Do You Consider This Art?

In the same week that bankers, financiers and investors experienced “Black Monday,” controversial artist Damien Hirst held a two day auction at Sotheby’s that brought him 198.7 million dollars. The auction titled, “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever.” consisted of 223 works that he had produced over the last two years.

Death is a central theme in Hirst’s works. He became famous for a series in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep and a cow) are preserved—sometimes having been dissected—in formaldehyde. He made his name sawing up cows, pickling sheep and suspending sharks in tanks, explaining that his work is a stark meditation on life and death.

I couldn’t find any info on where Hirst got his animals, except for the shark. He wanted something “big enough to eat you” and boy did he get it. A 12 foot tiger shark, caught by an Aussie fisherman commissioned to do so for $200. That piece sold for 21 million dollars.

Preserving an animal that died naturally is different to catching and killing one for the sake of art but I guess I’m not the one laughing all the way to the bank.

Posted by thuy