Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Embarrassing art that sells



"You do turn round after a few years and look at your stuff and you think it's embarrassing."

"Some of my spin paintings I think are a bit silly."

Not all his bad ideas have come to fruition. "I was toying with the idea of putting vibrators all over a pig and I was going to call it pork you pine," he said. "I didn't do it."

"People come up to me sometimes and say 'You're in a position where you could put a dog poo onto a lobster and call it art.' But why would I? Why would somebody do something stupid like that?"
The above quotes come from Damien Hirst, an immensly successful (and reasonably controversial) artist whose works have sold for up to $2 million [correct that. that's $13 million].
Though Hirst has many critics, he is generally being justified in nearly everything he does. It is nice to know the artist himself doesn't go that far (here is the original article where the quotes come from). Although he definitely defends some of his most known works (like the below work, called). As does the humble author of this blog.


PS: One more quote:
"You can buy drinks for all the collectors in the world and get your stuff in the (museums), but in 200 years' time if it's crap, it's not going to be there, is it?"
Now, I don't mean to be a bad boy again, but doesn't that put an interesting light on how Mr.Hirst got his "stuff in the museums" in the first place? (And what drinks were those, by the way?)