CosmiKnot

The truth is there is something about “ Verity ” Damien Hirst’s newly installed 65ft seaside saucy statue. That something may well turn out to be truly terrible but that sword held aloft to the elements “by the power of grey skull” prods my old grey matter.  That dank old cavern whence my soul has fled. Like Verity, Hirst stands out on the craggy coastline of British art. There is no missing him. After being lost in the first Freeze show he swore he would never be missed again. I have a suspicion that the "something” that bothers me could be distilled to one word. “Naff”. That Princess Anne endorsed phrase that is in itself… well… naff. There’s a wrong end of the stickness to it. Like that creepy Dr. Hagen Das who freezes people. Oooh look we’re all flesh and blood and will one day die but we stand defiant in the face of everything nature can throw at us. Admirable sentiments. But still a bit embarrassing. But hey that’s good isn’t it? I’m challenged into being embarrassed...

Okay Hirst is part of the artist as lone individual genius picture. A shark savagely devouring weaker rivals. My hunch is that at Goldsmiths they train em up like pitbulls hanging from branches by their teeth. Two things created ybas. One is tutors saying explore your identity. Your obsession. You are unique. The other is the tired idea that anything can be art if the artist says so. This is duchamp as Buddha. The YBAs were not radical free thinkers like say those of arte provera. They were good students fed on steaks and steroids. Good students mimic the ideas presented by their tutors and disguise this enough to make it communicate an idea of originality without unsettling the tutor because it goes beyond the limits of their personal art cage. Damien Hirst talks about the power of juxtaposition to create something new but this is simply the talk of nineteen eighties ad men. Hirst's is a hermetically sealed world - all of it a teenage boy's over blown Vanitas. Published with...