The Hindu : International : In art’s name, courtesy Hirst

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Sunday, Nov 11, 2007
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International

International

In art’s name, courtesy Hirst

New York: Dennis Hopper certainly seemed to like it. “This is his best piece of work I think I have ever seen,” he extolled. “This to me covers surrealism, the history of art, the hanging of meat... the whole thing is great.”

The film star was salivating on Friday over the centrepiece of Damien Hirst’s latest art installation-cum-marketing stunt: a 12-foot-high tank that contains 10,000 litres of formaldehyde. Inside the fluid a diminutive white dove is suspended, its wings outstretched in a metal cage. Flanking it are two brutal halves of a sliced cow, a long string of fat Italian sausages, a well-worn leather armchair and, with a nod to Magritte, an open black umbrella.

The work stands at the front of a Hirst installation that takes over the lobby of Lever House in Park Avenue, Manhattan. Hirst always likes to think big, but “School: The Archaeology Of Lost Desires, Comprehending Infinity And The Search For Knowledge,” is on a grand scale even by his standards.

He uses the theme of a school of anatomy to draw together many of the strands that have run through his work in the past 15 years.

Interesting motifs

The glass-walled lobby is lined not with bookshelves but with medicine cabinets bearing pill boxes and bottles — a familiar Hirst motif — each one topped with a clock that runs backwards at a different speed. The cow-flanked dove stands at the front of the room, representing the teacher, and in front of it there are three neat rows of “pupils” — 29 pickled sheep, their heads severed from their skinless bodies; and a single shark that looks bemused and ready for mischief at the back of the class. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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