Damien Hirst - need I say more?

[JoolsToo]

£70 million for his 'art' work at yesterday's auction

Emperor's new clothes anyone?

I find it quite nauseating that people spend vast amounts of money on a stuffed shark. Look around the world and see where you can spend it to better use please.

brilliantly obsene.. good on him!

Sorry , 'art' not 'fine art'.

I will add... if I could get other people to do my work, and just come up with the idea and then go to auction and get £70 million.. would I really mind what people said??? I think not!

as for the people who pay that kind of money for art work... well whatever floats your boat

The genius is in the decision to cut the gallery out of the equation and make all the money for himself. I would like to meet him.

"The top lot was "The Golden Calf", a 600kg bullock whose hooves and horns are cast in solid 18-carat gold, which sold for £10.3m, a record for the artist at auction."

Frankly I would find a piece by Michelangelo, an artist I DO rate, sold for that amount money also quite nauseating.

T E N P O I N T T H R E E M I L L I O N P O U N D S ?

[shakes head]

Come on, the art isn't nauseating. What is nauseating is the people who earn that much money.

Art isn't supposed to be pretty (someone asked what definition we had). It is supposed (in its best form) to provide comment on the human condition or existence... That can include beautiful transcendence, but the best art also makes you think and see the world in a different way. Even if it enrages you.

Skill can be found in thinking as well as crafting.

Anniemac - good post!

What picture do you have that makes people feel uncomfortable?

Anniemac - your definition of art works for me and I can even see how it could be applied to a pickled shark (although I struggle when applied to an entire menagerie). However, what do you see when you look at coloured dots other than coloured dots?

I tell you what is clever, is selling directly through the auction houses and cutting old jay jopling completely out of the (rather profitable) loop. But producing "art" to order is a bit of a slippery slope I think.... soon every tom dick and harry (or roman, sergei and pyotr) will have a damien hirst on their wall and it will all suddenly look a bit COMMON.

oh, answers from the polished brass brigade! lol

Well Orangina, Duchamp's Readymades started it - and produced the most influential peice of art in the 20th century Fountain

Wouldn't go well with the traditional aesthetics of the home, but that's not what art is about for many

I like the spot paintings a lot - they are mesmerising if you stare at them.

I'm not Damien Hirst's biggest fan by any means but I think he is quite a laugh - much less irritating then some of the pretentious, chin stroking bolleaxs around at the moment. I also rather like the fact we have a Brit making such a huge impression on the international art stage.

What did you all think of 'The Weather Project' by Olafur Eliasson - the big sun in the Tate Turbine Hall - did you consider that art?

and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch Kitsch}} has it's own art movement so common is good to some too!

Here's the wiki on Hurst himself

As Mr Warhol said: "Art is what you can get away with"

£10.3m for a recycled idea with a title that actually takes the p*ss out of the purchaser - Genius!

Message withdrawn

i know someone who did a spot

it is genius if it gets you talking,makes you happy,sad,angry-just makes you feel 'something' or gets you thinking etc.it had an effect on you no matter how small which as an artist is what its all about.

im not a huge fan of hirst but i hate the 'is it art' arguement

I dunnot of I like the works themselves personally but I like the ideas - 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living'

and I think For the love of God work has a lot of resonances about life, death immportality and materialism, etc

They are works for our age