Focus on The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and discuss the Decay and replacement.
Because the shark was initially preserved poorly, it began to deteriorate, and the surrounding liquid grew murky. Hirst attributed some of the decay to the fact that the Saatchi Gallery had added bleach to the fluid. In 1993, the gallery skinned the shark and stretched its skin over a fiberglass mould, thus transforming the shark from a chemically preserved intact carcass to a taxidermy mount being displayed in fluid. Hirst commented, "It didn't look as frightening ... You could tell it wasn't real. It had no weight."When Hirst learned of Saatchi's impending sale of the work to Cohen, he offered to replace the shark, an operation which Cohen funded, calling the expense "inconsequential" (the formaldehyde process alone cost around $100,000). Another shark (a female aged about 25–30 years, equivalent to middle age) was caught off the Queensland coast and shipped to Hirst in a 2-month journey. In 2006, Oliver Crimmen, a scientist and fish curator at London's Natural History Museum, assisted with the preservation of the new specimen. This involved injecting formaldehyde into the body, as well as soaking it for two weeks in a bath of 7% formalin solution. The original 1991 vitrine was then used to house it.Hirst acknowledged that there was a philosophical question as to whether replacing the shark meant that the result could still be considered the same artwork. He observed:It's a big dilemma. Artists and conservators have different opinions about what's important: the original artwork or the original intention. I come from a conceptual art background, so I think it should be the intention. It's the same piece. But the jury will be out for a long time to come.
Saatchi Gallery Natural History Museum conceptual art fiberglass formaldehyde vitrine philosophical question formalin chemically preserved intact carcass taxidermy mount