Love Goddess #9: Damian Hirst’s Madonna May 9, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, Contemporary , trackback
***Thanks to Invisible for sending this one in***
Damien Hirst, media-savvy horseman of the post modern art apocalypse and the Madonna, mother of Christ, eternal sweetness and light, whose breasts produce condensed milk for the faithful. What would happen should these two contrary forces come together? Well, there is no reason for speculation because in 2005 Damian, creator of countless dead animals exhibited in formaldehyde and a diamond skull, now probably doubling as an ashtray in the house of a Russian mafia capo, decided to create his own Madonna. And the result? Well, you are staring at it. No wonder Joseph never had kids with Mary after the messiah had popped out into the manger.
Three editions have been put up to date – one in London, two in New York – each weighing in at thirteen tons (of bronze) and standing at thirty-three feet (if you jump from this madonna’s head you’ll be pigeon crap on the pavement).
The statue is modelled on Degas’ Little Dancer of Fourteen. According to Damian ‘It is kind of naughty [the reference to Degas]; she shouldn’t really be pregnant. I wanted a feeling of that. Anyone who is pregnant looks old enough, that’s the problem.’ (WtH!!) Then there is the peeling back skin and the revealed fetus, something that recalls the woman in the bathtub in the Shining. That might, of course, be Damian taking his love of outrage a bit far. One of the Madonna’s has certainly caused controversy on a private property with the owner having to offer to turn the organs towards his own front door to placate furious and probably terrified neighbours. Somewhere between the modern and the bold the scratching began to tear the paper…
And as to the Madonna it sounds like a commercially viable name for something that DH has been playing around with for years. DH’s Hymn for example, now owned by the Satchis, and apparently copied from a children’s toy: an out of court settlement dealt with allegations of plagiarism.
Or what about Naked Truth (Hirst loves sliding that word ‘truth’ into his works) that combines visible organs with another fetus though this time there is a sword (she stands at 66 feet)?
Perhaps DH is slowly maturing a single hard idea or perhaps he is just adding more and more of the super wealthy to his client list.
Beach is always on the hunt for Love Goddesses: Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com. Here are our earlier efforts. The Madonna has already appeared twice: apologies to BVM.
Love Goddess #8: Simonetta Vespucci
Love Goddess #7: The I Love You Wall
Love Goddess #6: Northumberlandia
Love Goddess #5: Agnes ‘Madonna’ Sorel
Love Goddess #4: Juliet, Verona and the Invention of Love
