It’s sort of fun to watch art, music, and fashion critics discuss the work that they have been so entrusted by the public at large to preside over. It almost becomes a sort of game for the discriminating spectator. Words like avant-garde, bohemian, punk, and alternative are tossed around like they actually meant something. They did exist, for a time, when the works themselves defined the meaning of the movement. These days the strict definition of the movement defines, and thus limits, the work. Where there was once substance below the aesthetic surface of an artistic piece, there now lies only a desire to achieve substance simply by its association with a movement. Renowned British artist Damien Hirst’s work helps to restore some lost meaning and to wipe the dust off a few of these catch-all phrases, rediscovering them like forgotten attic treasures. Hirst is one of the artists spearheading a contemporary movement that is quickly gaining (for better or worse) quite a reputation for its practitioners. He formally emerged in 1991 organizing a controversial exhibition entitled Freeze, which helped to firmly establish the names of Hirst and several of his contemporaries onto the lips of the art world who have now come to be known as the YBAs (young British artist).
Along with Hirst, these artists do not shy away from notoriety, possessing full knowledge that nothing new is ever created through complacency; you have to shake a few branches to get at the fruit. As a refinement of this approach, Hirst’s work defies easy classification, which is exactly what it should be. His pieces evoke mixed reactions in equally opposite extremes; often both repulsive and alluring, perverse and beautiful, simple in concept and yet deeply textured in execution.
The first, and arguably most striking, piece in Hirst’s exhibit is titled Away From the Flock-1994. It is appropriate that this is the introductory piece to Hirst’s work as it is an ideal representation of one of the main ideas and frequently used themes of Hirst’s, and it is presented in a very simple, straightforward, and therefore, most impressionable way. Away From the Flock is a constructed meter-high steel and glass casing filled with formaldehyde and a lamb’s carcass suspended in the fluid. Probably one’s immediate reaction is that of denial, that it is an artificially constructed lamb. We are more accustomed to art being a reflection or appropriation of the material world, but Away appears to show Hirst using the material world as a reflection of art. But, this is simply a logical extension of artistic achievements; expressionism demonstrated that paint need not be simply a medium for expression, but that it could also be the subject. Once the visibility of the brush stroke (or wipe, or drip, or splatter, or some other means) could be appreciated on its own, suddenly all art became conceptual (as if it weren’t all along). Hirst simply put down the animal-hair paint brush, and instead picked up the actual animal (mounted it, encased it, and dropped it in formaldehyde).
But, Away possesses greater maturity and aims higher than simply pushing the limits of our expectations; there is an unavoidable religious connotation in Hirst’s use of a sheep as his object of artistic sacrifice. He notes, “I didn’t want to believe in God. But I suddenly realized that my belief in art is really similar to believing in God.” His sense of faith in art comes through in his work, which, though subversive, is built on a belief of forwarding art, not jaded contempt for it.
As his next pair of pieces, Judgment Day, 2003 and The Unbearable Likeness of Being, 2003, both contain more appropriated deceased organic material, there develops a clear link between Hirst’s acts of creation and their unavoidable precedent of destruction. Judgment Day and The Unbearable bring this duality to the foreground. The Unbearable Likeness of Being is an example perfect symmetry: hundreds of butterfly wings disembodied then mounted into an exquisite pattern of overwhelming color and detail. It’s undeniable splendor is somewhat soured by a sense of the tragic; Hirst sure does seem to like to kill a lot of beautiful creatures. Judgment Day shows us that our sympathy is relative. Made up of a dense haphazard arrangement of thousands of flies trapped in a thick mass of black resin on canvas, the piece is almost the antithesis of The Unbearable. It is unattractive, smelly (partly due to the resin), and simply repulsive. Where is our sympathy for these creatures? Destruction, for the sake of creation, is inevitable.
But this doesn’t mean that there is no room for humor in Hirst’s work. In fact, as one walks by and reads the title cards on pieces such as The Collector, 2003-04, one starts to get the feeling that Hirst is deliberately trying to get the most humorous items into his list of materials. The Collector is a triumph of Hirst’s vision, essentially an instillation piece enclosed in glass and screen containing, among other things: live butterflies, sand, broken bottles, microscopes, humidifiers, cut flowers, rotting fruit, laboratory glassware, pig’s blood, cocktail sticks, and an anatomical toy. Centered in the middle of this constructed mess is an animatronic man, programmed to move so subtly that it appears so life-like that many will believe it is an actual living human being. The mere thought of a human trapped for the sake of art is, frankly, horrifying. But why are the butterflies acceptable? The formaldehyde sheep tolerable?
As I first walked into this exhibit there just happened to be several groups of small children intrigued with the surrounding art work, immediately followed by some rather open-minded parents who appeared to be not quite sure of the age-appropriateness of Hirst’s pieces. There does seem to be something just not quite right with the work, but it is difficult to place a finger on it. One leaves the exhibit asking more questions than gaining answers. Perhaps, Hirst has found a vision worthy of the term “avant-garde,” and it’s just a matter of time before we, and the majority of the knuckle-dragging art community, are able to catch up with him. A Selection of Works by Damien Hirst will be showing at the MFA Foster Gallery from now till April 24. Go to www.MFA.org for more info.
