# £50m diamond skull



## Allegra (Jun 2, 2007)

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Hirst unveils £50m diamond skull

"*Artist Damien Hirst has unveiled a diamond-encrusted human skull worth £50m - said to be the most expensive piece of contemporary art.* 
The 18th Century skull is entirely covered in 8,601 jewels, while new teeth were made for the artwork at a cost of £14m."


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## Rosemary (Jun 2, 2007)

Yes, I saw this article in our local newspaper Allegra.   It took him a long time to make, and it was certainly a delicate piece.  I'm not sure that I like it though.  What a lot of money to spend on something like that!
Sure there will be those who think it is great.  For me it is like much of todays contemporary art... definately not for me but I sometimes wonder how gullible some people are when buying these sort of items


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## HappyHippo (Jun 2, 2007)

I don't think it's 'art', really. Clever, yes, art no.

It's very now though, I suppose, vulgar, flash, macabre.

i'm philosphical tonight!


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## dustinzgirl (Jun 2, 2007)

Seems like a waste of diamonds, a human skull, and money to me...but what do I know?

I can think of much better things to do with a human skull, like scare the little kids who keep tearing the limbs off my trees.


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## Allegra (Jun 2, 2007)

And the name of the thing? 'For Love of God'(White Cube) - shallow, pretentious. Gimme a pile of diamonds and a bloody skull and some superglue I can do the work.  Come to think about it, I wonder who sponsored the project?


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## Rane Longfox (Jun 2, 2007)

I would imagine Hurst has enough money to do it himself, he's sold enough crap in the past for ludicrous amounts of money. And this one is on sale for £50million, was it?

Idiocy, but kudos to the guy for convincing people that this is actually art, and persuading them to part with so much money for it.


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## Curt Chiarelli (Jun 3, 2007)

Death knows not want, nor need, nor . . . . good taste. I couldn't agree more with the other comments posted concerning Hirst and his little opus. Another pretentious, self-indulgent dilettante given his 15 minutes worth of Warholian coverage.


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## Alia (Jun 3, 2007)

> "They go underneath, inside the nose. Anywhere you can put diamonds, we've put diamonds.


 I teach my kids not to stick things up their nose... this is just so... so... so... wrong on so many levels.






> "I wouldn't mind if it happened to my skull after my death," he added.


 For some reason 'warped' comes to mind. For me, I don't care what people do to my skull once I'm dead... I'm dead and don't care. 

Nothing like putting a price tag on death!


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## Winters_Sorrow (Jun 3, 2007)

Actually the first thought that occurred to me was imagining it being dug up by archaeologists in 1,000 years (hey, this _is_ a fantasy & sci-fi forum) and having serious discussions about whether or not it formed part of a religious ceremony... 
I wonder if the builder of the Crystal Skull was a mayan dilettante to use Curt's phrase


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## Rane Longfox (Jun 3, 2007)

I'd love to be worth £50million once I'm dead. Anyone got some spare diamonds? Or emeralds, I'm not fussy


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## HardScienceFan (Jun 3, 2007)

Effit,I feel a rant coming on.
See,this is just the kind of pretentious horse manure "artists' the world over are piling on top of us.
You see ,I get no recognition at all for my performance art piece
'THE ARTIST AT WORK'
I've photographed myself on the loo,u see....
 and I'm working on a perfomance art piece called 
Man making Spaghetti
and i've spanned a wooden frame with a piece of plastic,put glue on it,and in a coupla days i will look at what's stuck to the g****mn thing.
The piece is going to be called,uuhh
Stochastic processes,PT 1
I am also taking a pic of myself lazing about in a deckchair,
called 
THE FOURTH LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
and I am attaching a fake Hirst piece to a vacuum cleaner attachment
and calling the whole thing

MODERN ART SUCKS BIGTIME


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## Allegra (Sep 3, 2007)

The 'Death Artist' sold his 'Love of God' for $100m:  

Damien Hirst skull sells for 100 million dollars - Yahoo! News


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## Curt Chiarelli (Sep 3, 2007)

So . . . . the lesson we all can glean from this tender digression into the Stygian machinations of the gallery art world is this: Artistic integrity, skill and talent equates to obscurity, contempt, poverty and an untimely demise in the gutter - cheapjack showmanship, facile gimmickry and a paucity of talent pays off with wealth, sex, status and a nice footnote in Gardner's_ Art Through the Ages_.

How goddamned wonderful it all is.


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## Allegra (Sep 3, 2007)

Yes it does appear the world has gone on a wrong track and never looked back. We can only be grateful that we are still able to sustain our souls and sanity with the 'real thing'. The future generations may never know what the true value in art or life is.

It's difficult not to be cynical when the absurdity increases by the day, Curt. You know sometimes I sense even Wossname caught the bug! 


(P.S. Wossname is a parrot, not the same one of pTerry)


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## Curt Chiarelli (Sep 3, 2007)

Yes, Lily, life without art is to shamble about in a zombie-trance as nothing more than an empty husk awaiting the grave. A hollow vessel unable (or unwilling) to receive the power of life around you, transformed, transmogrified and re-interpreted through the filtre of sublime intellects, is a living death. Without art there would be no civilization. 

Then I can only imagine that Wossname would be a superior art critic. And I can also imagine how he'd demonstrate his censure of such crass dreck like Mr. Hirst's - he'd probably dive bomb the artist and his works right out the gallery door!


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## Allegra (Sep 3, 2007)

Curt Chiarelli said:


> Then I can only imagine that Wossname would be a superior art critic. And I can also imagine how he'd demonstrate his censure of such crass dreck like Mr. Hirst's - he'd probably dive bomb the artist and his works right out the gallery door!


 
LOL!  Oh yes! Wossname has good taste but a _very _bad temper, so you are absolutely right - if Wossname gets into that door, no skull – dead or alive can escape the tragic fate!


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