Damien Hirst, “Pharmacy,“1992, Tate Gallery
© Damien Hirst
Someone who signed his name as “Pharmacy” yesterday sent me an admiring but cryptic e-mail that was linked as a comment to my 2006 post, “Sensation!” German-Style. The message clearly had nothing to do with that long-ago review of the “Glitter and Doom” show at the Metropolitan Museum.
But the allusion to “Sensation!”, the Young British Artists exhibition that famously included Hirst’s shark, and the pseudonym of the sender, which seemed to evoke Hirst’s Pharmacy-titled works (including his restaurant in London, whose contents were sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 2004), sure made me wonder who sent that message, which I assumed actually referred to Tuesday’s post, Damien The Auction: A Career “Retrospective” of Brand New Works.
Maybe after my Banksy investigation, I’m getting too enamored of my new role of private detective. But these double-entendres seem right down the alley of an artist whose words (in his titles) are almost as evocative and thought-provoking as his works.
Speaking of which, here’s what “Pharmacy” wrote to me:
Thank you for that very intelligent and thought-provoking comment.
Though I am not sure what you expected me to take from that.
Keep doin’ what you’re doin’. It’s for you to invent and provoke. It’s for us to interpret (as best we can) and react. That’s what makes you an artist; us, mere audience. The best artists confound and subvert our conventional expectations, and you’re squarely in that untraditional tradition.
But since CultureGrrl is all about making provocative suggestions for improvement, here’s one for “Beautiful Inside Your Head Forever” (the Hirstian title of the upcoming Sotheby’s, London, auction):
Offer all 223 works without reserve: The highest bidder gets it; no minimum price. If (as you stated in the Sotheby’s press release) you want this sale to be “democratic,” that’s the way to put your money where your mouth is. Whether the auction house, your dealers and your collectors will be happy with that gambit is another matter.
But if marvelous Maev is right, and you are “cocking a snook” at the art market, what better way to snooker?
So, Art-lings, have I sent an e-mail reply to “Pharmacy,” asking for his true identity? Of course. Do I expect an answer? Ummm….