Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Hirst Fallout

October 26, 2009 by Marion Maneker

The controversy over the Damien Hirst show at the Wallace Collection just won’t die. Universally panned by critics but well-attended by the public, Hirst’s foray into painting has caused a huge ruckus even though the paintings were shown months ago in the Ukraine. Jonathan Jones, the Guardian’s art critic, explains why:

It is shocking to see an artist so successful in arguing that art owes nothing to its past, sacrifice himself to that past. Hirst’s exhibition is a stupefying admission of defeat, a self-obliterating homage, that reveals the most successful artist of our time to be a tiny talent, with less to offer than even the most obscure Victorian painter in the Wallace Collection, let alone its Fragonards and Rembrandts. He reveals this because he chooses to meet them on their own terms, as a painter. […] He can’t do that at all; can’t paint his way out of a paper bag. But don’t kid yourselves. It is not just Hirst who is implicated in this exposure. It is an entire idea of art that triumphed in the 1990s and still dominates our culture – an entire age of the readymade stands accused by its own creator of being a charade. No critic has even come close to the total dismissal of 21st-century art implied by Hirst’s turnabout. This call to order leaves me dumbfounded.

What’s Damien Hirst Really Up To? (Jonathan Jones/Guardian)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Arnault Invests in AuctionataArnault Invests in Auctionata
  • Chinese Think Old Pots Should Be Worth More than New ArtChinese Think Old Pots Should Be Worth More than New Art
  • $3.3bn in Online Art Sales Evaporates Into the Ether$3.3bn in Online Art Sales Evaporates Into the Ether
  • Not Safe At Home: A Billionaire’s DecoysNot Safe At Home: A Billionaire’s Decoys
  • Chinese Art Advice from a DutchmanChinese Art Advice from a Dutchman
  • Vernissage TV: ArtBasel 43Vernissage TV: ArtBasel 43

Filed Under: Artists

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Christie's Announces $70m Picasso Self Portrait
  • David Hockney's $20m Pacific Coast Highway & Santa Monica
  • How to Chant Like an Auctioneer
  • Basquiat's Last Girlfriend
  • Mark Rothko, Tamara de Lempicka, Mickalene Thomas to Star in Phillips London Evening Sale
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor