The Art of Spectacle: A Critical Reflection on the Work of Damien Hirst The
Art of Spectacle offers an analysis of the work of Damien Hirst at the
level of aesthetics, meaning and ideology in order to defend him as the
greatest of contemporary artists. It is argued that by enacting a full-scale
engagement with capitalism and the culture industry, Hirst is far from
disenchanting art but is in fact creating art that sublimely captures the
spirit of the times. This is achieved through a two-pronged approach. First, a critique
of the romantic myth of the lone artist and an exploration of the role of
mythology in the operation of the artworld in which Hirst is gleefully
complicit. Second, an analysis of how the aesthetics of Hirst’s works conveys
meaning through a radical engagement with simulation and hyper-reality as
explicated in the works of Jean Baudrillard. This is underpinned by the claim
that a general loss of ideology in both art and society at large have
precipitated the need for art that confronts a profound emptiness at the same
time as maintaining the illusion of some speculated original fullness. It is
concluded that, even given a substantial historical precedent, Hirst has done more
than any artist before him to bring art firmly in line with contemporary social
circumstances. The final mystery in all this is why nobody will claim to like
Hirst’s work, as if he is little more than an art market whore or a guilty
pleasure, the resolution to which is the existentially crushing admission that
a world so steeped in illusion can only confront that unreality on pain of
losing its precarious dignity. Click on the links below to read the current draft of that section. This is a work in progress which will be updated as and when Daniel writes. 1. We Need to Talk about Damien: Problems, Solutions and Methods 1.1 The Ritual of Criticism 1.2 All the Pills for All the Ailments 1.3 How to Stop Worrying and Love the Art
2. The Sense of Absolute Corruption: Mythology, Simulation and Spectacle 2.1 The Genesis of a Fable 2.2 The Reality that Forgot Itself 2.3 Gestures of Mistrust
3. Some Kind of Midas: Art, Capitalism and the Culture Industry 3.1 Fantastical Transfigurations 3.2 An Economics of Rapturous Desire The Ontology of the Spot Paintings 3.3 Ideological Posturing and Moral Diversions
4. The Physical Impossibility: Aesthetics, Meaning and Experience 4.1 A Painfully Contemporary Aesthetic 4.2 Life and Death in the Age of Uncertainty 4.3 Standing before the Rot of It All
5. From Poisons to Remedies: Value, Legacy and Eschatology 5.1 Between Capital and Culture 5.2 The End of Art from Hegel to Danto 5.3 By His Own Omniscient Hand |