My 10 year old daughter Agnes, went to the preview for the Damien Hirst exhibition
at Sotherby’s yesterday. She doesn’t have a blog yet so it really didn’t occur to her to take a digital camera. Anyway she got to meet the man, and have a snoop at the enormous body of work that will begin to be flipped under the hammer tonight at 7.30. I asked her if there were any works she liked in particular ‘no dad’ she replied ‘ it was rubbish’. Got to love the honesty of kids.

Actually it got me thinking that age 10 is about the time I saw my first Warhols up close. I was amazed at the realness of them. What I had seen as very graphically represented, postcard images in print were suddenly alive, the depth of the paint, slight overlaying of colors, pencil marks and dirty finger prints here and there, it was fantastic. These were not just images, they were objects, made in New York, by a human.

When someone buys a piece of work from an artist, they are actually buying a piece of the artist first, the actual object is just a visual reciept. Surely it is the personality of the artist that you are investing in. Damiens works are to most people way out of reach, even the apparently keen estimates are likely to be easily breached. It is acknowleged that there are finacial woes in both the U.S and the U.K right now, however it is proved in the past that the art markets are usually 12 to 18 months behind and spending on art at these prices is unlikely to be affected. Add that to the incredible wealth of the emerging economies in Asia and Russia (which is where most of this stuff will probably end up) then there is no reason it shouldnt be a success.  Which brings me back to Hirst, who has realised this on a killer scale. His personality has gone beyond putting works into galleries, getting reviewed, selling works on the strength of there aesthetic or conceptual quality, instead he is offering up himself, direct mail, the Cath Kidstone of one eyebrow raised conceptual self improvement, a mirror made of money, a souvineer of the space shuttle before it explodes….

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 12:33 and is filed under recession, deadliest catch, Missiles, art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.