Damien Hirst
Gotta love Jonathan Jones at the Guardian. He’s calling it as he sees it.
Bad art is ugly art, in the end. Whatever language we might prefer to use, it all comes down to beauty and ugliness. Hirst’s ideas seemed to me once to possess an intellectual and emotional beauty – and their own physical beauty, too. Now everything he does is ugly, ugly, ugly, and it adds to the world’s already copious stores of junk. His paintings betray a stupidity and arrogance that makes me lose all interest in him. I love painting and I hate to see it abused.
But … I could probably kid myself otherwise, given time and a change of direction. That’s why I have decided to shun Hirst. He’s wasted so much of my time over the years. I freely admit that my determination to believe in him distorted my judgement. I won’t get fooled again.
I’ve got my personal list too, of artists whose works haven’t worn well over time—visual artists, writers, poets. Not that I have a need to broadcast it and focusing on what doesn’t satisfy. There are, after all, so many wonderful vista points in my aesthetic landscape. But I admire Jones for speaking his truth.
I subscribe to Jones’s column. I like his frankness, his openness that he doesn’t like a particular work of art (leaving no doubts as to where he stands) and his willingness to admit when he has been, as he says, “rude” in writing about an artist.
It is the case, too, as you point out, that there is so much worthy of praise that there is no need to give any time to what one doesn’t like.
But of course we would both be fans!
hii everyone!
i think damien hirst is a very good men.
i love his ideas!
(white shark is especially!)
kisses
isa