Three's Art

14th April 2012

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Damien Hirst exhibition review

Entering the Damien Hirst exhibition was quite a strange experience in its self, having researched into him before and because of his status, I was familiar with his work and themes. Although when entering the exhibition you are shown where it all began, the first room contains his earlier works. Seeing how his ideas and work have developed over time and contemplation was really interesting in its self, almost as if you were looking at the thought process as something separate to the pieces. After this the rooms show his more recognisable and modern work featuring his spot paintings and his preserved creatures. I found the way in which the exhibition was arranged quite strange at this point. I specifically found the way in which the second and third rooms were arranged particularly strange. The way, in which the dead animal pieces are shown next to his spot paintings pieces, lead to me feeling that each idea was diminished because of the presence of the other. Because they are both such different idea’s having them so close to each other, with no real separation made it harder to appreciate each idea on its own, and in my opinion made them both less important as pieces and ideas. Even taking into account the fact it was a general exhibition of his works and not looking at any particular theme, I think that this should have been changed so that each theme was clearly separated. This I feel this would have intensified the power of each of the idea’s and made them have even more impact on the viewer. I also at this point was confronted with a piece that I disagreed with on an ethical level, it was “A Thousand Years”. The thing that I didn’t like about this piece was the way it places control over other living things for the purpose of art. The difference between this and his other works involving the death animals and creatures, is this was placing ultimate control over them. With his work (excluding “in and out of love”) the death of creatures is part of the pieces, this in its self is a controlling, but the difference is that with “A Thousand Years” he is controlling a creatures entire life cycle, and portraying that as art. I don’t think this is right as, just because we are humans we don’t have the right to have that much control over any other living thing, especially if it is just for the purposes of art. The idea Hirst has created a piece of art that its self is alive and self sufficient is an idea pushes art as a whole forward. It adds too what the context of art can be, and portrays another perspective on life, but all of this, still doesn’t in my opinion justify his complete control over the flies life’s. Further more this idea of self sufficient art is equally, and I would suggest better portrayed in his piece “in and out of love”. Here Butterflies are born and die in a gallery environment in the same way as the flies. But the difference is that the flies are in exposed to the element of death as a risk within there environment. They have a risk placed in with them within the piece that can kill them, whereas the butterflies live without this risk element. I see this as a bias based on stigma’s attached to the two creatures, as flies are seen as pests there death is seen as justifiable, where as because butterflies are seen as beautiful and attractive to see them die in the same way would be seen as cruel. I think this idea of acceptable death is something that this exhibition has used as a coherent theme through out, although I don’t see this as a positive. When at the exhibition I found my self really involved and thinking about all of the pieces, but I felt the exhibition and Hirsts work in general to be quite repetitive in theory and the physical representation of it. I felt when walking around the exhibition that it was almost as if Hirst had worked and worked, creating pieces and developing ideas that challenge and push art its self forward. But he had got to a point where he no longer needed too, his work becomes monotonous and because of this his ideas are diminished because of how many times he has reworked them. I think it can be compared to his diamond skull piece. The piece its self is beautiful, expensive and thought provoking. It is also completely physically unique, but what if it wasn’t. If there where hundred crystal skulls, and each was essentially the same, because they are all the same and all about the same idea it diminish the worth of each individual skull as an idea and a physical entity. Because of the way in which Hirst returns to and reworks the same idea’s and themes it almost feels as by creating these multiple representations based on the same idea’s he makes those idea’s themselves less important and less raw. Another thing I did not like about the exhibition was the commercial aspect of it. There is a shop in the exhibition that contained loads of merchandise containing elements of Hirsts work, these ranged from t shirts and hats to mugs and skateboards. This merchandising of his pieces again diminishes his ideas further almost bringing them to a level where they could be seen as low culture. This diminishing and commercial aspect to his work almost undoes everything that he has done for art and all of the progress he has made, there is no need for him to sell himself and his ideas out in this way. Hirsts exhibition was sold out and fully booked everyday for the first week, the cheapest ticket you can buy is 12.20, this means that there is no reason to sell himself out of his idea’s with merchandise and is in my opinion completely unjustifiably. Having a gift shop within his exhibition as the last thing you see in it, just felt to me as if it was a cruel joke about society and art its self. After his pushing things forward and exploration of art, I felt this unacceptable low blow against art and artists. Almost as if gloating about his status and position within the art world and saying “look this is what I can do and there’s nothing you can do about it”. This for me completely ruined the exhibition and turned it from an interesting and thought provoking experience into a depiction of a commercial sell-out.

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