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?
I agree with your point of view that the work is about mercantilism. The topic of death is interesting, what i liked about the work. But question is are we allowed to "laugh" about it? another thing is that art comes out of the demand from the side of society, it is like a mirror which reflects ourselves. If there are works like Diamond Skull then people wanted that, it is the way our contemporary world looks like today. How sad is that money,wealth etc. is so making more and more importance in our lives.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you it is the perfect example of mercantilism as I have found out the producing price of the scull is 14 million pounds and the asking price 50 million pounds and this price symbolize the wealth and status in society. person who buys this scull would have incredible wealth only then he can afford this price .but can you make laugh on someones death?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you and have the same point of view as you. The innocent lives that may have been sacraficed for a peice of art, which wasn't made in the name of art but more of an investment, all about the money. And thats the sick thing about it... is money really more important than our fellow human beings?
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