I was going to write something about the reviews of my book but something else has caught my eye. Did you see that Damien Hirst has sold a diamond-encrusted skull for US$100 million? Really? Funny that amount. Rather round isn’t it? Reminds me of online newsletters that have 10,000 readers. Not 9,657 but 10,000 dead. Now I could be wrong about this (and I’ll apologise if I am) but I don’t believe a word of what I’m reading in the newspapers. So Damien Hirst has sold his skull to an ‘investment group’ that wishes to remain anonymous and Hirst still retains a stake in the skull?
Well I’d like to suggest that the reason that the ‘investment group’ wishes to remain anonymous is because it doesn’t exist. That’s right, this is a bit of PR puff but no newspaper has seen through it. They’ve just reprinted the press release without question. More specifically, no newspaper has the time or money to question it.
I just heard you on the radio and became interested.
I too head about that thing by Damien Hirst, I was really interested because I loved its romantic and nearly meaningless nature. There is a little more activity in this regard recently with a copy made and placed outside the gallery showing Damien’s work, as though it had been thrown out.
Here is the linke: http://www.woostercollective.com/2007/07/fucking_with_perception_hirsts_for_the_l.html
Hi – I agree with your thoughts re Damien Hirst’s diamond encrusted excrescence.
Several things occur to me: the empty gesture (the meaningless nature referred to above) has come to represent ‘meaning’; the lacunae representing the real; also, that if what you say is correct, a mock press releases announces a fictitious sale. Absences pile upon fakes and representations stand in for the real. It’s all utterly contemporary, and utterly empty. A play of mirrors that says nothing.