Is Damien Hirst the most powerful person in art?
Controversial Brit artist Damien Hirst has been touted as the most powerful person in art by ArtReview magazine in its annual Power 100 list.
Hirst, famous for his pickled sheep and cow exhibits, is the first artist to top the Power 100 list since its inception in 2002, usually dominated by gallery owners, collectors and museum directors. Now a multi million pound self made industry, Hirst’s works command top prices worldwide for his installations, paintings and prints and has earned more at auction this year than any other contemporary artist.
Hirst took the number one spot by beating Larry Gagosian, art dealer and gallery owner, Francois Pinault (Christies) and Nicholas Serota director of the Tate Modern.
As a jaded 50 something art fan, I love to watch artists that push the boundaries of what is considered true art and became an instant Hirst fan after visiting the Sensations exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1997.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:18 am
I can only agree with you, Damien Hirst has breathed new life into British art and it’s great that he has finally been accepted. Most Powerful Person in Art is some title to have.
Looking forward to reading more…found this blog through Techlounge.
November 24th, 2005 at 8:48 pm
I have the opposite view.
Modern art has many things wrong with it and Damien Hirst is right at the top of the list.
Most of his work is the sort of thing that we dreamed up over a few beers when we were at Uni.
It’s the worst sort of ‘look at me, I’m different’, shock-jock art, and has no value other than its ability to provoke the establishment.
Now the establishment have accepted him, it becomes a self-parody.
His only skill is in getting funding,
“Most Powerful Person” - maybe, but then the ‘most powerful’ tag says nothing about artistic ability and everything about attention seeking ambition.
February 18th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Hirst makes money not art and he is a petty-bourgeois by-product of our politically correct dumbed-down con-culture along with non-entities like Tracy Emin, Kate Moss, Posh & Becks.
Hirst’s stuff only works at the level of decoration and illustartion and there is no invention there: hirst is very suburban, conservative, traditional and old fashioned in his ethos. Hirst is not ‘powerful’ but very weak really so sutured and enslaved is he into the art scene as a Saatchi sound investment.
The trouble with Hirst’s work is that it has absolutely no tension in it, no sensation: it sinks - it is all pure decoration like those naff mural spot paintings of his: just like easy-listening: like fast-food: Hirst’s work is lazy and easy and dreary which is why it is so popular and so boring and so expensive but worth nothing.
February 18th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Agreed
January 6th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Really good South Bank Show about Hirst last week
January 9th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Hmmmm. ‘…artists that push the boundaries of what is considered true art.’
1) Curators are the people who really ‘push the boundaries’ as they are the people who decide precisely what kind ‘art’ gets shown in galleries and museums. Eventually art historians canonise said works, or not. Artists have no say in these matters.
2) It’s now become a really boring question to ask ‘what is art?’ A complete no brainer IMHO. The answer is: anything the artist says is art is art. Duchamp made this point decades ago everyone else has turned it into an industry. On being asked by David Frost why her bed was art Tracey Emin replied, ‘because I say it is’. Of course he let her off (too) lightly and should then have aked her ‘who says you are an artist?’ To illustrate my point…
3) The most interesting contradiction I can think of to the above points is Michael Stone’s performance piece at Stormont. He says it is art so it must be else point number two above becomes invalid and so, consequently, would most contemporary conceptual art practices.
4) Hi AlexAlien!