Unbelievable part 25: Easter Eggs
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| Screenshot of Hirst's Instagram studio walkabout and our exchange. |
I know, it's been ages - the guts of 2 years since part 24. Lately my interest in Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable has resumed and I've been exploring avenues to properly kickstart and make a go of the book project.
It's funny when things spontaneously collide. I could almost be tempted to believe in serendipity but I think we're just more alert to things when we're of a mind to be. So, I'm in the midst of writing funding applications and project proposals to do something with my 40,000 words (!) of draft work in these blog posts, and what pops up on my Instagram feed but sponsored posts from Damien Hirst's account promoting his cherry blossom paintings showing in Japan. This was no surprise given that the Audiovisual Cultures account follows a great deal of artists, including Hirst's fellow Young British Artist Tracy Emin. It seems that business or verified accounts only ride the algorithm wave if we pay for sponsored posts these days, which is something I'm still loathe to do for various reasons.
But that's by the bye. On 1 April - note the date - Hirst released a video featuring him walking around a cavernous studio talking through the blossom paintings left behind, and even showing the dried up paint pots left from their making. He made the paintings tactile objects, extending his performance as their maker and art labourer in earlier videos of him flicking globs of paint onto large canvasses. At one point he roughly caresses the dried blobs that give the impression of blossoms and states how good it feels to touch dry paint and not be covered in paint, pressing the point of his involvement in making works attached to his name.
But that's all smoke and mirrors because the real interest for me and why my repeat views have very slightly embellished the video's enormous view count is that as Hirst traverses the massive studio (complaining about how cold it is) and talks to the phone camera and its anonymous but drawn-attention-to operator, there were glimpses of several of the Treasures sculptures in the middle of the large space, namely Proteus (the Elephant Man shapeshifter) and Five Antique Torsos (at least one of which is shaped like a Barbie doll and has 'Mattel' embossed on its back, although that's not visible here!). There may be more in the distance, but they're what I spied with certainty, confirmed by views 2 and 3.
I don't tend to comment that often on celeb posts, but I felt compelled to mention that I'd noticed this. So amid nearly 300 polarised comments asking if Hirst had sued any young starving artists lately or telling him the paintings were stunning, I wrote as @avculturespod: 'Interesting to spy some of the Treasures sculptures in there.' 6 days later the Hirst account replied: 'Well spotted! Super vision haha'. I felt as if I clocked up a few seconds of the 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol promised me with that recognition, and now, like someone back from an exciting date, I'm trying to play it cool.
I'm in full ownership of my dorkiness, so no amount of scoffing can harm me, dear reader. Yes, I'm beginning the long game (sounds a bit stalkery, I know) of being noticed by quietly noticing. I am the sort of person who enjoys adaptation, appropriation, pastiche and references because I like how clever it makes me feel to clock them and make connections. I don't care about them being faithful because they're their own thing, and I don't much believe in originality at this point. And I suppose I'm intrigued by Easter Eggs in film and television shows (huge Futurama fan loving Disenchantment here), and for me Treasures was essentially a bombastic mockumentary in another guise, and even had an accompanying mockmentary that streamed on Netflix for 2 years. So the glimpses of those figures so familiar to me from seeing the show in 2017 and pouring over photos and videos since in researching it really gave me a thrill, just like Philip J. Fry's hair on a wig shelf does in a part 1 episode of Disenchantment.
Not only am I a geek, a nerd and a dork for this stuff, but I got noticed for it in a rewarding, slight dopamine-hit kind of a way, and I'll take that microscopic win. I do want to find out where a lot of the surviving pieces went, so this is a note-to-self that versions at least of some of them are knocking about Hirst's studios on display, and not wrapped up. That he rubs the paintings roughly indicates he's not at all precious about these objects he can sell for several million pounds or dollars. He doesn't have to be. That the sculptures are hanging out there, not at all the focus of attention, but definitely there indicates that more often than not things, answers, information, clues, whatever, are there if we are receptive to perceiving them.
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