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A Response to Jerry Saltz' "Damien Hirst Goes for Baroque: The Pursuit of Happiness,"
a review of Damien Hirst: Theories, Models, Methods, Assumptions, Results, and Findings

In his review of Damien Hirst's show at Gagosian Gallery, critic Jerry Saltz says that "any thoughts about formalism, sex, birth, abortion, Jeff Koons, or about the out-of-body strangeness of a visit to the doctor are annulled when [the artist] pushes this into one-liner land, saying, '[w]omen smell of fucking kippers.'" Saltz has done the not-so-difficult business of extracting a theme from "Love Lost" and "Lost Love," the two pieces in which Hirst fills Minimalist cubes with gynecologists' offices, water, and plenty of live fish. Fish have not only long been a symbol of fertility, but also derogatorily refer to the odor of female genitalia. At the opening of the show, a friend accurately pointed out the clear misogyny of displaying fish in a gynecologist's office.

Saltz's notation of Hirst's visual declaration that "'women smell of fucking kippers'" comes right in the middle of a practical paean to the artist. The praise begins at the beginning of the article, when Saltz says that Hirst is "bigger, more uneven, and better than ever." Then, after declaring that Hirst says that 'women smell of fucking kippers," Saltz actually continues to praise the artist, saying that he "is in pursuit of something everyone understands: happiness." That such a violently problematic assertion as that of "fucking kippers" should sit in the middle of praise is only slightly more problematic than the nature of the praise itself.

That is, while Saltz anoints Hirst's work with the theme of "happiness" (and titles his review accordingly), he is obviously sufficiently unconvinced as to refrain from defending his idea with any work in the show. The work, in fact, illustrates the merging of science and entertainment. People (including Columbia Visual Arts Professor Ronald Jones) are very excited about this new power matrix of science and entertainment; the problem here is that the novelty of having the whole ordeal of this matrix in the context of Art serves to disguise the artist's perpetuation of the old evil of misogyny That is, Hirst's art epitomizes this condition, and insofar as that happens, he secures his "avant-garde" position, secures his ability to be heard, and he thus allows himself to say, as Saltz says, that "women smell of fucking kippers." Saltz is complicit.

Perhaps the most unproblematic of Saltz's compliments is his assessment of Hirst's work as "uneven." Hirst alternates between painting, video installation, sculpture, sculptural installation, etc. Alternations in working methods are comparable to those of American artist Jeff Koons. When Saltz says that thoughts on Jeff Koons are annulled by Hirst's "push to one-liner land," he ignores that which is fundamental to the show. It is not only for medium inconsistency that Koons comes to mind, but for something more fundamental to Hirst's artistic practice: this "eager[ness] to entertain" (Saltz).

British artist/author Matthew Collings says in his book This is Modern Art that Koons "think[s] about what people actually want and then tries to give it to them" (pg. 248). People in fact want not only Koons' saccharine sculptures of cuddly animals, big paintings of delicious cake, and high color pornographic photography, they also want Hirst's wide array of pills, his pickled dead animals, and more revoltingly, they want a mean joke about vaginal odor.

They also seem to want a deep-seated cynicism about the roles that art and religion have in a society dominated by science and entertainment. In "The Last Supper," Hirst makes thirteen prints that mimic the graphic design of medicine bottles. He gives them absurd labels like "Omelette," "Vindaloo," and "Cheese Sandwich." The label on the center panel says, "Christ" and "Foie Gras." Fatty and decadent "foie gras" is, by all accounts, unnecessary to alimentation, and in putting this with "Christ," Hirst implies the inessential nature of Christian (or perhaps religious) belief. Above these words is a corporate logo, "D", standing for Damien Hirst, corporate purveyor of entertaining science in the cloak of Art. Hirst is actually known to say that he likes to turn to art in favor of religion-- but to turn to his own art, one gets nothing for the spirit, but instead a collection of entertaining products which are in many ways aesthetically indistinguishable from other entertaining products outside the discursive space of the art world.

Furthermore, Hirst's art is impersonal, lacking empathy, and variously amoral and immoral. If these conditions inspire happiness in Jerry Saltz's soul, then he is in the wrong business. Art critics must help people better understand art, and insofar as this is their duty, they must not approach it with moral irresponsibility.

- - David Shapiro
David Shapiro is the Editor-in-Chief of MUSEO. He will graduate from Columbia College this spring with a BA in Art History. He is fascinated by art, art criticism, and art publications. He is also a painter and has exhibited his work in SoHo, Germany, Poland, and Chile.

Collings, Matthew. This is Modern Art. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000

Saltz, Jerry. "Damien Hirst Goes for Baroque: The Pursuit of Happiness." The Village Voice, October 17tth, 2000.

Photos Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery and Science Ltd.

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