- Venue
- Tate Modern
- Location
- United Kingdom
As its main attraction throughout the London 2012 games, the Tate Modern chooses the subject of its blockbuster exhibition to be a retrospective of the YBA Damien Hirst. This ever-controversial artist has the critics asking; was this the right decision? In an attempt to dodge some queues, I waited a few weekends after the exhibition opening before checking out the scene for myself.
Room 1 contains a few of Hirst’s older works; the first spot painting, a hairdryer, and a few blocks and frying pans on the wall. Inspired by minimalism, and so unlike the art the rest of the visitors and I came to see, we all rush through the first room into the next. The smell of rotting cows head greets me gently, and I turn instead to notice the vast, iconic shark floating in formaldehyde. Hirst has achieved international fame and acclaim through his record breaking, ‘shocking’ art. The problem for me is, being already too familiar with Hirst’s art; things can only be shocking once. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, better known as, ‘The Shark’, looks withered and tired. The skin droops around his eyes, and his open wide jaw seems more like a yawn than a threatening gesture. As I walk nonchalantly around his vitrine I recall vague memories of riots and protests being thrown over this piece of art (or is it art?). Such events seem like history now, as more people seem to be mindlessly attracted to watching flies obliviously fly into an insect-o-cutor.
However, the death of the shocking should not necessarily be fuel for critique of Hirst’s art. Perhaps this instant, fleeting shock factor is a representation of our busy times. Television bursts with action, newspapers aim for a quick fix, and the music charts are filled with more people I haven’t heard of than any long-standing musicians. In this age of internet and text messaging, (I’m aware I’m starting to sound like my grandma), there has become no time for subtlety. A once off ‘shock’ produced by Hirst may actually suit our busy schedules all very well, and perhaps say something valid about our society. And this reflection of society is the feat that all the great artists have achieved in the past, providing us with socio-political-cultural information in which we can look back upon previous time periods.
So maybe Hirst’s art will last longer than the cynics say. And the busyness of this exhibition proves that his popularity is not over yet. Furthermore, for as many works like cabinets of hospital equipments that fail to take my fancy, there is a work that I love to admire. Butterflies hatching on white canvases for example. Or the marble sculpture The Anatomy of an Angel which stands perfectly in front of some luminous, otherworldly stain-glass-window effect butterfly paintings. Although I challenge whether Hirst’s record-breaking Sotheby’s sale Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, 2008, would have done so well if it were held again today, people are still flocking to see his works.
As I wait to enter the butterfly room, a toddler shifts out of her buggy and takes a few awkward steps to lean up on the glass vitrine of a sheep. The toddler is clearly very amused by this work, which admittedly does look like a bit like a fluffy teddy. She bangs on the glass with her tiny palms and gargles noises at the dead creature. There is something slightly uncomfortable with this relationship between the young life and the dead animal being formed in Room 2. It also comes to my attention that the parents of the toddler seem delighted about this incident, and encourage it with a return of nonsensical cooing noises, rather than pulling those grubby fingers off a work valued at millions of pounds. I was made even more aware of this abnormal art-viewer relationship when I entered a room with a large ball hovering above a jet of air coming from a multicoloured square base, also acting as a leaning post for a group of teenagers. Museums and galleries often have a silencing effect, like a church, as people tread quietly round sanctified works. In the exhibition I saw after this one, an alarm was set off by a man who took a step too close to an installation. Here, however, there seems to be no boundaries. The art works have lost the untouchable status usually brought by museums. Perhaps Hirst has actually succeeded in his early aim to create anti-elitist works. People don’t feel daunted by the status of the art, which totally breaks down the traditional invisible viewer-artwork boundary. Or perhaps I just went at a time which also appealed to a lot of irresponsible parents. I can’t say why, but there is a different attitude taken towards these works than the works of the rest of the museum.
In this exhibition I have found myself and others not knowing quite how to react to the works. They can’t be academically broken down into layers of intricate meanings and philosophies, nor can they be ignored. Some of the works are beautiful. Some are hideously ugly. I wouldn’t argue that any of it wasn’t art, and yet people didn’t seem to be treating it as such. I think I came out knowing less about how I feel about Hirst than before I went to the retrospective. I go to the gift shop for some retail therapy to aid my confused state, but the £95 price tag on a Damien hoodie only makes things worse.
