SAW the Damien Hirst show "End of an Era" at Gagosian's Madison Avenue gallery (February 2010). Noted irony on thuggish irony piled upon condescension and scorn. What else are 3x5-foot photos of individually cut hero diamonds floating in a black background heavily gilt-framed? (And this after the diamond-encrusted platinum skull.) Plus an obligatory slaughtered animal in a vitrine of formaldehyde, but this time just the head of a cow -- get it? the "end" of something in any case: the full-animal-in-formaldehyde era (and good riddance). What a shame: just when he'd figured out his mass-market appeal.
Downstairs was more Hirst stuff from a couple of years back. He cannot be forgiven for big kaleidoscopic patterns made of dead tropical butterflies -- placed, of course, by his large studio staff. As art the idea is crabbed, stilted, fetishist, stultifying; as graphic design it is ordinary and pointless. So why go to the trouble to slaughter and preserve thousands of butterflies? Only the artist knows. About all that can be stomached is his dot paintings, precious grids of mostly quarter-size painted discs that explore variant color. One thinks of Bauhaus instructors whisked forward in time and space to the Benjamin Moore paint lab circa 2009.
Can a bankruptcy of ideas be an oeuvre? Has getting rich thanks to gullible, status-hungry banker/collectors become art itself? Stay tuned for Hirst's new new era: The art of nothing at all, with his scrawl dancing faintly upon it. Duchamp had the peerless moxie to sign and date a beautiful and base mass object. A century later Hirst signs invoices.
Unduly harsh? Maybe, but doubt and lack of stimulation overwhelm. The gorge riseth. In many ways Damian Hirst seems to taunt, bring it on: My cleverly rapacious financier clients are making me richer by the minute while all of you labor, sweat and yearn.
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