My Courtauld conference ended on a high note with a cocktail event at the Tate Modern and the chance of a private viewing of the controversial but incredibly popular Damian Hirst exhibition.
It is filled with a vast variety of works, ranging from the more-than-rather-dull spot paintings, through the diamante skulls to the extraordinary shark in formaldehyde from 1991, titled elaborately The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, which Charles Saatchi commissioned and then promptly sold on (wise move as the work is creepy at best).
One of the curators led us through the exhibition and was really honest about the critical value of the work, as Hirst’s wealth was valued at £215-million in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List, making him Britain’s wealthiest artist. It is not always possible to imagine why certain objects reach the price they do when viewed honestly as to the material they are made from and the market they fulfil.
Positive and negative arguments abound. Positively, Hirst has been praised in recognition of his celebrity and the way this has galvanised interest in the arts, raising the profile of British art and helping to (re)create the image of “Cool Britannia”.
On the flip side, there has been equally vehement opposition. Politician Norman Tebbit wrote: “Have they gone stark raving mad? The works of the ‘artist’ are lumps of dead animals. There are thousands of young artists who didn’t get a look in, presumably because their work was too attractive to sane people. Modern art experts never learn.”
The view of the tabloid press was summed up in the Daily Mail: “For 1 000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all.”
My thoughts: The fact that Hirst’s work does mirror society is not its strength but its weakness – and the reason it is guaranteed to decline artistically (and financially) as current social modes become outmoded.
As the sun faded we trooped out past the sculpture titled Hymn, with curious onlookers trying to fathom the value of the giant anatomical model standing on the banks of the Thames.
- Kevin was presenting a paper on fine arts education at tertiary level in South Africa at a conference organised by the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Apart from being a strategist at Flow Communications, he is a respected artist and academic.
- Read more on Kevin’s London adventures: “Bake not Fry”, “Keeping your feet dry” and “Kevin Collins presents at the great, grey, glorious Courtauld”