures/8245906/Damien-Hirst-Were-here-for-a-good-time-not-a-long-time.html.