NEWS: $99,000,000 Bedazzled Skull Headbutts the Art World

CULTURE: $99,000,000 Bedazzled Skull Headbutts the Art World

Taking the idea of "bling" to its furthest possible conclusion, artist Damien Hirst has created a piece he calls “For the Love of God”: a diamond-encrusted platinum skull. The selling price: £50,000,000, or somewhere between $98 and $99 million, making it not only a monument to excess, but one of the most expensive pieces of art ever made.

The gleaming skull is the newest creation by Hirst in a long line of controversial pieces of art – including The Physical Possibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, which consists of a flesh-and-blood shark sealed in a tank of formaldehyde.



In an interview with The Guardian, Hirst discusses his motivation:

The skull is modeled after an 18th century European man’s actual skull from which a mold was created in platinum, which was then encrusted with 8,601 diamonds. But the teeth are real. Says Hirst:

As with Hirst's previous creations, there has been some discussion over whether or not this piece should be considered a serious work of art or more of a poke in the eye to the "establishment" of the art world. Pictured here alongside its creator, I’ll leave you to decide.

It looks a lot like a poke in the eye to the art establishment. Deliberately setting a silly sale price is the hint, AFAIAC.

OMG! That's genius!!

... Wait. No it's not. Not even by post-post-modern art standards, which are apparently damn low. That's pretty... lame really.

I'd like to know where he got the money to get his paws on all those diamonds.

fuck what the art world thinks, i think it is beautiful!
(that pic does not do it justice, by the way, the one in my journal is better.)

The skull has already been replaced by a near undetectable forgery. The original is the centrepeice of my underground lair of villany.

i'm not going to lie, i would buy a diamond-encrusted human skull if i could (only if it was a real skull, though). i'm generally not that into diamond-encrusted things, but this would have to be an exception.

what i have to wonder is how he was able to afford that many diamonds.

That is awsome!! I want it.

As for it being a poke in the eye of the art world... Like that plain white cavis hanging in the MOMA wasn't?

<--- incrust me with Diamonds

From The Guardian article:
"Hirst, who is in London for meetings with his latest collaborators, Bond Street jewellers Bentley & Skinner, added: 'The biggest expense will be the 50-carat beauty that will sit on the forehead. That one alone will cost in the region of £3m to £5m. It is certainly the biggest single undertaking by a jeweller since the Crown jewels'.

Hirst, 40, who was recently ranked as the most powerful individual in the contemporary art world by Art Review magazine, is reputedly worth in the region of £100m."

Thanks to Charles Saatchi!

It looks less like art and more like some ornamental nick nack you could get at Hottopic or Urban Outfitters. There is way better art out there for much less $$$. I would much rather have the shark.

That is one of the dumbest pieces of "art" I have ever seen. Talk about lowest common denominator. Jesus.

I can't think of a better way to display one's ego.
Way to go, dude.

Wow. You weren't lying.

The highest paid con artist in the world?

Damien Hirst is a chump, plain and simple. But the even bigger chumps are the inbred morons who buy his art. Though, if I could get as rich as him by selling what he passes as art, I would and I would care less what anyone writes about me on SG...Or anywhere else... But he's still a douchebag.

I new I should have gone to art school.

who paid for its creation, DeBeers?

Who the hell are you guys? I can't say I'd want it, but why is it any different than any other sculpture, like it or not?
There may be 'better' art out there, but there's far worse too... *Cough* Voice of fire* Cough cough*

How about that big fugly piece of shit they did of Britany Spears giving birth?
Sure it might have been well made, but what it stands for is far worse than this in my opinion.

this is retarded

I think it's just really boring. Insofar as it being art, I don't see why not. Very boring and unoriginal art and unless Mr. Hirst was was directly involved in every single step of it's creation, I don't really see what credit he deserves. First of all, he used someone else's skull. Plus, the real beauty of the thing comes from the cut diamonds. Did he have anything to do with cutting those? Mr. Hirst's greatest work of art is actually getting people to admire this bullshit.

So for the right amount of money, you'd be a douchebag?

i love what seems to be a subtle inference that Mr Hirst should have used his own skull.

agreed. i like it when i find it attractive, i could care less who made it or what it's worth.

I love how people get all upset and overwrought about art as if it's not subjective at all.

I have no problem with someone who creates such an item and sells it for $99,000,000. The person I don't even begin to understand is the one who actually buys it... unless of course that person is able to sell it for more. Ultimately, there is going to be a big, stupid douche with too much money at the end of all this. It is that douche that I abhor.

Fuck diamonds. He should have just used a regular skull and signed "R. Mutt" on the jaw. That would be fucking rad.