Focus on For the Love of God and explain the Media reporting and reviews.
The media coverage of the "sale" of the diamond skull was extensive and led some to question to what extent the announcement of the sale was some kind of media art, especially as the "sale" continues to be in question. This was further supported by the performative nature of the Sotheby's exhibition and auction of Hirst's artwork the following year.
In an article in The Guardian, Germaine Greer said, "Damien Hirst is a brand, because the art form of the 21st century is marketing. To develop so strong a brand on so conspicuously threadbare a rationale is hugely creative - revolutionary even."Richard Dorment, art critic of The Daily Telegraph, wrote: "If anyone but Hirst had made this curious object, we would be struck by its vulgarity. It looks like the kind of thing Asprey or Harrods might sell to credulous visitors from the oil states with unlimited amounts of money to spend, little taste, and no knowledge of art. I can imagine it gracing the drawing room of some African dictator or Colombian drug baron. But not just anyone made it - Hirst did. Knowing this, we look at it in a different way and realise that in the most brutal, direct way possible, For the Love of God questions something about the morality of art and money."Ralph Rugoff of the Hayward Gallery in London criticised the work as a mere decorative object, saying "It's not challenging or fresh. It's a decorative object which is not particularly well done."The Australian art critic Robert Hughes described the skull as "a letdown unless you believe the unverifiable claims about its cash value, and are mesmerised by mere bling of rather secondary quality." Hughes added that "as a spectacle of transformation and terror, the sugar skulls sold on any Mexican street corner on the Day of the Dead are 10 times as vivid and, as a bonus, raise real issues about death and its relation to religious belief in a way that is genuinely democratic, not just a vicarious spectacle for money groupies such as Hirst and his admirers".The performative nature of Hirst's work was later addressed in the exhibition at Tate Modern, "Pop Life: Art in a material world", which critic Ben Lewis found very offensive: "the gallery texts have the temerity to claim that the greed-fuelled auction sale was a work of performance art in itself. That's just the same as Stockhausen calling 9/11 a work of art."In her 2020 book, Written in Bone, professor Sue Black criticised the artwork, writing that the work raised questions "about the ethics of being able to buy and sell the remains of our ancestors, irrespective of their antiquity." She also criticised the use of real human teeth, arguing that it violated the integrity of the original remains for art.In a 2007 article in The Times, artist John LeKay, a friend of Hirst's in the early 1990s, claimed the work was based on a skull covered with crystals which LeKay had made in 1993. LeKay said, "When I heard he was doing it, I felt like I was being punched in the gut. When I saw the image online, I felt that a part of me was in the piece. I was a bit shocked."
crystal Harrods Asprey John LeKay Germaine Greer Robert Hughes Tate Modern Hayward Gallery Ralph Rugoff The Times human teeth Sue Black Stockhausen calling 9/11 a work of art London Damien Hirst The Guardian oil states Time The Daily Telegraph