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
posted by e-kvetcher at 8:49 AM
7 Comments:
Now I get it...
Uhh... No, not really.
Huh?
Expand your horizons, people! Life is more than just arguing about orthodox Judaism!
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.
e-kvetcher,
I'm trying.
Does the shark know that it is dead?
---Grant Patel
I think the "someone living" is the observer. The picture certainly gets my heart pumping.
Thanks for posting.
LBN,
That is my understanding as well.
Post a Comment
<< Home