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New Damien Hirst exhibition leaves critics divided
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"The Severed Head of Medusa," one of Hirst's works showcased at his first exhibition in over a decade. (Damien Hirst and Science Ltd./Prudence Cuming Associates)
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rtist Damien Hirst has just opened his first major exhibition, “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable,” in over a decade, and it already has critics squabbling.
Known for his work in preserving large animals, such as sharks and cows, with formaldehyde in glass tanks, Hirst’s latest exhibition is speculated to be one of the most expensive art exhibitions in recent history. All pieces were supposedly part of an art collection, which was lost at sea until it was rediscovered in 2008, of a former Turkish slave.
Financial Times describes the backstory as “either fascinating and enriching or pointless and annoying,” depending on how visitors responded to Hirst’s tongue-in-cheek details, like faces resembling celebrities Kate Moss and Pharrell and even a bust of Hirst himself.
Regardless of the concept or the cost, the show has critics divided.
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A post shared by PalazzoGrassi PuntaDellaDogana (@palazzo_grassi) on
“Yet, rather than seeming grand and epic, it all feels tawdry and low-rent, tinny and fake. This has a lot to do with the outmoded presiding visual style, best described as Eighties Po-Mo kitsch, and the many naked, quivering maidens, excitably menaced by monsters. Water, water everywhere—nor, sadly, any drop to drink: 'Treasures' is Hirst’s Waterworld; in other words, a flop,” said The Telegraph’s review of the exhibition.
The Guardian, on the other hand, had a much more positive take. “With his exhibition 'Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable,' which fills not only a Venetian palace but also the capacious halls of the ship-shaped Punta della Dogana at the mouth of the Grand Canal, the arrogant, exciting, hilarious, mind-boggling imagination that made him such a thrilling artist in the 1990s is audaciously and beautifully reborn. The young artist who put a tiger shark in a glass tank never died, after all, and we who lost faith in him look like fools for failing to believe.” (sul/kes)
