Jon Snow explores whether Damien Hirst's art is a 'con'
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- Опубліковано 27 бер 2012
- He's Britain's most famous artist but Damien Hirst's work is "con art" and its value like toxic debt, says Julian Spalding. Jon Snow talks to Spalding and art critic Nancy Durrant about the value of contemporary art.
When asked, what is art, Nancy Durrant says art is anything that deals with the human condition, life and death. That is a poor definition of art. Anything is art according to Nancy. Staring at my toenails and contemplating the human condition is art according to this definition.
Webster's Dictionary... something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings.
Did Damien Hurst create, for example, the shark carcass? No, but he thought of the idea and paid his team of assistants to create it. Is he the artist or the assistants? How about a wealthy man thinks of an idea for a painting, hires a painter, and gives him very detailed instructions on composition and how to paint it. Would you call the wealthy man an artist? I would consider the architect that designs a building the artist and not the construction crew.
My point is, art has become very difficult to define without disagreements. Does art need to be defined? Perhaps not, you know it when you see it.
Does Damien Hurst's work hold my attention? no.
Bravo.
You can’t even spell his name correctly. This is art. I thank you
Wonderfully put!
Damien Hirst is not an artist. He is the same like Ikea! He has about 6 studios with artists who actually paint or produce the "art". Damien comes up with an idea or a concept and other people actually creates it. Damien Hirst then adds his signature and sells it off as art. Do you want to pay £100 000 or even a million for something someone did not even make? I get it! It is outsourcing. We all know big brands have their goods made in China and then sold them under their label in Europe... but then they don't call it art.
Renier Cronje That's what Warhol ended up doing.
Renier, art is everywhere. You make art all day without knowing.
and those ideas are stolen
"Damien comes up with an idea". Not so sure. Check for instance ua-cam.com/video/7Fq4CerVEgQ/v-deo.html
@@toothbrushdaze If art is everywhere everything, why there is even w word for it ? Your definition is so broad that it's meaningless
Julian Spalding completely fucks this up. His arguments were weak as fuck. I was cringing throughout.
I came to the comments hoping for this exact sort of criticism. I completely agree!
In the same moment that you give an opinion, bad or good about Damien Hirst , you make him strong because you make him FAMOUS
You clever Italians ,I always hear insightful words from Italians..
Bought by Saatchi for peanuts, built up by the Saatchi publicity machine and then feted by the media. A licence to print money. If it hadn't been Hirst it would have been someone else.
Hirst didn't even pass his Art A level.
negara54 Good comment.
you think you need to pass a stupid fucking a level to be an artist?
@@niallll An IQ higher than yours is required however !
Psyche I could absolutely destroy all these comments with words but o don’t have the time...
@@niallll No but it does show some sort of aptitude or talent. If you can't pass it that doesn't bode well.
Yup, that's one naked emperor...
Those people who pay huge amounts of money for his work are only buying as an investment and to tell their friends " look I have a Hirst " Actually I think Hirst is brilliant in the way he can con people so easily out of their money by selling them crap they call art. He must be laughing all the way to the bank.
There is a video on youtube where Damien tries to explain the inspiration behind the shark and fails miserably. But hats of to him anyway for making a fortune from the pretentious pricks who buys his stuff.
he has animals killed in certain ways for his “art”
The Tate Modern and Hirst are both light-weight entertainers self-aggrandising and patronising
Imagine DH making bits of sculpture out of the rubbish or something in obscurity in a council flat. He would be regarded as eccentic, maybe a bit scary to parents of kids or even mentally ill. However if a rich marketing expert takes him and puts his stuff in a big clean white painted atheistic holy space of art then he becomes not just sane and socially attractive but really insightful and probably sexually attractive. ;). Money eh?
Hirst has organised the scene, placed it and allowed one to observe it. It doesn’t matter what you label as art as long as the label is under art as it ships off.
Why do so many attach such ego to other people's art? Why are "hard work" and "effort" on part of the artist seen as fundamental elements of the art piece itself? Why should they determine the quality of a piece? It seems it is a thing of jealousy. But you are only limiting your world and others by spreading such a negative outlook on art. I promise that you would enjoy life/art a lot more without assigning such strict guidelines and qualifications to it. Let go, and look for the good in things, people!
Fine then. I will literally dip my genetelia into paint and then touch a canvas with it. Give me money.
Its because Damien has made millions from this "art" If Hirst was dead broke, no one would be giving a fuck.
VAD6909 He made millions because they DO give a duck
Same thing with Tracey Emin and her messy bed and her tent. Also Uri Geller, the con-man who 'bends' spoons.
It's not art,it's Statues used to Symbolise Hirsts own personal Statements.The only reason people see his work is to sed what all the fuss is about as he has bedn turned into a household brand name artist,but i dare say they never go back.It's not his fault,Damien himself has been wrongly misled into thinking his work has significant substance as art.My advice is sell up now.
I agree, it's good marketing on his part not art in my opinion
More and more people should see through his work !!!!! But there’s one born every minute !!!and they all deserve each other
It is art and its up to the individual to assign how good it is and its value. If this guy hates it than he is right if she likes it then she is right.
I personally don't get excited about his stuff or feel moved by it..
There are a few things I like by Hirst. I don't blame Hirst for cashing in on stupid rich people's artistic ideals. Hirst is one of the biggest trolls, and gains my respect for duping the elite art culture. His contribution to the art world is going to be recognized as showing how vacuant the art elite are in evaluating good art.
its true its true !!!!!!
Tom F Park if he came out and said that, maybe.
Duchamp did it first, and better.
You changed my mind. Hirst is actually genius
Julian is always right and has the guts to speak out. Mr. Hirst has majored on PR. But PR has nothing to do with 'art'. Just as E. Sitwell had nothing to do with poetry. The media, in its ignorance, and the auction houses, in their's, just choose to promote such charlatans, in order to manufacture profit. I've never understood why the contemporary British art market should be dictated to by such a type as Charles Saatchi. It is to the shame of institutions such as Tate that they have connived in the promotion of trendy so-called art - rubbish. Thank you 'Sir' N. Serota. A prime example of the kind of apparatchik who bedevils the appreciation of genuine 'art' in the UK. Thank God history is bound to condemn them. Sadly, there is no aesthetic court in which such cultural criminals can be called to account.
Hirst and the YBA came about in the 1990's and it seemed that it was more about being an art arena jester, rather than art. This in turn helped inspire the stuckists which was a bit of a revolt to this. The only other group I can think of from that era, lesser known, but still has chops are these guys: www.goodreads.com/book/show/40096551-three-essays-about-massurrealism?from_search=true
Is it art? I’m not sure anymore about anything, 2020 made me question everything and it’s carried on in 2021. Take care x
This segment seems as strained as a sketch from Not the Nine O'Clock News without the jokes.
art is communication. A language of the highest order. if you need critics and curators' rhetoric (like mediatrix to understand the trinity) to convey your message, idea or emotion, it is worthless. true artists today die in the streets. literally.
Everything is art. Some just might not be your cup of tea.
😃
Damien Hirst actually claimed his work was a ;tongue in cheek' slap in the face for pretentious buyers.The 'Dots' was a brilliant example. ( in the 1950's the very same coloured dots formed fabric design for tablecloths!!!)
So...Nancy Durrant agrees with Julian Spalding .
If the artist is unable to create their art using their own hands they are not an artist.
lt's an investment vehicle.
There's no such thing as 'art' in a physical sense. There are sculptures, Objects, paintings, installations, soundscapes, etc. The artist can have an artistic intention, but only when the piece meets the audience and the audience has an art experience, does it become art, just that moment. That's why art are different Things for different People; there's no objective definition of art or non-art. When it comes to craftmanship, quality, composition etc, that's somewhat different and can be judged by merits closer to something objective.
50, 100, or 200 years from now people will still be talking about ‘A thousand years”. You, Julian Spalding, will have only disappeared into the aether. That piece alone is much more powerful than a urinal and that gave Duchamp a place in history. If you can’t get conceptual art, there is no saving you Mr Spalding. ‘It’s not art because it’s all in your head’ IS precisely the point... you are simply showing your narrow-mindedness.
Getting into what is art will ruin any debate , there is no answer
It's art Jim, but not as we know it!
Speaking of Bacon, I was disappointed that the documentary about him called "A Brush with Violence" included interviews with Damien Hirst.
I thought the guy on the balcony was going to talk about Craig-Martin's 'An Oak Tree', but no...
Here's a thought: If I want to see and know about the insides of an actual shark (or any type of animal), I would rather go to a science museum that specializes in zoology.
Not an art museum nor an art exhibit.
The man was very right , it is not art
Well Tracy Emin`s unmade bed was/is considered art by many, though its not my cup of tea. American artist Jeff Koons does these massive balloons, I’m not that keen on them either. Banksy I find some of his stuff amusing and playful though essentially its mainly stencils he seems to do. Hurst, I’m not a gig fan of the dead animals stuff, some of his things I find interesting. The thing is its all subjective. If someone tells me a joke that I dont find funny, it does not mean it is not a joke. Though many will find certain art to be just that.
Ha ha, of course it's a con, as is much 'art'.
Damien hirst is like me banging on some pots and pans and calling it music. It isn’t.
art is now for collectors not for "us" We're going backwards in time when art is for the rich pampered yayhoos.
First of all, why the glass of water, grandpa?
I don't care much for Damien Hirst, BUT...
Both of these "art critics" sound ignorant; they fail to back up their claims. I know defining art is a complex sport in itself, but the woman's definition of art is rather inaccurate (vague and narrow). And don't start me with the grandpa. He keeps saying the same thing over and over without any explanation as to why it's not art. It's clear that it's just his opinion. His opinion could very well be correct, but it's his inability to explain it what makes him sound stupid.
It gets very shaky when people try to define what Art is or isn't. Lets just say that some artists these days are built up out of all proportion by an elite who have a vested interest in creating the hype, and subsequently the artists become household names but nobody really knows why.
Im sympathetic to both sides. Im not going to generalize all conceptual/modern Art, but if the shark in the tank is considered some sort of holy grail of conceptual Art, then im sorry, you've failed to convince me. Yes, you can interpret its meaning, like in all Art, but there has to be a craft, there has to be some of the artist in it. Also, if the shark is just there to represent the idea it is conveying, why are people buying it for extortionate amounts? I can understand buying a painting or something someone has actually put themselves into, but in conceptual Art the very premise is that the Art is the idea, and therefor no craft or ability is required. Why dont people just put their own sharks into tanks? if it is only there to represent the ideas it sparked when you saw Hirsts shark.
You hit the nail on the head. Some of the best artists out there today are unrecognized amateurs who paint and sculpt for the love of it.
Conceptually speaking: If Art is used as a stem of a word, the prefix we can use here would be a letter 'F'. Now that would really be a fitting title -- as it stinks..(literally). I guess only time will tell. Meanwhile STEAMPUNK rocks!
If you want to criticize Hirst's work or that of any artist, you have to do better than say "If I like it, it's art. If I don't, it isn't." That's what nearly all of the criticism of his stuff boils down to. If someone found profound meaning in his dissected cow, would they be "wrong" or would they be seeing something in it that you didn't? What's wrong with just saying that you simply don't care for particular works or artists? That's really all that's required.
An intellectually barren argument on both sides. Neither one is up to it, and this venue is inadequate anyway even if they were.
In 2020 - 21 Hirst is more popular than ever! These soothsayers of Art conflict with those who can't get enough of his work. Con Art is a major theme of the art book - There is NO F in ART by Eli Castelli - the reader gets to make up their own minds whether it is art....
Conceptual art is art.
And the art market is its own thing, it is not the art making.
calls himself an art critic and gives no reason as to why Damien Hirst is not an artist, uuuh ok
you know nothing jon snow..................
You bastard!
it's all biscuits really
A pickled shark in formaldehyde, and the critic is swimming in gin and tonic. None has to be taken too seriously.
Nancy Durrant's hair says it for her really " look at me everybody -look - look - I'm somebody in " ART " - I must be - look at my hair.
She eats Hirst farts!
that's a large glass of vodka
Hirst is a con artist, Johannes Vermeer is an artist.
4:24 Fried bacon is art
"...this sad, wrinkled, ex-shark..." Robert Hughes
"Art has to be...."
Art has the amazing ability to not follow a framework. People like Julian Spalding are the residual of an art world that fit their very conservative, windowless box.
Ooooo dots !!!! Fantastic lol spin paintings ooooo so clever lol
Believed until I saw Mickey Mouse and what I thought was a cyborg.
Agreed Hirst, is merely product...as opposed to anything else.
And Warhol did it first, and better.
Spalding's argument is flawed here..
With all due respect to Ms. Spalding, this is simply nonsense. If everything is art, nothing is art. I've just decided that her hairdo is art and, despite the fact I neither created it nor do I own it, I'm offering it for sale. Pay me, Art World, pay me.
3:49 Go to a third world abattoir & you'll see your interpretation of art thousands of times a day.
Of course it's art, of course Hirst is an artist. This dude has a bone w conceptualism, not w Hirst.
Maybe - but then maybe he's not very good at it. The problem I have with modern art/conceptual art/performance art etc is that anyone can do it. What happened to skill and expertise learned through years of training and practice. The ability to paint/sculpt or make great music doesn't just pop into existence from nowhere.
@@snakeplissken526 The ability to make great music kinda does sometimes :/
@@propername4830 Maybe the inspiration does, but not the craftmanship.
he's not going to win his argument, I see what he means though. its not good enough to have an idea, like hirst had, which he then gave to a team to create. you've got to take that idea and build it yourself, shape it and mould it into art. anyone can have an idea, in the same way that anyone can pluck a string on a guitar, but only an artist can visualise the idea and only a musician can play that guitar. another thing, his work is called 'modern', will it still be modern in 20years time. what will we really remember? Damien hirst, fantastic artist full of controversy? or Damien hirst, that guy who put a shark in a tank and made millions. honestly I used to hate the man but over time you've got to look at what he did, conned everyone, selling banal work and making millions, that was his art!
aha, fair comment. In History of Art 'Modernism' is anything from 1890 on pretty much.
Some great composers could not actually play their pieces themselves due to a lack of technical skills. Still makes this compositions a piece of art and him an artist.
So if Damien's 'All things Dead' shows are art.....then that must mean any old trophy hunter from Africa killing and mounting a stuffed animal wasn't a hunter....he was an artist? Or take a giant Marlin fish mounted on the wall.....art or trophy? It is really silly.......
It’s art! But he gets too much money for it.
He is probably the greatest living (con)artist. Like a lot of other so called artists and sculptors has an idea then employs true artists to actually do the work. Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Anthony Gormley, Joseph Hillier, Simon Thomas to mention a few. “Conceptual Art” is a sick joke. The best you can call yourselves are designers not artists.
Uri Geller
Damien Hirst: Scamming one rich person at a time.
Should be his slogan.
Did I just see the lady that Jordan Peterson gracefully destroyed?
Is conceptual art art? Yes. In the same way the photography is art. However, the vast majority of it sitting in today's galleries are unrated, unqualified, stupefyingly pretentious, elitist garbage (some literally garbage!), if not just marketed shock, publicity pieces that puts even Hollywood to shame!
Hello what's the definition of
Art
A critic
Censorship
Art police alert!
Yes!
tomorrow I'll wake up and call myself an artist. I'll take an empty jar and fill it with live worms, then I'll close it but leaving some hols so they can stay alive. Then I'll take it at an exhibition and call this "a meditation on the hardships of life" while the worms drop dead by starving or cannibalize each other, who knows? If I find an idiot like Saatchi I may be in for a rich life and never bother about actual art again.
I'm not an expert of what art is, but I'm pretty sure a jar of worms, or a dead shark in a cage, are just an insult to actual craft.
Just to put things in perspective, I don't know what Hirst installation are supposed to communicate. The only thing I can do while watching his shark, or the dead cow, or the thousands butterflies he killed to make a statement about decay, is ponder wether authorities will ever wake up and put him in prison for animal cruelty.
idk what's art anymore. Like how could some weird looking painting that looked like it was painted by a 3 y/o be worth so much money? I mean I wont be surprised that the next great art piece is a piece a paper smeared with shyt labelled "Bioweapon" be worth a couple million dollars.
In the modern world where people are famous for being famous and make millions out of it, is Damian Hurst just cashing in on his notoriety. Anything you could get from his dot paintings was surely done by the likes of Mondrian and Rothko 60 or 70 years ago. His spiral paintings were a joke. Has this guy got any great insights or is he just coming up with goofy ideas and passing it off as something meaningful? Banksy you can relate to, Gormley you can relate to. You don't have to be an art expert to get meaning from their work. Hurst you have to do an o'level in art BS to get anything out of it at all...
Art business man 👴
This didn't age very well. A bunch of dots os not art and does not make anyone reflect on any important issues apart from futility and tiktok!
It is
Black Sun by Hirst is one of the best artworks I've ever seen honestly. So I don't really care for people who say it's not art at all.
Not every artist makes their own works by themselves. It's never questioned when a musician or filmmaker has a crew make nearly the whole thing for them. Why should a painting be any different.
Good work if you can get it
The real art is the result of years of improving a skill and refine the craft, not ideas like pining insectes on a wall or fill a sheet of paper with dots of color. Thats meaningless and worthless. Pure ideology not art.
You need to get explore that?
"you know nothing, Jon Snow..."
He stole John LeKay’s things
Art is the crisis of art
I would not pay a nickel to see that sh#t.
What a joke. The very reaction to his works is what makes his work art.
"this isn't art!!! REEEEEEEEE" every person ever who is for some reason threatened by art that doesn't appeal to them. who even CARES whether it's "art" or not?? this argument is so stupid and pointless because everyone is going to define it differently. now whether it's GOOD or BAD or why you don't like it is a far more interesting and productive conversation to have. You are 100% allowed to not like certain art but For The Love of God please stop bickering over whether something is art or not.
Here. here.... the ones who deny he's an artist or that's art should be sayin, "he doesn't deserve to get paid that much for that garbage!" lol. If the art world tells them Damien Hirst is worth this much, they write a cheque. The art world is a sham, they create it to inflate their net worth through insurance appraisals, and then borrow more to invest in businesses it's the same with gems and jewelry.
I thought a few of the pieces in his 'unbelievable' show were amazing. I was definitely looking at ART. I'd say the credit goes to whoever conceptualized the idea of construct and materials, specs etc. It's hard to convey an image of what he wants the final product to look like. But he's gonna try, and keep overseeing and giving instruction, because if he says I want a 20 ft tall humanoid alien, 1. he's not going to stop there, he's going to say, "headless, in this position. reaching out holding his head. etc." 2. If he did, he's not going to accept a headless statue reaching out holding his head, when he just wanted a figure standing there. He may go into deep exquisite detail in his instructions, he may not, but at some point the craftsmen are just that, craftsmen. The labor to build that piece may be an acquired art which takes years to master but that is a different kind of art, of which there are many. To think of building that, to acquire that image in your head to express something is another totally different kind of art.
And I think most importantly, it is a cool fkn piece! I enjoy it, it gives something to me. I'm just thankful it is in the world.
peace
imo it's science not art.
yes it is art 'cuz it pisses people off ..meow.
He,s good at copying & plaigerising other peoples work ... He isn't an original artist , period
IT IS ART! It just isn't great art.
im the next big thing, rico1_art on facebook look
Yes. He isn't.
Con-ceptual based art does have its place in art history but I believe it will be tied in with the history of the "art market" rather than art evolution. Hirst's work come at a time in which there was huge amounts of excess money, of which was also false, as in a false economy - and thus the world had never had more millionaires in human history. This created a bubble among the millionaires who all wanted to outdo each other with a product that only the rich could buy. Art was the perfect tool for that. Hirst's work my not be art but it is interesting and so when you are someone who has infinite amounts of money you are not necessarily interested in art but in something that you find interesting. In that way Hirst's work could well be a flash in the pan and represent the strange era of the at market. Time will show but I do think we have a clue as to how it might all turn out. In an interview with the famous billionaire art collector; AB Rosen, he said; "Art has become stale. We are all waiting for the next Picasso but there does not seem to be one in sight"
What mr Rosen fails to appreciate is that it is he and his billionaire friends who are responsible for creating the environment where a new Picasso can't ever get into the art world. An artist like Picasso creates because they have the inbuilt need to create. It is why they exist. In a world in which art is created based on money, that art would be created for the sake of capitalism rather than the sake of creation. The result would be two different things. The first is art, the second is a product.
subjective
objective
modern "art"
She was out of her depth.
Totally agree.. So overrated.. his latest work is really boring.