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September 13, 2008
Art critic Robert Hughes has attacked BritArt star Damien Hirst as responsible for the decline in contemporary art.
Hughes branded Hirst's various works as "tacky" and "absurd" in a 2008 TV documentary called The Mona Lisa Curse made by Hughes for Channel 4 in Britain. Hughes said it was "a little miracle" that the value of £5 million was attached Hirst's Virgin Mother (a 35 foot bronze statue), which was made by someone "with so little facility".
Damien Hirst, Virgin Mother, Lever House , New York, 2005
Hughes is not alone in his judgement. I am not sure what Hughes means by the decline in contemporary art. Art "functioning like a commercial brand"? Artists making the price tag of an artwork more important than its meaning? Art as spectacle? The elevation of minor artists into the limelight? Politically correct art that believes expressiveness, not quality, is enough? Contemporary art is decadence?
A period of artistic decline due to a bankruptcy of innovation (the search for the new)? Art's fall into a commodity culture and its becoming an icons of popular consumption? The bastardisation of Warhol's concepts and critique of popular culture?
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Honestly, i don't have a clue what's going on in his mind, or the criticism of him. All i know is he sells for prices that every single artist on the planet dreams of selling for. Death, as the central idea in all his work seems to me to be supremely ironic, since he's living it up to the hilt. Sending all the critiques stark raving mad, and making their opinions seem rather redundant.