Unbelievable part 26: Hirst Studio Views
In part 25 I noted how I spotted some of the works from Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable as Damien Hirst performed an Instagram walkthrough of his studio as he talked through his large Cherry Blossom paintings. Many of his recent (March/April 2022) posts show him active in making work, a lone figure toiling in vast studio spaces. Not long after my comment pointing out my observation, posted on 20 April was a 15-second 360 tracking shot around a sculpture of Goofy with coral shapes and damage pocks around his body. The caption states:
2,000 year old treasure found at the bottom of the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, made from pink portugese [sic] marble. Those dead artists knew what they were doing. Hahaha
This insider sneak peek can't help but feel pointed for me after the Hirst account acknowledged my observation of some of the other works in a prior video. It is likely a coincidence - and that is the fun to be had in indulging in these minor-scale speculations. If it's purely click-bait and designed to garner polarised comments, then fine, but I'm willing to bite those morsels as I persist with my use of this show and its aftermath as a case study in demonstrating methods of critical thinking and improving media literacy. What any confusion generated by these Instagram posts shows is that it needs to be fine to not know and to take some pleasure in the mystery.
This figure's equivalent in the Venice exhibition, Goofy, was bronze and emblazoned with many more coral shapes. I find it funny and completely logical that Hirst would have other unshown versions of many of the works knocking around. Many will have been destined for auction, and it seems only right that the Collector would keep a few. That it is 'clean' Portuguese marble with no veins and the finish looks soft while also intricately shaped, my guess is that a dry cast process was used in which the marble is ground to a powder and mixed with resin to fill a mould, hence the reproducibility of the sculptures in different materials with slight changes in appearance. (However, Hirst has made claims that his Carrara marble sculptures were hand-sculpted by artisans, so who knows?) That it also sits openly in the studio space holding court with the abstract drip paintings that line the walls gives it an air of nonchalance and a lack of the reverence we might expect for an actual ancient sculpture, or just one of its sheer monetary value. The piece is tongue-in-cheek. It is post-postmodern. It is also wildly expensive. Yet in this context it is not different from the unsold, unexhibited creations by those of us on the lower strata of the art world. Is it unsold, or did Hirst have this made up just for himself? Is it equivalent to an unused take in a film and a work that ended up on the ever-figurative cutting room floor? Even if I ever get to ask Hirst these questions, I know I won't be able to take any answer I get at face value, so I just keep making educated guesses and remain willing to stand corrected by convincing evidence to the contrary.
Marble Rosa Portuguese is a limestone in high demand the world over. It is largely described as lacking uniformity with no two blocks looking the same. The 'clean' looking variety in this version of Goofy is very rare, with less than a fifth of mined pink marble having an 'unblemished' appearance, that is, lacking veins and colour variation. This rarity and its inevitable expense is consistent with Hirst's usual bent for confused materiality. When I first watched the video, I thought the soft-looking texture and peachy colour made the sculpture look like it was perhaps a plaster model for the bronze cast. Given the other misdirections in the caption text (and I'm being kind - they're outright lies with the 'Hahaha' implying a joke), it wouldn't surprise me if this were indeed the case. But if we take Hirst's word (only ever with a pinch of salt) on the material at least, that it is a rare type of popular marble, then we are presented with another example of Hirst using a highly rare and expensive material in a way that makes it look cheap and everyday. This marble is usually destined for architectural features in grand villas and Arabian palaces. It is not meant for coral-covered Disney figures and playful untruths. So that's precisely what he uses it for. Just like the gold-plated bronze covered in acrylic in the likes of Hymn (another copyright breaker) or the bronze made to look like weathered, coral-infested stone in so many of the Treasures 'finds', what looks cheap in fact has value, and what seems valuable or specialist is often relatively cheap and able to be mass-produced. This version of Goofy seen in a 15-second glimpse on Instagram embodies both.
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| screenshot of Goofy in Hirst's studio |
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