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For the Love of Gold – Eugenio Merino

It seems some corners of the art world are starting to catch up with public opinion as is the “world financial crisis” is catching up with them.

One of the world’s biggest art dealers, David Nahmad, this week launched an attack on the contemporary art market, condemning the millions charged for some works as “almost fraud”. They echo remarks by the British sculptor Sir Anthony Caro, who last week said that “stupid outrageous values” had become more important than the work itself.

These comments follow the collapse of the contemporary art market. For the past three or four years it’s been a very thin market, with two or three buyers pushing up prices by bidding against each other. There are a many people who bought art that is now not worth what they paid for it. The economic downturn will moderate the speculative bubble that has seen some less deserving artists command extreme prices.

Spanish artist, Eugenio Merino has created a life-sized sculpture of Damien Hirst, shooting himself in the temple at point bank range, as a comment on the absurd art market prices. The sculpture entitled “For the Love of Gold” attracted much attention at the launch of the 28th Madrid International Contemporary Art Fair (ARCO) and references Hirst’s diamond skull “For the Love of God”.

“Hirst is always trying to think of ways to make his art the most expensive,” Merino said in an interview. “If he killed himself, then the value of his art would increase a lot.”

It would also seem that Hirst is also not adverse to small amounts of money either… for other people’s artwork. He threatened action against Cartain, a 16 year old schoolboy who appropriated images of his diamond skull in a number of collages and sold them online for £65. The young artist backed down and handed over to Hirst the money he’d made off the sale of the pieces.

Hirst is one of the art world’s biggest jokers and appropriators. But a sense of humor is really tested when on the receiving end of a joke. His spin paintings were inspired by Blue Peter, while the Hirst artwork being ‘appropriated’ was influenced by another artist, John LeKay.

So has he lost his sense of humor or is he just an artist protecting his intellectual property? Perhaps the downturn in the contemporary art market is making him concerned.

Art fairs, I’ve seen a few of them. The Berliner Kunstsalon I have attended a number of times, it’s first two years and now this year. In the beginning there was much fresh and interesting work from many of the local artists who were marginalized in the Berlin art market. However since then it has transformed into the same banal copycat pap seen at all of the other art fairs.

It’s one saving grace this year was a generous soul who gave me his entrance card as he was leaving. He obviously took pity on anyone paying the eight euro entrance fee for an art fair that was totally underwhelming.

Soft gay porn seemed to make a popular showing along with the ubiquitous hastily assembled installations. While many of these mundane artworks show no hint of any thought, you of course would be derided by the art intelligentsia as ignorant and uneducated.

My friend Garth Gregory attended the opening and confirmed that the Berlin art circle spent their time discussing concepts. This is being apparent by the lack of time devoted artworks, hastily shot photos, out of focus and poorly photoshopped; offering the most inane of scene or topics, lacking any sense of composition. If you want a real challenge, try and look at the leatherman who has his todger out, and try to keep a straight face.

Technique is handwork, and therefore out, out of fashion, out of the circle of whit and intelligence of the postmodern contemporary art world. This is painfully evident in the paintings on show. No one dared raise their standards above anything mediocre lest they be labeled a craft worker. If you work with your hands too much you obviously don’t spend enough time thinking, and therefore too much time wanking.

Anja Brinkmann who attended the Berliner Salon with me made and astute observation, as we took a restive pause from trekking from floor to floor of the old power substation, warming our bones and hands on the few heating radiators to be found in that cold building. She reflected that if art reflects the zeitgeist, then what we had just viewed was indeed a mirror to our current world situation. Currently we face a crisis, (one of many) in an international finance system that is built on nothing tangible, only concepts and possibilities; the unmanifest, in short, nothing.

The populace is so anesthetised from the media assault we live in, where anything is viewable and entertainment now, shock and outrage garners little more than a whimper. Any fetish may be now labeled as art. Thus we are left with soulless banality as the pinicle of contemporary art that needs the constant assistance of concept, a blizzard of words, which like the natural phenomenon, obscures any sight and direction.

Should you be brash enough to state the obvious and name it as the emperor’s new clothes, then obviously your intellectual rigeur and wit is below par. There is a joke that is being had and snickered behind the hands of the arts intelligentsia. The joke is that clueless people looking to invest in the next big thing will buy anything, and the quest is who can exceed the others with the biggest price tag for the most pointless things sold. Banalities and whimsical curiosities are now equated with the Old Masters, because were they not also interested in profiting from their patrons who were also following fashion dictates?

All jokes repeated conceitedly, bore the audience. And this was evident as the Berliner Salon audience filed through each room barely pausing to view or engage any of the artworks. The party was over on the opening night as was evident from the dull looks in the eyes of gallerists and artists who stood listlessly by their artworks. We’d missed the party and missed the joke, by expecting so see “serious” artwork and anything of note.

‘False Idol’ is up for auction along with 222 other works at Sotheby’s.

Damien Hirst claims he is just like Rembrand, Velasquez and Goya. That’s quite a tall claim. While it can not be considered that he is making any serious comparison of artwork, he is most definitely making a superficial reference to lifestyle and business acumen.

He identifies himself with Rembrandt as the artwork of both, commanded high prices in their life times, enjoyed displays of opulent lifestyles and expensive homes, had large art collections, and cavorted with fashionable society.

Ok, so he could also make connections with other well known artists, performers, inventors or businessmen for that matter. It would seem that his comment is no more than a superficial grab at media attention through bombastic “sacrilegious” claims. It is completely calculated to cause a stir in conservative art circles where the Old Masters take on an almost saintly aura.

His statement is calculated as much as his artwork is to procure reaction. Damien Hirst has looked at the excesses of the modern art market, and set himself the goal of being more excessive. Excess is his artform.

He has largely stated this with his diamond encrusted skull, his intent being, to make an artwork too prohibitively expensive to buy.

With several factories situated around London and some 180 drones, he churns out his luxury brand. His works are held by some of the wealthiest collectors in the world. His comment about criticisms of his business orientation was, “A lot of people believe artists should be poor, that you’re not a real artist unless you are covered in paint with holes in your jeans.”

We can then follow this next vacuous claim that he is a populist champion for the exploited artist. Why should artists not earn well from their artwork? Why should the middlemen, galleries and dealers take up to 50% of the earnings?  Yes, discussions that all artists have had amongst themselves. Where this grab at attention seeking propaganda lacks any relevance is that his world, his earnings belong to that rarefied atmosphere of the celebrity commodity art market. In this world, only the label and price tag matters.

In a market where escalating prices seem to be almost normal, how can one possibly be even more outrageous? Cut out the middle man. This is precisely what he done. Sotheby’s auction house, will stage a ground breaking auction dedicated to 223 new works by the artist next week and is estimated to earn more that £65 million. None of it will go to his representative gallery, White Cube Gallery and nor will Sotheby’s earn any fees.

Will this change anything for the mere mortal artist? Not at all. The gatekeepers of this tightly controlled world, the arbitrators of fashionable contemporary art, are not about to let their empire end. While Damien may think his now out of their control, the rest are not. He sees himself as a grand revolutionary, a purveyor of enlightenment, but rather he is only but yet another symptom of the system, a victim of his own success.

His statements and actions thus far have as much meaning for other artists as Marie Anttonette’s purported comment, “Let them eat cake.”

The “art establishment” once again shows how inane and conceited it is by awarding £25,000 to Mark Wallinger for a shaky 154 minute long video of a man walking around a gallery in a bear costume. He is prize winner of the 2007 Turner Prize, Britain’s foremost contemporary art award.

Lauding their lack of perspective, the Tate said that there were parallels between Wallinger and the Berlin gallery, and Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel: “Both artists were interested in transforming spaces.”