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Course: Global cultures 1980–now > Unit 1
Lesson 6: Young British Artists and art as commodity- Jeff Koons, Pink Panther
- The YBAs, The London-based Young British Artists
- Tracey Emin, My Bed
- Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary
- Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
- Marc Quinn, Self
- Hans Haacke, Seurat's 'Les Poseuses' (small version)
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Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
Beth Harris, Sal Khan and Steven Zucker discuss the Damien Hirst sculpture, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, and issues of interpretation. Created by Beth Harris, Steven Zucker, and Sal Khan.
Want to join the conversation?
- Is there any modern art that is critically acclaimed but is also beautiful in the conventional sense? Is there any modern art that is not nihilistic?(66 votes)
- I think in order for modern painting to be beautiful in the "conventional" sense it has to first be "conventional," ie: since there isn't yet a modern style that is appreciated widely enough to set that convention, everything we see in galleries is either unconventional and tentative, or it follows the conventions of a style that was developed in an other era.
But while every period produces fantastic new artforms, no period produces great art in every medium. Our architecture, photography, and film achievements are pretty amazing, for example.(10 votes)
- Does any one know why the "old style" of art is being kind of ignored these days? I've heard something about photography making it unnecessary, but it never made much sense to me, specially if art isn't about copying the world perfectly. I tend to like art that shows a scene or a landscape, and I'm not a big fan of abstract. So I'd like to know why people seem to think the abstract need to exclude the conventional.(18 votes)
- This question can not be answered definitively. I think it can be said that human beings like figures that are abstracted in some way. Maybe it stimulates our mind. But I also believe that figurative abstractions and purely abstract art are overdone these days. I know that some artists say that the abstract is so much easier to do, that more product can be produced and thus more sold. That may be a little harsh, but it does have some truth in it.(21 votes)
- Sometimes I think the titles are what makes something art. This could have been called "Shark Tank" or "Thing I killed" or "Big angry thing with lots of teeth," and people would nod and walk by. But call it "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living," and it's very deep and you pause and consider it way more than if the title was boring. Is it the title that makes it art, or would it still be art if Hirst had named it "Shark Tank?"(14 votes)
- Sometimes it's the intention of the creator that makes a piece art, sometimes it's the act of creating that makes it art, sometimes it's the result of the creating that makes it art, sometimes it's the reaction of the public that makes it art. I don't believe I've ever seen a title make something into art, but I do think the title sometimes conveys an idea/concept and thus the intention of the creator. But that's my personal opinion.(4 votes)
- Can the unintended consequences of art be considered part of the artist's creation or part of our culture's continuously changing interpretation thereof? Impetus of question at3:53.
Also, can the openness of interpretation somewhat contribute to the work's greatness?(6 votes)- From the author:Great question. I'd love to read what other's think. I think its both. The artist defines the work of art initially but when artwork is released into the world it accrues additional meanings and is impacted by external circumstance.(10 votes)
- Does anybody know how old the shark is?(5 votes)
- The tiger shark that replaced the original was a female about 25 to 30 years old, which is about middle-aged for a shark. It was caught off Queensland around 2005.(6 votes)
- How exactly do you a get a shark for art, let alone 2 sharks? Is it hard to get all that formaldehyde too? Just out of curiosity =)(5 votes)
- Here is an article on the process of obtaining and preserving the shark: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/arts/design/01voge.html?pagewanted=all(6 votes)
- Hirst, is this the same guy who created the butterfly exhibit that caused a great deal of controversy recently? It certainly seems like the same style.(7 votes)
- Yes, he is. His installation is "In and Out of Love"
http://www.damienhirst.com/in-and-out-of-love-butterfly
http://www.damienhirst.com/exhibitions/solo/2012/tate(3 votes)
- What is the name of painting at0:52?(4 votes)
- At7:03, Dr. Zucker says what goes through my mind when I see much modern/contemporary art; "worried about this being a grand joke". Have any artists admitted to making a piece as "trolling" the critics? Much of Dali's work comes across that way, and many of his personal quirks and writing would seem to support the assertion.(4 votes)
- Is the tank filled with anything other than the shark? Like... any liquids?(1 vote)
- It is filled with formaldehyde, as they mention in the video. This is a substance which helps preservation and which can be transparent.
I believe that it is a liquid when they pour it and then it sets into a solid state.(5 votes)
Video transcript
(piano music) Beth: We're looking at one
of my favorite works of art, from the last 30 or 40 years. This is Damien Hirst. I'll admit that one of my
favorite aspects of this work, is its title. Male voiceover: I feel like just
those words could be a work of art. I'm not even looking at the shark. The idea of the "Physical
Impossibility of Death," "in the Mind of Someone Living." There's different ways
to parse that, actually. It's either word play or deep. I haven't figured that out yet. Beth: It strikes me as this great truth. The impossibility of really
coming to terms with death, as someone who's living. In many ways, the history of art is
a coming to terms with mortality, of transcending the physical
body, of the afterlife. Art, through history, has
dealt with big questions. This is a work of art taking
on those big questions. Make voiceover: I agree
with you about the title. That title, I'm going to
think about it all day. I mean, that's why we're
so afraid of death. We just can't process it. What we're looking at is, I'm
assuming, a non-living shark. Looks like a very large shark, in a tank. What am I looking at, actually? Beth: It's a real shark
that was caught and killed, and suspended in a tank of formaldehyde. Make voiceover: It's stationary,
although it looks like it's moving. Beth: It is stationary. It's in a kind of beautiful tank. Something that the artist is
sort of framing the shark in, for us to see it. Male voiceover: Just go back
to, I guess, both the title, and it being a work of art. I'm just trying to appreciate. You could put this in a
natural history museum. This is a shark. This is what a shark looks like. Study it. It's like a stuffed bison or
wooly mammoth or something. The title, combined with
this, makes me think. There's some obvious things here. It's dead. I can interpret it. I just feel like I'd be
making up stuff though. Beth: I think that's part of the idea. When artists make things in
the 20th and 21st century, they're more open to interpretation
than art in the Renaissance. We're looking at art which is meant
to be kind of open to interpretation. It's not just what the
artist said it meant. We're allowed to bring our own
ideas and associations to it. To fill out its meaning. To complete it. In fact, Duchamp said, that "A work of art is
completed by the viewer." Let's talk about our associations with it. Male voiceover: Yes,
we're almost challenged, that it's physically
impossible to comprehend death, in the mind of a living. I believe I'm living. Based on the title, I'm being told
that I can't comprehend death. Then I'm just being faced
with death right there. I've been faced with a
very big version of death, on kind of multiple dimensions. The shark is dead, although
it looks like it's swimming. It's also something that could kill me. This is post the movie Jaws, so there's few animals that occur
to humans as something scary, more than a big shark. Beth: Yeah, when you
stand in front of this, it's scary to look at. Male voiceover: It's like, "Oh my God," "I'm very close to something
that could kill me." I guess your brain keeps
going back and forth. "Am I really processing death here," "or am I fearful of this
thing that I can't process," "and that's what I'm afraid of?" Why couldn't he have put a tiger? Maybe he could have. He just chose to use a shark. A shark is more convincing
or it's just diff ... Male voiceover: He does use other animals. There's a famous series where
he slices sheep lengthwise, and puts them in tanks. This is not the original shark. In other words, this sculpture
now has a second shark, because the first one dissolved. Despite the formaldehyde, it decayed. The formaldehyde, of course, is trying
to maintain the intactness of the shark, and, perhaps, even its viciousness. This notion of its livingness. We fail. This still dissolves. This still, in a sense,
even with that shark ... Male voiceover: That
wasn't by design though. He intended this to be a permanent. Male voiceover: I think he is
struggling to keep this shark intact. That's exactly right. We don't have the means to do that. Beth: Who isn't struggling
to keep themselves intact? Male voiceover: I haven't completely
bought this layer of interpretation. This feels like a completely
inadvertent side effect. The fact that he put a
shark in formaldehyde, to me, implies that he was
hoping that this would be around, for a long time. His design didn't hold up to time. It's kind of falling apart. That wasn't the artist's intention. Male voiceover: Well, it's interesting. By the time we get to
the late 20th century, artists are well-versed in this
idea of the impermanence of art. Beth said a minute ago, that art for its entire history
has tried to transcend human death. In fact, one of the definitions, one
of the philosophical definitions, of what a work of art is, is
something that outlives us. That is transgenerational. Male voiceover: Yeah. Male voiceover: Here is
something that is not paints. Here's something that's not marble. Here's something that
is flesh like we are. Yet, there is this vain attempt to
have it outlive us and it doesn't. Beth: I think he knew. Yeah. Male voiceover: It wasn't
just a design flaw. He could have stuck this
in amber or something. Male voiceover: There's too much
art that has changed over time, for him not to know. He's too sophisticated. Male voiceover: To know that this
would have been kind of a ... Beth: The ancient
Egyptians mummified bodies. There's a whole history of human
beings trying to stop time. We all know that we can
use our best chemicals, we can do plastic surgery, we
can do all sorts of things. Nothing is going to stop
the inevitability of decay. Male voiceover: Yeah. He could have
stuck it in amber or something, and been that much more preserved. Beth: Would have been even slower. Male voiceover: It would have been, yes. Yes. Male voiceover: Or he could have
done something much more traditional, which is, he could have
represented a shark, and made it more permanent in that way. Male voiceover: Right, right, right. Male voiceover: By
choosing the thing itself, he created the impossibility
of its own preservation. Male voiceover: Yeah, my brain
just keeps going back and forth. Once again, the title by
itself is all you need. Male voiceover: You have that
whole conceptual dimension, but then you have this
absolutely physical dimension, and you have this clash between
that physical and that poetic. It's in that contradiction,
it's in that confrontation, that I think the art really exists. Beth: Yeah, I don't think
it's just in the title. The title is lovely and really
speaks to me, I admit it. But the title together,
with the sculpture, is a really complicated experience. Male voiceover: I feel like there
should almost be a new type of museum, called a philosophy museum. Especially if you look at
a classical art museum. It is about the history and the
conversation that people are having, but it is a lot about aesthetics. Maybe, actually, modern art should
be called philosophical art, or a museum of philosophy. It really is, even the word
museum, I feel, is wrong. Museum seems to be, let's preserve something that
someone else has created. While, it seems, like a
lot of this modern art, is really about, put the
philosophy in your face, right now without an answer. I don't know whether I'm
being hoodwinked or not. Male voiceover: I think that question
about always being a little bit worried, about this being a kind
of grand joke in some way, is always there. It's something that gets
given voice quite a bit. In part because in art now,
almost nothing is off limits. Artists find ways of
asking profound questions, about things that can be very mundane. Or seem overtly silly
but can actually be ... Male voiceover: Or intentionally shocking. Male voiceover: Absolutely. I think, in some ways, the art
world asks for that cynicism. On the other hand, that doesn't mean
that profound ideas aren't being asked. (piano music)