Bling Art?

Today we went to see the new Damien Hirst exhibition Beyond Belief which is split across the White Cube Galleries in Masons Yard and Hoxton Square.



The White Cube - Masons Yard

Damien Hirst is often called things like "Shock Artist" or "Enfant Terrible of the Art World" but as that doesn't really bother me (hey I thought the K-Foundation burning a Million was Art) I was interested in seeing whether I would actually like anything.

First up was our timed tickets to see the centre piece of the exhibition 'For the Love of God', or as everyone else would know it the skull with the diamonds in it. After queuing to confirm our tickets, and having our bags searched we were led upstairs in a group of ten monitored by security cameras. After depositing our bags we were ushered into a pitch black room to get our 3 minutes of wonder with the Skull. Only the skull was lit and it showed off the 8,000 plus diamonds to perfection.

I have to say it was beautiful to look at and I'd recommend anyone in the area to go and have a look. I wouldn't want the responsibility of owning it though.

We also had a good look at the rest of the exhibition across both galleries which consisted mainly of 3 things. First were the almost photographic paintings surrounding the birth of his son (his wife must be very understanding). These were well executed but didn't do much for me. However they could shut up the pub bores who claim that Modern artists can't paint.

Next up were the series of large paintings of cancerous cells, that looked really lovely and decorative from afar, but on closer inspection were very textured with paint and additives that included broken glass, scalpels and hair. There is something quite unsettling about thinking that the painting would make a good basis for a nice wallpaper before thinking about what it actually depicts.

Finally there are the animals or bits of animal suspended in formaldehyde that everyone knows about. This included Sheep in Prayer, Fish a dissected Shark and two Cow front ends arranged so that you can walk through the Doctor Doolittle Layout. These were actually a bit better than I thought they would be with my favourite being the heart with a Dagger through it with Doves wings that looked just like a 3D real-life depiction of a familiar tattoo.

I'm sure it has been written about in a much more flowery way, but basically the exhibition is all about Life, Death and God pretty much the basis for most art and music.

I'm glad I went.