I caught the Tate Modern exhibition yesterday - the cases of bisected beasts in formaldehyde, the freshly butchered cow head and the flies, the surgical steel and pharmaceutical arrangements. I went to see if I might understand the artist better. After 14 rooms inc. one with live chrysalises and butterflies commanding the space and dictating where you take each step (but, hell - I know two butterfly farms in close proximity to Bristol). I think I 'get it', but don't find it inspiring.
If anything, and this in itself is not unique, Hirst provides a critique of art - if art preserves a moment, if art attempts to capture the natural world, why not use formaldehyde to do that? If art is a careful arrangement of colour and form, then a wall of tablets and capsules satisfies the same criteria. A video interview contained shots of his own naive skill with paint. I think Hirst admitted he could play with colour ad infinitum. It was evident a paintbrush wasn't going to the weapon of choice for long...
Look at some people on Facebook, for example. Thousands upon thousands of unedited photos lie in burgeoning albums: no editorship. It's as if a digital camera vomited its contents onto the web. Devoid of objectivity (or even subjectivity), we are presented with the blurred, subject-less, repetitive, unimaginative 'snaps'. If a single second of effort is made leading the viewer's eye, communicating something that is greater than the components of the image, one could consider a photo as art.
Perhaps I've learnt something after all.
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