God's bling

Your first reaction upon viewing Damien Hirst’s “For the Love of God” at the Tate Modern is unutterable awe. Doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of diamonds, or hate skulls: as an object, it’s a jaw-dropping sight.

Though part of the Tate Modern’s current Hirst retrospective, the skull is actually shown on the floor level, where visitors can line up and glimpse it for free. The exhibit itself is iconic: a vast empty area behind the entrance has been reserved, draped with tons of black fabric; vaulting ceilings convey a cathedral-like space. The object itself is placed inside a small square viewing room somewhere in that space, also draped in black fabric; you line up and are allowed inside in batches of eight; the wait is made even more somber by the crypto-avant chamber jazz playing over the loudspeakers as you inch forward.

Stepping inside, you first see… nothing. Utter darkness. But then you notice a bunch of human figures hovering around a glass cubicle at the center of the room.

Ah: A human skull cast in platinum, encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, a 52-carat “skull star” diamond set in the forehead, and a mouthful of human teeth recovered from a 300-year-old laborer. Micro-pin lighting captures each facet of the brilliant diamonds as they shoot off in precise shafts of light inside the glass case. You think of the crown jewels at Tower of London, or indeed any priceless artifact of monarchy imbued with spiritual power.

Your first reaction is that the object is almost unbearably beautiful.

Yet this soon gives way to other, more analytical reactions. Skepticism: the kind that regards the mysterioso setting and solemn grandeur surrounding the black cube with suspicion. Is this a stunt? A sham? A joke? Let Hirst himself explain: “I just want to celebrate life by saying to hell with death. What better way of saying that than by taking the ultimate symbol of death and covering it in the ultimate symbol of luxury, desire and decadence?”

The third reaction may be more practical: you can’t help but admire the object with workmanlike appreciation. Yes, the sparkling facets are beautiful, but this simply means it’s an exquisitely made object. A manmade object, using the finest materials available. How does this square with our image of the struggling artist, laboring over tubes and pools of paint, trying to fashion the world into crude canvases?

There’s no contest. Hirst has always sought to make objects that are beyond the purchasing power of most mortals. Here’s Michel Houellebecq, commenting on Hirst’s place in the art hierarchy in The Map and the Territory: “He was basically easy to capture: you could make him brutal, cynical in a ‘I shit on you from the top of my pile of cash’ kind of way, or you could make him the ‘rebel artist’ (but rich all the same) pursuing an ‘anguished work on death.’”

Yet both skepticism and rationality are, conveniently, the very tools we use to challenge religious faith. They’re our weapons against belief. Is Damien Hirst saying something about the layers of analysis we erect to avoid worship in the modern age?

I honestly don’t know what Damien Hirst is saying.

I actually skipped the main Hirst retrospective upstairs, because I didn’t have enough time to view it (I had a phone launch to attend), but also because, having perused the show’s catalogue in the Tate gift shop, I still had reservations about Hirst’s art. Enormous ashtrays filled with thousands of crushed cigarette butts; tons of pill capsules lined up on glass shelves; spin art that looked like it was done by a six-year-old; colored dots on a field of white; and of course the preserved sharks, cows and sheep. With the likes of this, Hirst has made himself the world’s richest living artist.

Yet let’s be fair. “For the Love of God” (such a sly title) is (almost) his most iconic work, and it’s being shown for free, like a public offering to the peasants. Entry to the retrospective itself is £15.50 (the catalogue is pricier). So picking up scraps of Damien Hirst here and there is almost a better investment.

Of course, there is an aesthetic operating behind Hirst’s objets. Examining death’s presence in our everyday lives: you can see it in the crushed butts, the pills (a work titled “Lullaby, The Seasons”), and the infamous photo of Hirst, a smiling teen standing in a morgue, his face placed right next to a ghastly severed human head.

Often the titles of his works provide more than half of their meaning. Nomenclature itself is a god-like power: the ability to name something, conferring upon an object qualities it would not otherwise possess. This is the artist’s gift, or God’s. Thus, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (otherwise known as “shark in a tank”) conveys much more than the commonplace aquarium display might communicate to us. “Away From The Flock,” featuring a preserved sheep, suddenly gains religious dimension, the huge ashtray is dubbed “Crematorium,” while “A Thousand Years” features a glass case full of flies poised for electrocution. Then there’s “Some Comfort Gained from the Acceptance of the Inherent Lies in Everything” (not included in the Tate show) which shows sections of an elephant in separate glass cases. “It’s good to have a title that’s not just one word,” Hirst has said. “If you’re gonna title it, you might as well try and say something.”

Then again, this nomenclature thing goes too far sometimes, such as his “spin paintings” where it seems Hirst is just having a laugh — “Gorgeous Concentric Red Blue Hot Cold Painting,” or “Beautiful Spill of Light in Destitute Blackness Painting” indeed. Judging by the resulting spin patterns, it seems more wishful thinking than conjuring.

Money can also do a lot of conjuring. Just calculating the cost of “For the Love of God” in current carat price alone, it must have cost the artist upwards of $5 million to create. Though it surely could sell for much, much more.

I’m still not sure if Damien Hirst is a genius, or 96 percent blingy hype. But even by the latter measure, that still leaves four percent godlike artist.