HIRST FAMILY XMAS
HIRST FAMILY XMAS
Damien Hirst is one of the most controversial, influential and infamous artists working today.
My mom called Hirst “that guy who cuts up cows and calls it art.”
How does a cow cut up into 12 pieces and pickled in formaldehyde become art?
Hirst said, “A guy from [a] knacker’s yard in Guildford cuts the cows. He cuts all the hard bone areas first, like the head, the sternum and the pelvis. Then he ties it back together, freezes it solid over two days and chainsaws the rest of it. Then he delivers it to us at the studio where the dirty work starts: we have to inject it constantly for around a week in a swimming pool–sized tank of formaldehyde, wearing dry suits and masks. We have to take all the shit out of its stomachs. The liquid has turned brown and [we] are up to our knees in it.”
That’s how.
But there’s more to Hirst’s work than pickled cows: there are, among other things Hirst calls art, pickled sharks, pickled sheep, skulls encrusted with 8,601 diamonds selling for $100,000,000, medicine cabinets, flies, rotting cow heads, surgical tools, cigarette butts, medical waste, butterflies, skeletons and paintings of spots.
My mom also said, “Nothing says Merry Christmas quite like pickled sharks, pickled sheep, skulls encrusted with 8,601 diamonds selling for $100,000,000, medicine cabinets, flies, rotting cow heads, surgical tools, cigarette butts, medical waste, butterflies, skeletons and paintings of spots.”
Merry Christmas.
2008
Photographic Installation | Color Digital Print | Museo Silver Rag
40" x 52.8"
Edition of 5
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: DEAD BUTTERFLIES)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: ATLAS OF HUMAN ANATOMY AND SURGERY, 1831–1854)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: DEAD PUPPY)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: MEDICAL WASTE)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: MEDICAL WASTE)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: SKULL AND CANDY)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: SURGICAL TOOLS)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: URN)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL: USED CIGARETTES)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS (DETAIL-PIG'S HEAD)
HIRST FAMILY XMAS
’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Damien Hirst house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of pigs’ heads, hazardous waste, dead puppies, chain saws, used cigarettes, surgical tools, skulls, dead butterflies, urns and 19th century anatomical guides danced in their heads.
2008
Photographic Installation | Color Digital Print | Museo Silver Rag
20" x 21.5"
Edition of 5