THE GRIM REAPER'S GAME KEEPER
Sometimes I get ideas that are beyond my normal stream of work. They sit nagging me, sometimes for years until I yield to the temptation to make it, often learning new skills in the process.
I once wrote that I saw Hirst AS not so much a contemporary artist but a re-cycled Victorian, an Imperial purveyor of hunting trophies to the decadent rich of the age. The Bell Jar was a deliberate throwback to the old encased fauna specimens as he rides his skull like a Viceroy Elephant Hunter (complete with gun). I was originally going to call it The Sculpture of Dorian Hirst, imagining him to be the cultural modern day Dorian Gray, this being the decaying yet polished tableau in the attic maintaining his market value against the odds. As he quietly rotates on my mantelpiece and my phone's home screen, he helps me muse on the often irrational nature of cultural approval.
I once wrote that I saw Hirst AS not so much a contemporary artist but a re-cycled Victorian, an Imperial purveyor of hunting trophies to the decadent rich of the age. The Bell Jar was a deliberate throwback to the old encased fauna specimens as he rides his skull like a Viceroy Elephant Hunter (complete with gun). I was originally going to call it The Sculpture of Dorian Hirst, imagining him to be the cultural modern day Dorian Gray, this being the decaying yet polished tableau in the attic maintaining his market value against the odds. As he quietly rotates on my mantelpiece and my phone's home screen, he helps me muse on the often irrational nature of cultural approval.
THE MAKING OF...