Damien Hirst

Went to see the Hirst exhibition with Rob. Pretty unimpressive in my view. Fantastic execution, as usual. He has such an eye for detail, great control of his materials and the big butterfly pictures demonstrate yet again how instinctively good he is with colour. But the impulse he's encapsulating is about as interesting as hearing a little boy saying 'fuck' in church and then giggling at his own cleverness.

I sense though that Hirst's art is becoming more performative and location specific. Here's a review of the new exhibition if you don't know what I'm talking about.

For me, only when you're standing about six foot away from the mirrored cabinet that represents Christ does the room start to make sense - in the mirror you are Christ in a church with the butterfly pictures as stained glass windows, with the 'disciples' standing in two rows behind you. It's a great dreamy ritualistic moment, but from any other point in the room, it just doesn't work.

Had a great conversation with Rob which I videotaped (will try and post it here at the week end). He trained as a fine artist and, by rights, an artist is what he should be. Just as I should be a writer. New media has led us both astray. Our creative relationship has led us astray, maybe.

Sent me scurrying back to the Gordon Burn book (see Recent Reading). Sounds pretentious I know, but my taped interviews with Rob over the years sound not unlike these rambling discussions between Burn and Hirst. Perhaps I should start transcribing the vids.

There's a great bit about 'twins' in the book (p131) which resonates for me about how it is when you collaborate closely with another person. It's also bloody hilarious:

On the one hand you’ve got the Mona Lisa and on the other hand you’ve got mass production - Coca Cola cans. If you had the Mona Lisas, and there were only two, it just seems infinitely more powerful than the single painting. It’s not the second ‘discovered’ Mona Lisa. It’s the Mona Lisas: one facing one way and one facing the other way. One’s better painted, but it’s the Mona Lisas. And if you had the pair it just seems to imply mass production. It undermines this idea of you as yourself being unique. There’s a comfort from it that I fucking love. Absolutely love. You know: they’re not the same; they’re similar.

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I had that dream, which was terrifying, of meeting myself. I know I’m unique. But I think of it as bookends. I think everybody’s two. You’re cut in half. You cut yourself down the fucking middle. You are two.

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You have clones: bang-bang. That’s mathematical. And you get individuals, and they’ve got botulisms, spots, and they don’t wash. That’s the real world bit. And in the middle of it, you sort of botch a bit of both. There’s something there. It is where everything is.

Like Ming vases. Like bookends. Like bedside cabinets. Liken any great, odd pairs of things. Like any two things which are double but individually unique. Duelling pistols. They’re both made at exactly the same time, by the same person, they’re put together in a box, they go through a massive period of time and they’re like that. They exist. They have their own life independently of each other, but they live together, and for all intents and purpose they’re the same, but they’re not. And if you haven’t got the pair, it’s worth less. Like twins. It’s just fantastic. It just seems different to everything else.

It’s like, you can have a girlfriend, one of twins. And you still want to fuck her sister, ‘cause its different. It’s different, but it’s not.