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http://christinemarie78.blogspot.com/2009/05/progress.html#comments 

http://gabriellekendallcadi.blogspot.com/2009/03/week-two-for-love-of-god.html#comments

http://kyungheecho.blogspot.com/2009/03/diamond-crusted-skull-week-2-discussion.html#comments

For The Love of God -Damien Hirst

For The Love of God, a diamond encrusted skull created by Damien Hirst was titled after his mother said to him "For the love of God, what are you going to do next!?". The works main focus is death, Damien bought the 18th century skull in London coating and decorating the skull with 8,601 diamonds. The diamond in the middle of the skull's head is estimated at a pricey $4.2million alone. His reason for this expensive and flashy work was "death is such a heavy topic, it would be good to make something that laughed in the face of it".

And laugh it does, especially if you add into consideration that these diamonds could possibly be blood diamonds that may have cost thousands of innocent lives. Although Hirst funded the costs of this astonishing creation alone, it has estimated that he would have spent around 10-15million to make the work!

If this piece of art isn't mercantilism I don't know what is. Who would want to spend up to 15million dollars to create a skull and then by putting their name on it increase the buying value to 100million?! I think its crazy and an example of mercantilism at its finest. Hirst is basically saying that his name on any work of art is worth way over the price of 8,601 diamonds and after reading about Hirst and discovering he said "I can’t wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it."

Who would want to spend 100million + on an artist who says things like this!

I thought Damien Hirst was mercantilist enough for spending up to 15million to create a work of art, but I can imagine that the sad person stupid enough to spend that amount of money on the skull would be even more of a mercantilist.

Not that I don't like the work, but considering the production costs and the 100million it is worth now, and the fact that thousands could have died for these diamonds I think that this is a shocking form of mercantilism. Would you pay that price for a skull by Damien Hirst?

Pretend Smile- The Birds Nest

• Costing $423million dollars to make the Beijing National Stadium is the worlds largest steel structure. The design of the building was created by a Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron who submitted 1 of only 13 submissions from various architectural firms. Ai Weiwei played a major role as the artistic consultant and made sure that the design involved unique chinese characteristics. It was given the name "The Birds Nest" as a result of the overall shape and structure of the building.

The building was engineered to show the rest of the world how forward thinking, advanced and innovative and how great the country of China is. However after the building was designed and made Ai Weiwei publicly made his opinions very clear about China. He believed that the structure was like a "pretend smile" meaning that although it was an amazing acheivement on China's behalf, making the country look great, it was actually a distraction from the people of China who have been dictated and who go without liberty in their daily lives.

The problem was that Ai Weiwei had a different set of values from that of the Chinese government. He doesnt believe that a country without democracy could "excite the joys and celebrations of its people" and he asks "When these new security rules are put in place, how can one smile, perform and pose?".

I feel I have the same beliefs and values that Ai Weiwei has, but therefore I personally wouldnt want to help design or take a major role over seeing a project if I strongly disagreed with the values of the people creating it. Maybe he thought that by doing this he would help to attract the world to what is happening in China and overall help these people who are stuck in a communist dictatorship. When asked he said "I did it becuase I love design".

While I think that the building is an amazing architectural accomplishment with overall astonishing beauty, I feel that if I disagreed so strongly with the values of the government I could not be a part of the project becuase it would stand for the total oposite of my personal values.

Would you help be a part of something you didn't believe in and went against your personal set of values?