Monday, July 21, 2008

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living


Damien Hirst
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
1991
Tiger shark, glass, steel, 5% formaldehyde solution
213 x 518 x 213 cm

7 Comments:

Blogger Freethinking Upstart said...

Now I get it...

Uhh... No, not really.

Huh?

July 21, 2008 11:04 AM  
Blogger e-kvetcher said...

Expand your horizons, people! Life is more than just arguing about orthodox Judaism!

July 21, 2008 11:13 AM  
Blogger -suitepotato- said...

That piece's title is a bit of an obfuscated statement of a truism. Of course the death is a physical impossibility if you're still living. If you're not, then you are by definition dead. It's not stating the possibility for the future, but the obviousness that someone alive is not dead.

Moreover, it seems to imply that death is not a concern in the minds of someone truly alive and living.

Then they give us a shark in formaldehyde, and that shark is definitely dead even if the ones looking at it aren't so neither the truism nor the implication have a lot of bearing and more than that, lessened power after the viewer sees a dead shark.

It reminds me of the prank of putting a toilet in an art gallery against a wall in a blank space and people falling over themselves to see meaning and ascribe motivations to the artist right up till the workmen came to remove it and everyone went off blushing.

July 21, 2008 12:11 PM  
Blogger Freethinking Upstart said...

e-kvetcher,


I'm trying.

July 21, 2008 12:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Does the shark know that it is dead?


---Grant Patel

July 22, 2008 3:58 PM  
Blogger Lubab No More said...

I think the "someone living" is the observer. The picture certainly gets my heart pumping.
Thanks for posting.

July 24, 2008 9:53 AM  
Blogger e-kvetcher said...

LBN,
That is my understanding as well.

July 24, 2008 9:58 AM  

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