These daubs could have been knocked out by any art-school freshman. The rich folk who have bought them (they are already sold out) are buying "Hirst's", and the fact that they are inoffensive and pretty makes them superficially appealing. All this (and the current administration in Washington) proves that we are a decadent society. Mr. Hirst is only too happy to profit handsomely from that. I can't blame him.
10
Sad that a species which could produce Caravaggio, Raphael, Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Titian, Klimt and so many others has now devolved to venerate such an untalented huckster
15
Interjecting a little reality to this disgusting cluster of money chasing junk, it's in part the low tax rates that filthy people pay that drives the stupid prices of this kind of trivial artplay. You can't put a nine foot painting inside most buildings, art this upper crust is not art it's capitalist excess, and it's not even an art expression of excess, it's just rude excess. I hope he was mugged for his bling and shoes leaving the gallery.
A million dollar half-hearted mess of thoughtless oil paint is a $50,000 object, in a world where millionaires pay their share of the burden of operating a huge complex country. In a country where the infrastructure is left to rot, the safety net is full of holes and corporations own the Congress, the same boring quasi-art cult participation nets another $950,000. This con man then probably paid $1500 for that jacket we used to get at army surplus, at a shop that rents for $1200 a sq ft in Manhattan, making sure the money trickles right back upstream where it belongs.
Would my liberal fellows acknowledge my obvious irritation as based on something valid? No way, that's an artist man, you know, a suffering artist. He's a victim. His suffering is why he is compensated by, you know, the market.
9
he is soooooooooooooo overrated.
Shock value does not an artist make
And these paintings are banal. I know personally half a dozen kids in high school who make more interesting, and more technically demanding, work between getting off the bus and going to bed.
I wish he'd go away
10
For the last 60 years, "high-concept" art is a con game. Frankenthaler, Bacon, Rothko, Pollock - garbage, all garbage. You go into a museum, and there are crowds in the Impressionistic, post-impressionism, cubism, whatever rooms. As soon as there is abstract impressionism, no one is looking. There is the "art" crowd of course. They make this trash, so they have a financial interest in the pretense that it has value. People who are well-traveled and highly-experienced amateurs like myself can see it clearly - worthless waste of space, and a pretentious con game. If everyone liked it, why, how would we should our superior taste, dahlink?
8
I'd agree with you about Hirst, but not the four other artists you mention. Their works all speak to me much more than the, as you put, Impressionistic, post-impressionism, cubism, whatever rooms. Because lots of people like something, doesn't necessarily equate to value. If I were going to be highbrow about it, I'd say the rooms of paintings that everybody likes are too easy, too facile, too boring. But I'll try not to be highbrow, in part because I'm not nearly in that income bracket, dahlink.
6
". . . come close mine eyes!
More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."
6
The work shown on these two pictures is nie … but this is terribly old.
Bonnard ?… Yes. But then again Bonnard was already a "traditional" painter in his lifetime and that was 90 years ago.
Nothing new, no personal vision in all this.
8
What’s the pointillism?
12
How did Dots Damien get such publicity to begin with? His works remind me of those coffee ads where you are challenged to find where "El Exilihente is." I assume his admirers are the same folks who find Jason Pollack's drips and glops and Rothko's black on black patterns so very meaningful. Dots damien should be a designer for shower curtains.
6
The emperor has no clothes, people.
7
Not art.
4
Painting is hard for most people attempting it. You have to give yourself time to settle into color.
“Veil of Love’s Pleasure” (2017) and “Veil of Eternal Happiness” (2017)."
No. They are each cut off. That does not show the art.
2
Don't care if he a good bloke, or how much he's worth, or if the paintings sold out in seconds. The new work is rubbish.
6
If you Google "Damien Hirst Lawsuit" an amazing number of links to legal actions against him appear.
3
Wrapping paper. He ain't no Pollock. Maybe his next ACT should be containment in a formaldehyde filled aquarium.
6
I have loved art from a very early age -- no exaggeration.
Skip instances & examples...
This stuff? Dabble, splash, accident.
Lots of so-called modern art is junk. Some of it even outright scribble.
So do I think Francis Bacon's popes etc are junk? Not at all. What he has done (if I have his first name right) is indeed authentic art.
Matisse is hard to take but I don't rule him out.
Picasso? Very bold. Genius. He painted a good half dozen masterpieces & day after day, lots of junk.
Why don't people see this or admit it? Ah, but people see very little & understand nothing deeply, by & large.
And the junk art marked it profitable (God knows why!)
4
I agree with your comments regarding Francis Bacon and Picasso. I think that Bonnard was a far better painter than Matisse.
"I don't mind lying." So now there's more money in art than in politics? Breathtaking.
4
Typical speculative bubble based on a poor performance. Copied from the Australian aborigines and soulless. I personally find his works overrated and boring. But hey good connections s and excellent promotion management.
3
If you’re going to plagiarize, do it well.
Mr Hirst, in my view is a product himself, created by Charles Saatchi.
And here we see him copying Yayoi Kusama. But not very well.
Hirst is sn empty vessel.
11
This artists relies on the fact that no one really calls him out. Shock is basically nowadays, the main instrument of the talent-less! Have you noticed there is no beauty or even wonder in any of this geezer's work. This latest stuff is really what a two year old could produce, but could produce it even better! Oh for the days when an intelligent person could really admire the work of a visual artist. Some person , lets call them "sucker" will pay thousands, even millions for this tripe and feel that even they are part of the avant guarde; instead of the ranks of the deluded and magnificently manipulated, about what is talent in the visual arts really is. Que sais-je?
8
Hilarious. Give me a few thousand. I'll hire some high school art students and we'll turn this stuff out monthly.
"blood red, electric blue, rich gold." Nice try, but it's still just random splotches of red, blue, and gold. Make nice wrapping paper, though.
7
I am glad DH is doing what He wants to do. I am glad he wealthy. I am glad people buy his art. More POWER to him.
1
Well, I guess he had to tag on an "homage", maybe for some kind of historical credibility, but personally, I don't associate Bonnard's color palette AT ALL with these paintings. I've seen two brilliant shows of Bonnard's in San Francisco in the last 30 years, and these were NOT the notable colors. Yeah, yeah ... pickie artist, I am.
4
Mr. Hirst is a fraud. The fact that he appears to only take advantage of rich people doesn't make that fraud any less egregious or despicable. I suspect, (I can't confirm) that like most "artists" that rely on assistants he pays poor art school grads a minimum wage, sans benefits, to crank out the dreck that the art buying cognoscenti so eagerly lap up. And sucking all the air out of the room leaves little opportunity for genuine artists to find an outlet for their efforts. Absurd hagiography pieces like this, and today's piece on the lame attempts at painting by Julien Schnabel, further illustrate the cravenness of the critical class and the tin-eyed myopia of the curatorial elite.
These monstrosities, both in size and execution, will end their days withering away in the basements of museums run by head scratching museum directors wondering what the fuss was all about.
And how Hirst can utter the name of Bonnard without bursting into flames will remain a mystery to me.
21
I wish I had written your very perceptive comments. I am still trying to fathom the value of the empty fruit skins that have been sewn together! There are some wonderful new artists out there. I wish the NY Times would feature some of them!
7
I will always associate Hirst with the Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2008 -- the very bankers involved in speculating about the housing market were the same making him a rich man. He, in turn, made them feel "cultured."
People talk about Hirst's money more than his art because, in his case, the money is more interesting.
24
I like the honesty in his quest, but I don’t find them overly impressive. Might have to go back to the tried and true system (the little helpers).
3
At first glance they are very likable. I'd have to visit one over time, like a Rothko, to know whether it would become a friend or end up driving me nuts and unfortunately, I don't have that kind of money sitting around. Bonnard is a worthy inspiration...no problem there.
I love the fact that he is admitting to just painting without a known theme or concept.
I find that to be very truthful.
1
I hate to be immediately dismissive of someone's art.
However, term "Post-Truth" immediately poses a question, which I believe undermines the entire concept of "Post-Truth" art.
To believe that something is "Post-Truth", one has to believe that there was once a time during with "Truth" existed, and perhaps a period of "Pre-Truth" during which "Truth" did not yet exist.
Given that "Truth" has never actually existed (except inside the mind of certain clever), I find the notion of the "Post-Truth" era to be simply a clever turn of phrase.
However, I'm pretty convinced that much of the world has entered the Post-Historic era.
Francis Fukuyama. "The End of History?" The National Interest (1989): 1-19.
"The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one's life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands. In the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history. I can feel in myself, and see in others around me, a powerful nostalgia for the time when history existed. Such nostalgia, in fact, will continue to fuel competition and conflict even in the post-historical world for some time to come" (p. 17).
14
Hirst never called these paintings ‘post-truth art.’ The author uses the term ‘post-truth’ in the title but not in reference to the actual paintings. As Hirst said in the article ‘Maybe the public is trying too hard to pin down the meaning’, which seems to be what you’re doing. If you don’t find the paintings visually interesting or appealing, that’s fine. I think they look amazing!
6