What is with Damien Hirst?

Damien Hirst is one of the most famous (if not the most famous) contemporary artists in the world. His art is highly controversial, and lots of people think it's total bullshit (myself included). Hirst's most well-known pieces are the giant formaldehyde-filled tanks with dead animals inside. He won the fancy-pants Turner Prize for new contemporary art for the piece below, entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Ha.

This piece was done way back in 1992 and people still talk about it. Here's another animal-in-a-tank piece, called Mother and Child Divided. It's lovely.

Yes, the cow and calf are divided, as in cut in half and placed in separate tanks. What is this? What does he want us to take from this? No wonder average joe doesn't want to go to the art museum. Who can be impressed by this other than people just like Damien Hirst, artists who talk about themselves and make art to shine light on their own divinely bestowed intellect, rather than to say something about the world.

So, I think this type of contemporary "art" is total hogwash, nonsense, bullshit. I'm not alone in that. But art and literature, films, etc. are what we use to learn about a particular culture in a particular time. So was does the presence of this type of artwork in our most prestigious museums say about our culture? What does it mean that there is a huge disconnect between the world of "important" artists and the world of everybody else, that art has become so lopsided on the side of intellect and concept that no one can really take anything from it without reading about the artist's intentions, and are then still left feeling confused and inferior? And who are we that we can't seem to articulate why we don't like this artwork or why most of us don't really consider it art at all? Does it mean something that while we can't seem to sufficiently describe what makes art good or bad, many of us can't decide what truth is, or explain why we disagree with war or why we hold the religious or moral beliefs that we do? Hell, many of us can't even tell each other why we like the music and movies that we do. And of course it means something.

More for your reading pleasure: Trash, Violence, and Versace: But Is It Art? by Theodore Dalrymple

Group of artists with a strong distaste for art like Damien Hirst's: http://www.stuckism.com/info.html Try to disregard the hideous website design (or lack thereof). The content is interesting, I promise.

And, on a happy note, one painting I do love. It's called Chop Suey and was painted by Edward Hopper in 1929.