Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A deluxe version of death

When Hamlet finds Yorick’s skull, in the famous Shakespeare’s tragedy, he starts asking himself if life is worth the effort and pain, especially in consideration of the fact that everyone of us is destinated to become dust.  If Hamlet  found Damien Hirst’s skull, instead of Yorick’s, maybe his point of view would’ve been less pessimistic.


“For The Love Of God” is a human skull replica, cast in platinum and encrusted with diamonds, made by Hirst in 2007, and it’s one of the most chattered about piece of contemporary art nowadays.  It contains 32 platinum plates with 8,601 diamonds, using a rare and magnificent 52 carat pink diamond in the center, studded with 14 pear-shaped diamonds, and it has been sold for £50 million (80.93 million US$) while the true worth of the skull is estimated to be between £7 million and £10 million. In september 2007 the dailymail wrote : "Everyone in the art world knows Hirst hasn't sold the skull. It's clearly just an elaborate ruse to drum up publicity and rewrite the book value of all his other work."  Well, at least this is made with diamond, not human faeces. I spare you the details about the interpretations given for this opera, since my English (at this point you probably already noticed) is yet to be improved!

26 comments:

  1. That's one expensive skull right there!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've never really thought to much of Damien's dimond skull (visually) but reading "It's clearly just an elaborate ruse to drum up publicity and rewrite the book value of all his other work" makes a lot of sense lol.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i wish my skull was diamond ):

    ReplyDelete
  4. is it the skull of michael jackson? :D

    ReplyDelete
  5. kinda expensive for my taste! but a true piece of art.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I gotta say, this actually seems very cheesy. I'd have to go with the artists who say it's a ruse to raise value of his other work, honestly.

    Still interesting either way you look at it, and expensive for that matter, too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. wow I bet a pimp would use this skull for his cane haha

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yeah i heard Damien Hurst sold it for like £10,0000000


    O_o

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio.."

    I learned about this skull in my art appreciation class.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Quiet a beautiful replicated skull, wouldn't mind having that on the shelf above my fireplace. Haha.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Damien Hurst does some of the most ridiculous stuff. Doesn't stop me from enjoying his works.

    ReplyDelete
  12. oh shit yeah, that is wicked cool. wicked cool.

    ReplyDelete