Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/22/damien-hirst-falsified-dates-on-at-least-1000-of-his-pieces.html
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Don’t be, he’s an asshole.
At least Tracey Emin has had things to say over the years.
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I guess if you’re gonna rip off someone it might as well be rich, pretentious art collectors.
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I would describe this guy as a huckster rather than artist or businessman
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When it comes to modern art, esp. avant-garde, the real art is the skill in convincing everyone that what you are doing is art, and that they should pay you for it.
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I would love to buy one of his NFTs from the 90s.
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Damien Hirst? Please allow me to introduce you to this masterpiece:
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I was going to offer a milquetoast defense of Hirst as at least having produced some interesting art in the past, but then I realized that I always believed he had created The Holy Virgin Mary done in elephant dung (which I think is interesting art), but actually that was Chris Ofili, and I’ve only associated them together because they were shown in the same exhibit.
So I’m glad a little preliminary research stopped me from accidentally making a dumb white guy defense of Hirst.
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In theory I own an infinite number of conceptual pieces.
Now if only I could find a way to turn them into NFTs. . . .
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The last one was something. This though is nothing.
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“like some perfect storm of banality”.
Nicely sums up DH
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Throughout his career it has become increasingly clear that Hirst is as much grifter as artist. And the longer his career continues the more it consists of grift and the less it consists of art.
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My favorite way of understanding what art is all about comes from Tim Hunkin (whose “Secret Life of Machines” I used to love when I was a kid).
He basically says that art is something that rich people hang on their walls so they can explain it to their friends to gain intellectual credibility.
(FWIW: This is true of the rich people I know, but not true of the middle-class people I know who like art).
Whenever reading articles about the art world, I keep this in mind and it helps put things in perspective.
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Art is any media or medium, the perception of which has been deliberately altered. Its quality and/or value resides purely in the mind of whoever perceives it. Persuading someone else of its value is what makes it a career.
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My favourite forger said, “do not invest in art, art is not an investment, if you like a piece, buy it”
Mind you, that was after he had flooded the market with drawings that others assumed were by “Masters”.
Edit: I paraphrased the quote
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If you make it, it’s, “art”. If you sell it, it’s “Art”. 
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Most people who make good money from the arts don’t actually make art fwiw though. They buy or deal or curate or manage or teach or work in some other aspect of the arts as a business. Making art takes time and energy away from this and incurs cost. I think this separation of the value of marketing/sales as a meaningful and deserving career but the labor of manufacturing an object or designing an idea as not-as-valuable labor is a failure point that exists largely because we have devalued craft/craftsmanship, railed against humanism to the point of embracing mass annihilation, and exist in a gluttonous market where unprecedented amounts of decent quality shit can be cranked out and exported all over the world.
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twop. lol
Television Without Pity?
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