The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
Encyclopedia
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is an artwork created in 1991 by Damien Hirst
, an English artist and a leading member of the "Young British Artists
" (or YBA). It consists of a tiger shark
preserved in formaldehyde
in a vitrine. It was originally commissioned in 1991 by Charles Saatchi
, who sold it in 2004, to Steven A. Cohen
for an undisclosed amount, widely reported to have been $8 million dollars, however the title of Don Thompson's book, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art, suggests a higher figure.
Due to deterioration of the original 14 feet (4.3 m) tiger shark
, it was replaced with a new specimen in 2006. It was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City from 2007-2010.
It is considered the iconic work of British art in the 1990s, and has become a symbol of Britart
worldwide.
, who in 1991 had offered to pay for whatever artwork Hirst wanted to create. The shark itself cost Hirst £6,000 and the total cost of the work was £50,000. The shark was caught by a fisherman commissioned to do so, in Australia. Hirst wanted something "big enough to eat you".
It was first exhibited in 1992 in the first of a series of Young British Artists shows at the Saatchi Gallery
, then at its premises in St John's Wood
, North London. The British tabloid newspaper The Sun
ran a story titled "£50,000 for fish without chips." The show also included Hirst's artwork A Thousand Years. He was then nominated for the Turner Prize
, but it was awarded to Grenville Davey
. Saatchi sold the work in 2004 to Steven A. Cohen
for $8 million, a price second only to Jeff Koons
for a living artist's work.
Its technical specifications are: "Tiger shark, glass, steel, 5% formaldehyde solution, 213 x 518 x 213 cm."
The New York Times
in 2007 gave the following description of the artwork:
had added bleach to it. In 1993 the gallery gutted the shark and stretched its skin over a fiberglass mold, and Hirst commented, "It didn’t look as frightening ... You could tell it wasn’t real. It had no weight." When Hirst learned of Saatchi's impending sale of the work to Cohen, he offered to replace the shark, an operation which Cohen then funded, calling the expense "inconsequential" (the formaldehyde process alone cost around $100,000). Another shark was caught off Queensland (a female aged about 25–30 years, equivalent to middle age) and shipped to Hirst in a 2 month journey. Oliver Crimmen, a scientist and fish curator at London's Natural History Museum
, assisted with the preservation of the new specimen in 2006. This involved injecting formaldehyde
into the body, as well as marinating it for two weeks in a bath of 7% formalin solution. The original 1991 vitrine was then used to house it.
As of June 2011, it is no longer on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, nor has it been for "years" according to a museum representative, because it was on loan from 2007-2010.
A philosophical question
was acknowledged by Hirst, as to whether the replacement shark meant that the result could still be considered the same artwork. He observed:
auction, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, for £9.6 million (more than £3 million above its estimate).
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In a speech at the Royal Academy
in 2004, art critic Robert Hughes
used The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living as a prime example of how the international art market at the time was a "cultural obscenity". Without naming the artwork or the artist, he stated that brush marks in the lace collar of a painting by Velázquez
could be more radical than a shark "murkily disintegrating in its tank on the other side of the Thames".
Hirst's response to those who said that anyone could have done this artwork was, "But you didn't, did you?"
In 2003, under the title A Dead Shark Isn't Art, the Stuckism International Gallery
exhibited a shark which had first been put on public display two years before Hirst's by Eddie Saunders in his Shoreditch
shop, JD Electrical Supplies, and asked, "If Hirst’s shark is recognised as great art, then how come Eddie’s, which was on exhibition for two years beforehand, isn’t? Do we perhaps have here an undiscovered artist of genius, who got there first, or is it that a dead shark isn’t art at all?" The Stuckists suggested that Hirst may have got the idea for his work from Saunders' shop display.
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
, an English artist and a leading member of the "Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
" (or YBA). It consists of a tiger shark
Tiger shark
The tiger sharks, Galeocerdo cuvier, is a species of requiem shark and the only member of the genus Galeocerdo. Commonly known as sea tigers, tiger sharks are relatively large macropredators, capable of attaining a length of over . It is found in many tropical and temperate waters, and is...
preserved in formaldehyde
Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is an organic compound with the formula CH2O. It is the simplest aldehyde, hence its systematic name methanal.Formaldehyde is a colorless gas with a characteristic pungent odor. It is an important precursor to many other chemical compounds, especially for polymers...
in a vitrine. It was originally commissioned in 1991 by Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C...
, who sold it in 2004, to Steven A. Cohen
Steven A. Cohen
Steven "Steve" A. Cohen is an American hedge fund manager. He is the founder of SAC Capital Advisors, a Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund focusing primarily on equity market strategies....
for an undisclosed amount, widely reported to have been $8 million dollars, however the title of Don Thompson's book, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art, suggests a higher figure.
Due to deterioration of the original 14 feet (4.3 m) tiger shark
Tiger shark
The tiger sharks, Galeocerdo cuvier, is a species of requiem shark and the only member of the genus Galeocerdo. Commonly known as sea tigers, tiger sharks are relatively large macropredators, capable of attaining a length of over . It is found in many tropical and temperate waters, and is...
, it was replaced with a new specimen in 2006. It was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York City from 2007-2010.
It is considered the iconic work of British art in the 1990s, and has become a symbol of Britart
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
worldwide.
Background and concept
The work was funded by Charles SaatchiCharles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C...
, who in 1991 had offered to pay for whatever artwork Hirst wanted to create. The shark itself cost Hirst £6,000 and the total cost of the work was £50,000. The shark was caught by a fisherman commissioned to do so, in Australia. Hirst wanted something "big enough to eat you".
It was first exhibited in 1992 in the first of a series of Young British Artists shows at the Saatchi Gallery
Saatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art, opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985 in order to exhibit his collection to the public. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames and currently in Chelsea. Saatchi's collection, and...
, then at its premises in St John's Wood
St John's Wood
St John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...
, North London. The British tabloid newspaper The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
ran a story titled "£50,000 for fish without chips." The show also included Hirst's artwork A Thousand Years. He was then nominated for the Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
, but it was awarded to Grenville Davey
Grenville Davey
Grenville Davey is an English sculptor and winner of the 1992 Turner Prize.He is a professor of the University of East London school of Architecture and the Visual Arts...
. Saatchi sold the work in 2004 to Steven A. Cohen
Steven A. Cohen
Steven "Steve" A. Cohen is an American hedge fund manager. He is the founder of SAC Capital Advisors, a Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund focusing primarily on equity market strategies....
for $8 million, a price second only to Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
for a living artist's work.
Its technical specifications are: "Tiger shark, glass, steel, 5% formaldehyde solution, 213 x 518 x 213 cm."
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in 2007 gave the following description of the artwork:
"Mr. Hirst often aims to fry the mind (and misses more than he hits), but he does so by setting up direct, often visceral experiences, of which the shark remains the most outstanding.
In keeping with the piece’s title, the shark is simultaneously life and death incarnate in a way you don’t quite grasp until you see it, suspended and silent, in its tank. It gives the innately demonic urge to live a demonic, deathlike form."
Decay and replacement
Because the shark was initially preserved poorly, it began to deteriorate and the surrounding liquid grew murky. Hirst attributes some of the decay to the fact that the Saatchi GallerySaatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art, opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985 in order to exhibit his collection to the public. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames and currently in Chelsea. Saatchi's collection, and...
had added bleach to it. In 1993 the gallery gutted the shark and stretched its skin over a fiberglass mold, and Hirst commented, "It didn’t look as frightening ... You could tell it wasn’t real. It had no weight." When Hirst learned of Saatchi's impending sale of the work to Cohen, he offered to replace the shark, an operation which Cohen then funded, calling the expense "inconsequential" (the formaldehyde process alone cost around $100,000). Another shark was caught off Queensland (a female aged about 25–30 years, equivalent to middle age) and shipped to Hirst in a 2 month journey. Oliver Crimmen, a scientist and fish curator at London's Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
, assisted with the preservation of the new specimen in 2006. This involved injecting formaldehyde
Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is an organic compound with the formula CH2O. It is the simplest aldehyde, hence its systematic name methanal.Formaldehyde is a colorless gas with a characteristic pungent odor. It is an important precursor to many other chemical compounds, especially for polymers...
into the body, as well as marinating it for two weeks in a bath of 7% formalin solution. The original 1991 vitrine was then used to house it.
As of June 2011, it is no longer on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, nor has it been for "years" according to a museum representative, because it was on loan from 2007-2010.
A philosophical question
Ship of Theseus
The Ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus' paradox, or various variants, notably grandfather's axe and Trigger's Broom is a paradox that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its component parts replaced remains fundamentally the same object.The paradox is most notably...
was acknowledged by Hirst, as to whether the replacement shark meant that the result could still be considered the same artwork. He observed:
Variants
Hirst has made other works subsequently which also feature a preserved shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine. In September 2008, The Kingdom, a tiger shark, sold at Hirst's Sotheby'sSotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
auction, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, for £9.6 million (more than £3 million above its estimate).
Responses
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
in 2004, art critic Robert Hughes
Robert Hughes (critic)
Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...
used The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living as a prime example of how the international art market at the time was a "cultural obscenity". Without naming the artwork or the artist, he stated that brush marks in the lace collar of a painting by Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
could be more radical than a shark "murkily disintegrating in its tank on the other side of the Thames".
Hirst's response to those who said that anyone could have done this artwork was, "But you didn't, did you?"
In 2003, under the title A Dead Shark Isn't Art, the Stuckism International Gallery
Stuckism International Gallery
The Stuckism International Gallery was the gallery of the Stuckist art movement. It was open 2002 to 2005 in Shoreditch, and run by Charles Thomson, the co-founder of Stuckism...
exhibited a shark which had first been put on public display two years before Hirst's by Eddie Saunders in his Shoreditch
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...
shop, JD Electrical Supplies, and asked, "If Hirst’s shark is recognised as great art, then how come Eddie’s, which was on exhibition for two years beforehand, isn’t? Do we perhaps have here an undiscovered artist of genius, who got there first, or is it that a dead shark isn’t art at all?" The Stuckists suggested that Hirst may have got the idea for his work from Saunders' shop display.
External links
- Official Damien Hirst Website
- White Cube
- Article pathology
- Lego version by the Little ArtistsLittle ArtistsThe Little Artists are John Cake and Darren Neave. They create versions of well known contemporary artworks and art personalities in miniature using toy Lego bricks. They also produce a range of merchandise. They describe themselves as conceptual artists. Their work is collected by Charles...