Hirst Be Gone.

I'm an unashamed lover of looking at art in auction houses. There are all kinds of justifiable beefs that people have with the feeding frenzy nature of it all (especially in these filthy times). Me? I just want to see good art. And as much of it as possible. Auction houses provide a messy and overwhelming experience in that area. I like it.

I bring this up because of a particularly hilarious room I walked into at Phillips de Pury on Saturday. Agnes Martin, Jeff Koons, and Damien Hirst. The Koons was pretty grand, but the Martin barely had to lift a finger to put it in it's place. And the Hirst? Well, you can imagine. From dirth to dust in the bat of Martin's eye.



On the PdP site they offered up this quote from Hirst with image of the painting:
"I see every spot within each painting as being alone yet together with all the other spots; I can find the pieces sad or happy, or even dumb. I think I'll always make them. The end result is always optimistic, no matter how I feel"

Y'know, when Warhol used the word "dumb" it was Andy being Andy. It was an opening. When Hirst uses the same word it just feels like an escape hatch.