in one of my classes a couple months ago we were encouraged to discuss this one art piece called the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living, aka, bigass shark in a tank of formaldehyde.
damien hirst is an english “artist” who was commissioned to do basically whatever by someone with more money than one person should be allowed to possess. so hirst hired someone off the coast of queensland to catch and kill a shark. hirst stuck the shark in a ton of formaldehyde and has been congratulated for making a controversial art piece ever since. eventually, due to the shittily performed preservation of the shark, it started to rot and change the color of the solution, so, funded by yet another disgustingly rich person, hirst hired another fisherman in queensland to catch and kill another shark. there’s much hubbub about whether or not this counts as “art” and that’s what the professor wanted us to talk about. is it art? why or why not?
i honestly don’t know if she liked my take on it, but i got full credit.
i think the use of a corpse as an art installation is grotesque and disconcerting, and i understand that this guy takes great pleasure in the knowledge that people like me find his art to be grotesque and disconcerting. he likes that it provokes conversation. but here's the thing: just because something is controversial doesn't mean it's worth keeping around. the reason the professor brought up this particular “piece” (piece of what?) is because the topic was death as a theme in art. and the title would imply that he’s making some statement about the fear of confronting mortality. but i actually think that when it comes to this particular piece, the question of mortality is neither here nor there. i don't think hirst is making any statements about death.
what message is he trying to convey by making this?
first of all, sharks are highly stigmatized animals, and as a result they're endangered. both sharks were caught and killed specifically for the purpose of this exhibit. second of all, the entire process - from hiring someone to catch the shark to having the shark injected with and submerged in formaldehyde - cost about $108,000 of his art patron's money. his specifications for the sharks he chose were that they be "big enough to eat you.” so far the whole project seems destructively shallow and meaninglessly performative to me.
hirst claims the saatchi gallery (saatchi was his initial patron, and the reason this stupid thing exists) added bleach to the solution the shark was suspended in, which is what caused the shark to rot. whether that’s true or not, i don’t care. the point is that this genius chose to blow another hundred grand (of someone else's money, of course) having another shark killed and preserved.
and I think the biggest clincher is the fact that this guy continues to cash in on this one idea: his mainstay is just dead animals in formaldehyde. he's done cows, he's done sheep, and he even did a guppy. so that brings me back to my original question: what's hirst's message? answer: there fucking isn't one. he has nothing of interest to say about death; when he's asked about the projects all he does is wander around boasting about keeping dead things and how much it all costs. he's conducting these projects because he can. he has the fiscal resources and the free time to do it, so he's doing it.
environmental irresponsibility aside, these things provide nothing but shock value and illegal amounts of formaldehyde fumes. aside from the brief scientific interest of being able to examine a shark up close, there's just nothing interesting about this. it's boring, it's crass, and it's pointless. he has nothing of value to contribute to the art community, and if he wasn't "making art," the environment would actually be better off. the fact that it got people talking is the most generous thing you can say about it.
i think the biggest marker of art is intent. there has to be some kind of intent. whether it matches how it's perceived by the public or not, it has to be made with some kind of purpose. hirst has no purpose. he just thinks it's exciting and he likes the attention. it's just a huge waste steeped in entitlement and imperialism. i mean, honestly. a hundred grand. this is why the french killed the aristocracy. do y’all know what somebody could do with a hundred thousand dollars? instead, we’re killing vulnerable/endangered animals because we think it’ll be super edgy to stick em in a tank. fuck you, damien. you and the dirty rich fucks who paid you to do this can choke.
if we’re gonna talk about art that uses death as a motif, let’s go with this one:
rupaul’s drag race, season 7, episode 6, “ru hollywood stories,” runway challenge: death becomes her. see that? like hirst, comedy drag queen yekaterina petrovna zomolodchikova has also used a shark in a creation related to death. isn’t it funny that of the two, the classier one that successfully conveys a narrative is the one covered in sequins? i mean, i’m not surprised by that, because drag queens don’t typically reach notoriety by being so disgusting, stinking rich that they can do literally whatever, so they have to actually come up with and then execute ideas by their own merit, but meh
