The Hirstening
Posted by Qais Fulton
Damien Hirst is a “conceptual artist” with an affinity for dead animals in preservative fluid, over-long, pretentious titles for artwork, and charging obscene amounts of money for combinations of the two. The piece that launched him into fortune, A Thousand Years, consisted of a cow’s maggot-infested head encased in glass. The pieces for which he is presumably best known, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and For the Love of God, consist, respectively, of a vitrine encasing a 14-foot tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde, and a platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds totaling 1,106 carats.
Around the time of Hirst’s budding success, he was quoted as saying, “I can’t wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it.”
In a bit of disingenuously friendly supposition, I’ve imagined a world in which video clips of adorable animals doing their adorable animal thing are all shot, and subsequently entitled, by Damien Hirst.
I call this one Man’s Endless Struggle Against The Inevitability Of Death, Suffering, And Oblivion.
Categories: Adorable Puppies, Art, Artists, ohSNAP
Posted at 4:28 pm on September 10, 2009
19 Comments -
That performance is so nuanced! They even coordinated a metaphorical fat-headed Universe indifferently napping in the background.
Futility is pudgy.
Comment by Heather — September 10, 2009 @ 6:35 pm
not Freudian enough.
Comment by Ithidet — September 10, 2009 @ 6:55 pm
What wrong with just “look at the damn cool shark!”. I love critters in jars but Damien Hirsch is way too pretentious and I frequently want to throttle him for contributing to bad public perceptions of artists that I have to deal with everyday.
Comment by Noadi — September 10, 2009 @ 7:18 pm
Hirst is a jerk. An uptight jerk about his pencils.
Comment by Dr Nautilus — September 10, 2009 @ 7:32 pm
Hirst’s Fucking Pencils has band name promise, I think.
Fuck Hirst’s Pencils?
Comment by Eliza Gauger — September 10, 2009 @ 10:36 pm
to tell you the truth I wish the I could do the same, and if I ever can, I’m just gonna shatter the art world. I will paint Domo behind the Mona Lisa and call it:
Time: an orgasm of alien technicolor, or two japanese people and one lobster.
Comment by Lunchboxxx — September 10, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
I think a shout-out has to be given to Maru here – much better than Hirst.
Comment by Tonia — September 10, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
Am i the only one horrified by that pup video? Since it went viral, I remember thinking, mortified, YOU FUCK, INSTEAD OF TAPING IT, HELP THE PUP ROLL BACK ON ITS FEET, YOU SICK FUCK.
Comment by Optical — September 11, 2009 @ 12:27 am
Eliza: You’re in your apartment, walking to the kitchen to get a snack, when all of a sudden you look down…
Optical: What one?
Eliza: What?
Optical: What snack?
Eliza: It doesn’t make any difference what snack, it’s completely hypothetical.
Optical: But, how come I’m hungry?
Eliza: Maybe you just got up. Maybe you want to eat by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a Boston terrier puppy, Optical. It’s walking toward you…
Optical: Boston terrier? What’s that?
Eliza: You know what a French bulldog is?
Optical: Of course!
Eliza: Same thing.
Optical: I’ve never seen a French bulldog… But I understand what you mean.
Eliza: You reach down and you flip the puppy over on its back, Optical.
Optical: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Gauger? Or do they write ‘em down for you?
Eliza: The puppy wobbles on its back, its belly chilling in the AC, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t. Not without your help. But you’re not helping.
Optical: What do you mean, I’m not helping?
Eliza: I mean: you’re not helping! Why is that, Optical?
Eliza: They’re just questions, Optical. In answer to your query, they’re written down for me. It’s a test, designed to provoke an emotional response… Shall we continue?
Comment by Eliza Gauger — September 11, 2009 @ 1:24 am
the whole hirst thing was just an excuse to show the puppy. i know the score.
Comment by ham salad — September 11, 2009 @ 1:51 am
Seriously, that puppy is adorable but somebody needed to fucking flip the thing back over after the first 10 seconds or so.
Comment by Mike — September 11, 2009 @ 4:11 am
Eliza – Don’t ask him about his mother!
Comment by Ross Rosenberg — September 11, 2009 @ 6:49 am
That puppy! It’s been showing up everywhere for the past few days. Every link I click – BAM! Puppy.
Comment by Dee — September 11, 2009 @ 8:47 am
The clip lacks formaldehyde.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goth/2742308234
Comment by /d — September 11, 2009 @ 11:05 am
If you watch that video whilst listening to “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, the puppy becomes an epileptic goth.
Also, Damien Hirst is the Hitler of art. Any conversation about art atrocities ultimately ends up with Hirst. It’s true. Try it.
Comment by DSD — September 11, 2009 @ 11:05 am
Well fuck, I always give myself away with those touchy-feelie trick questions…
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY FRENCH BULLDOG, MRS. GAUGER -
*BLAM BLAM BLAM*
Comment by Optical — September 12, 2009 @ 2:51 am
je crois qu’ on ai chez les porcs ici et les truies ici.
Comment by karl — September 12, 2009 @ 4:06 am
I was thinking about killing myself but that puppy just made life worth living again……
Comment by jahsocky — September 20, 2009 @ 9:29 pm
How dare you distract us with such cuteness!
BTW, This puppy probably does that ALL THE TIME. I would flip him over the first time, but I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t tape him the second time…
Comment by Euphoria — September 23, 2009 @ 7:38 pm