Cleaner dumps Hirst installation

BBC News ^ | 10/19/2001

[dighton]

A cleaner at a London gallery cleared away an installation by artist Damien Hirst having mistaken it for rubbish.

Emmanuel Asare came across a pile of beer bottles, coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays and cleared them away at the Eyestorm Gallery on Wednesday morning.

It was in fact an installation of those items, along with ladder and easel arranged into a work of art by Hirst.

A spokesperson for the gallery said they were able to put the installation back together as they had records of how it had looked.

"The cleaners were cleaning up and tidied up part of the piece," she said.

"From our point of view it was just something we had to deal with."

But she added that the cleaner's efforts could have a positive outcome, by encouraging "debate about what is art and what isn't, which is always healthy".

This is not the first time that an artist has found his work cleared away.

In the 1980s the work of Joseph Beuys, which featured a very dirty bath, was scrubbed clean by a gallery worker in Germany.

In that case the work could not be recreated exactly.

Hirst, 35, is one of the key members of the generation of conceptual artists called Young British Artists and is used to hitting headlines with his works of art.

One of his early works was the now-iconic The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, consisting of a whole shark in a display case.

He went on to create Separated from the flock - a lamb preserved in a glass tank - which was vandalised when included in the exhibition Hirst curated for the Serpentine Gallery in 1994.

Hirst is currently exhibiting work at the Eyestorm Gallery, with whom he has produced a kit to make your own version of his paint spot pictures.

Eyestorm is an internet-based sales company of art, which occasionally organises traditional exhibitions as well.

[dighton]

[Keith in Iowa]

rotflmao!!

Too funny!

[The Duke]

A spokesperson for the gallery said they were able to put the installation back together as they had records of how it had looked.

Yeah, "real" art they have there! Maybe some liberal should just take a crap on the floor and call it art(?)

[wbill]

Art imitates Garbage.

[MadIvan]

Yeah, "real" art they have there! Maybe some liberal should just take a crap on the floor and call it art(?)

There was a French artist who put his own feces in tin cans, and stacked them, calling that "art". Leftist idiots have no idea what art is anymore.

Regards, Ivan

[coder2]

Another picture of the "so-called art" !!! LOL !!

[Liz]

Hirst (is) key member of conceptual artists called "Young British Artists".....

Typo....should read "Young British Idiots"......

[coder2]

This "art" is supposedly worth L5,000 !!!!! Not sure off-hand what that converts into $$$, but my guess would be about a $.50 --- maybe those empty bottles are returnable.

[jimtorr]

Maybe some liberal should just take a crap on the floor and call it art(?)

Nah, it's been done already. My favorite story of commercial "art" is about Picasso, I think it was. He had nothing but contempt for art critics and museum buyers. He once told a friend that anything he did would instantly become great art. To prove it, he picked up a new canvas and put one line of paint across it. Sure enough, it was hailed as a classic expression of minimalism.

[BigWaveBetty]

LOL! Too funny! I guess this "art" for wealthy people who have servents to pick up after them. They've never seen such a thing! Maybe I should start charging people to see my son's bedroom. I'll be a billionaire!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Aready been done. And some other idiot bought it.

[right]

The fact that the staff could so easily recreate the mess -Oh I mean artwork- shows that it didn't involve any talent, and it was not art

[jimtorr]

Leftist idiots have no idea what art is anymore.

It seems as if today's definition of art is, whatever someone calling himself an artist can sell. The more shocking, the better. Many artists and radio shock-jocks have a lot in common. Shock-art.

[small voice in the wilderness]

Hey, I've got that piece, it's upstairs, by the t.v, next to the recliner. We call it "Monday Morning."

[VoiceOfBruck]

But she added that the cleaner's efforts could have a positive outcome, by encouraging "debate about what is art and what isn't, which is always healthy".

Speaking of unhealthy art, the Voice of Bruck News Service has jumped into that issue with both feet:

Intestinal art

A "moving" exhibit

Unsanitary art exhibit

[coder2]

ROFL !!! Hey you can get the big bucks for it !!! Don't clean it up anymore !!!

[GunsareOK]

I can't draw a straight line but if this is art (it's not), I could do crap like this too.

[IC Ken]

My desk is a masterpiece

[mj1234]

Remember the Virgin Mary --modeled in animal feces?-- Remember Guiliani shutting down the exhibit? Remember Clinton sending Cuomo to prosecute New York-and threatening to hold all federal money?-----This article is funny till you find out that art is not made to lift man anymore, it is to shape man-in an image of garbage-- communist garbage,religious garbage, human garbage,-- last question, remember who paid for this art....

[Tex-Con-Man]

I was going to have a garage sale this weekend, but now I'll just have an art exhibit.