HIRST IN GOLDEN SHOES
The simulacrum is never what hides the truth –
it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.
The simulacrum is true.
it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.
The simulacrum is true.
These color photographs document my joint project with Damien Hirst. The most recognizable artist of the XXIth century has already been known as someone who tends to efface the distinction between creation and production; this time he decided to cross another line – one between the work and the artist himself. Hirst temporarily adopted his own double (produced by me, with his financial support) to his private collection, declaring the will to auction it at the starting price of 100 000 001 $*. What made him involve in this project? According to his own words, it was the peculiar style of his golden shoes…
This is how it came to be – the glass cube containing Damien Hirst in golden wellingtons, dipped in formalin. As mentioned above, it remains currently in Hirst’s private collection. The artist reserved a right not to expose it publicly until the day of the auction and the share of eventual sale income. A single photographic session and closed exhibition took place on the 10th of May 2010, in “Studio” gallery in Warsaw.
* His famous Diamond Skull has been sold to a secret consortium for 100 000 000 $ (later it came out that it was Hirst himself and his gallery standing behind the contractor).
***
“The illusion that emerged from the capability through the invention of forms, to tear something away from reality, to counter it with another scene, to pass through the looking glass, the capability to invent another game and other rules for the game is by now impossible because images have entered things. Images are no longer the mirror of reality they have invested the heart of reality and transformed it into hyperreality where, from screen to screen, the only aim of the image n the image. The image can no longer imagine the real because it is the real: it can no longer transcend reality, transfigure it or dream it, since images are virtual reality In virtual reality, it is as if things had swallowed their mirror.”
Jean Baudrillard (The Conspiracy of Art)
This is how it came to be – the glass cube containing Damien Hirst in golden wellingtons, dipped in formalin. As mentioned above, it remains currently in Hirst’s private collection. The artist reserved a right not to expose it publicly until the day of the auction and the share of eventual sale income. A single photographic session and closed exhibition took place on the 10th of May 2010, in “Studio” gallery in Warsaw.
* His famous Diamond Skull has been sold to a secret consortium for 100 000 000 $ (later it came out that it was Hirst himself and his gallery standing behind the contractor).
***
“The illusion that emerged from the capability through the invention of forms, to tear something away from reality, to counter it with another scene, to pass through the looking glass, the capability to invent another game and other rules for the game is by now impossible because images have entered things. Images are no longer the mirror of reality they have invested the heart of reality and transformed it into hyperreality where, from screen to screen, the only aim of the image n the image. The image can no longer imagine the real because it is the real: it can no longer transcend reality, transfigure it or dream it, since images are virtual reality In virtual reality, it is as if things had swallowed their mirror.”
Jean Baudrillard (The Conspiracy of Art)