On the Politics of Accelerationism Contra Slowness

Jamie Reid, Nowhere Bus (2005)

giclee mounted cotton rag print (79 x 90.5 cm) 

bonhams.com

 

 

I. 

 

As everyone knows, the Sex Pistols were going nowhere - but they were going nowhere fast! Speed was the very essence of punk; even if travelling by bus [1]. Indeed, one might argue that Malcolm McLaren and Jamie Reid both subscribed to a political strategy that is now termed accelerationism ... 

 

In other words, theirs was a revolutionary project founded upon the idea that radical social and political change could only be achieved via an injection of speed (or chaos) into the current system in order to destabilise it and thus accelerate its demise. 

 

When everything is rotten and on the point of collapse, the task is not to try and reform or improve the situation, but, rather, to push the process of decay further and faster beyond the point of no return. Ultimately, the Sex Pistols wanted to make things worse - not better; McLaren and Reid believed in the ruins of culture, not its grand monuments. 

 

II. 

 

I'm not sure from where (or whom) McLaren and Reid adapt this line of thinking - one which attracts extremists on both the far-left and far-right - but, for me, it has its roots in the Nietzschean idea of pushing (or kicking) over that which is already falling [2]. 

 

One is also obliged to mention the work of Deleuze and Guattari in their seminal two-volume study Capitalism and Schizophrenia, in which they speak of accelerating the processes of the former all the way to a singular outer limit [3], effectively injecting Marxism with a little madness and speed.

 

And of course, it was from his idiosyncratic and delirious reading of Deleuze and Guattari, fuelled by amphetamine, that the British philosopher most associated with the theory of accelerationism, Nick Land, drew many key ideas in relation to his own brand of techno-nihilism that affirms rapid advances in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, human enhancement (or replacement), etc. [4]

 

 

III. 

    

As dangerously exciting as the idea of accelerationism is - and despite my own long advocacy of speed over slowness: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! - I find myself now increasingly drawn toward the idea that it might, in fact, be advantageous and desirable to slow things down; that slowness is another softly-spoken S-term to be added to the list that includes silence, secrecy, and shadows ... [5]   

 

Of course, this might just be a sign that one is getting older, but not necessarily any wiser: I'm very aware of the fact that it was only when he had passed 60 years of age and approched the end of his life, that Malcolm McLaren also embraced the idea of slowness in various cultural forms, including slow art and film [6].

 

Thus, for example, when discussing his series of 'musical paintings' entitled Shallow 1-21 (2008), he was very keen to explain how they were based upon the idea of slowness; that speed and the idea of going nowhere fast wasn't attractive to him any longer; that Damien Hirst's spin paintings were essentially boring [7]. 

 

McLaren now wanted individuals to take their time; to focus on things and delight in the nuances and details; to enjoy the moment that leads up to the event or action as much as the event or action itself; to appreciate that Jamie Reid's bus destination could, with but one stroke of a pen, be transformed from Nowhere to Now/here - i.e., an immanent utopia that exists in the bonds between people, not the dissolution of those bonds.   

A still from Malcolm McLaren's Shallow 1-21 (2008) 

showing a woman slowly eating some grapes
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

   

   

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring of course to the Jamie Reid artwork used to promote the Sex Pistols' single 'Pretty Vacant' (Virgin Records, 1977) which featured two buses; one headed to Nowhere and the other destined to terminate in Boredom. 

      This amusing image, however, pre-dates punk; Reid was reworking an earlier graphic produced for his radical Suburban Press, having appropriated the buses idea and design from a 1973 pamphlet published by the American situationist group Point-Blank! In 2010, the activist David Jacobs, founder of Point-Blank!, claimed that he was the one who should be credited with the original concept and design. 

 

[2] In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes: 

      "O my brothers, am I then cruel? But I say: That which is falling, should also be pushed! Everything of today - it is falling, it is decaying: who would support it? But I - want to push it too!" 

      - 'Of Old and New Law Tables' (20), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1969), p. 226.

 

[3] In Anti-Oedipus, for example, Deleuze and Guattari advocate an acceleration of the forces and flows that capitalism has itself unleashed: "To go still further, that is, in the movement of the market, of decoding and deterritorialization." [239]

      It should be stressed, however, that whilst they think capitalism "produces an awesome schizophrenic accumulation of energy" [34], this also acts as its limit, which is why "schizophrenia is not the identity of capitalism, but on the contrary its difference, its divergence, and its death" [246]. 

      Page references are to the English edition, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (The Athlone Press, 1994).

 

[4] Readers interested in knowing more about Land's thinking in this area might like to see his essay 'A Quick-and-Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism' (2017), which can be located as a five page pdf on the Internet Archive: click here. 

      Ultimately, for Land, capitalism is something akin to an alien form of intelligence and a means of opening up the future. Thus, philosophers truly interested in change have a duty to affirm such regardless of the consequences to humanity or the planet. 

      See also Robin MacKay and Armen Avanessian (eds.), #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader (Urbanomic, 2014). 

 

[5] See the post 'In Defence of Isis Veiled' (9 Sept 2023), in which I suggest what a practice of occultism might mean today in an age of transparency: click here. 

 

[6] On the other hand, it's possible that this wasn't a sign of age, but an attempt by McLaren to get with the times and create a contemporary space for himself. For the slow movement as a cultural initiative encouraging individuals to reject the hustle and bustle of modern life, had, by the early 2000s, been (ironically) gathering pace for a number of years. 

      The core idea at the heart of the slow movement's philosophy is that faster is not necessarily better and that one should learn to relax a little so as to enjoy the moment and be able to appreciate and reflect upon things without feeling hurried or distracted. 

      The slow movement has found expression in many different areas; from slow art and photography, to slow fashion and food. There is also a political aspect to the movement; one that calls for local governance models that are inclusive and centered on deliberative democracy and community empowerment. 

      All this sounds very nice, but one suspects that this is essentially a middle-class movement; that the working class can't afford to take things slowly and lead a more leisurely lifestyle.

 

[7] I'm paraphrasing McLaren speaking in conversation with Prof. Jo Groebel, Direktor of the Deutsch Digital Institute, Berlin, at the American Academy in Berlin (29 Oct 2008): click here. Malcolm introduces the concept of slowness at 42:10. 

      For those who may not be familiar with the work, Shallow 1-21 is an 86-minute video consisting of 21 'musical paintings' that combine (but do not synchronise) musical snippets with short film clips - the latter appropriated from old sex movies - into a slow moving and hypnotically layered work of art.

 

 

For a follow up post to this one on making haste slowly and learning how, as an artist, one might be quick, even when standing still, please click here. 

 

Welcome to Essex (Notes on the Dagenham Idol)

Michael Landy: Welcome to Essex (2021)

Ink on paper

 

 

I. 

 

By referring to my stay in Essex as exile, I may, perhaps, have given the impression that this ancient county - once home to Anglo-Saxon kings and fields of bright yellow cowslip - is the kind of place that one is only ever banished to involuntarily.

 

But that's obviously not true and it would be grossly unfair to portray Essex in the same negative and stereotypical manner that it is often portrayed in popular culture. It may not be the garden of England, but it's far more than merely the dumping ground of London and I'd still rather spend the day in Southend than St. Ives.

 

One artist who has done more than most to explore and celebrate the history and culture of Essex - and to challenge the pernicious myths and snobbery that this county seems to inspire - is Michael Landy ...  

 

 

II.  

 

Born and raised in Essex, Landy rose to prominence as one of the Young British Artists in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But it was his performance piece Break Down (2001) which really brought him to the attention of a public more easily impressed by the showmanship of Damien Hirst and his pickled shark, or Tracy Emin's unmade bed.

 

In 2021, a new exhibition of work - Michael Landy's Welcome to Essex [1] - was born of his love for the county and featuring (amongst other things) his reimagining of the Dagenham Idol; a naked figure made of pine wood, unearthed in Dagenham in 1922, but thought to date to the Late Neolithic period or early Bronze Age [2].

 

Landy's idol is cast in bronze, but finished with gold leaf in order to give it a more ostentatious look, thereby challenging (or perhaps simply reinforcing and perpetuating) the stereotype which thinks brash and blingy is the only aesthetic appreciated by the good people of Essex, when they also like cheap and cheerful.     

 

 

Michael Landy: Essex Idol (2021)

bronze, with 24ct gold 

thomasdanegallery.com

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Michael Landy's Welcome to Essex was a free exhibition at the Firstsight (an art space and community hub in Colchester), which ran from 26 June until 5 September, 2021. Click here for further details. A short documentary film about the work and Landy's perspective on Essex can be found on YouTube: click here. See also the interview with Landy and another Essex-based artist, Elsa James, on artfund.org: click here.   

 

[2] The Dagenham Idol was found in marshland close to the north bank of the River Thames, during excavation for new sewer pipes. Eighteen inches in height, the armless figure of indeterminate sex, was buried in a layer of peat ten feet below ground level, next to the skeleton of a deer. Carbon dated to around 2250 BC, it is one of the earliest representations of the human form found anywhere in Europe.       

      Anyone interested in seeing (and paying homage) to the Idol, should visit Valance House Museum, in Dagenham, where it has been on indefinite loan (from Colchester Castle Museum) since 2010. Or, if more convenient, there's a copy of the work residing in the Museum of London. 

 

Butterfly

 

Damien Hirst: Expulsion (2018) 

Butterflies and household gloss on canvas 

(84" diameter)

 

 

I. 

 

One of my favourite short poems by D. H. Lawrence is called 'Butterfly' and exists in two versions, the first of which opens with the following lines: 

 

 

The sight of the ocean 

or of huge waterfalls

or of vast furnaces pouring forth fire

 

does not impress me as one butterfly does

when it settles by chance on my shoe. [1]

  

I have to confess, my own response to Damien Hirst's series of works known as Mandalas [2] made from the wings of thousands and thousands of dead butterflies, was something similar: even whilst astonished by the beauty of the works - and dismayed by the cruelty involved in making them - they did not impress as a single living butterfly impresses when it comes from out of nowhere and briefly settles on one's shoe, or on a flower in the sunshine.

 

When a single living butterfly emerges from its chrysalis and lifts up its large, often brightly coloured wings, fluttering into flight with 56-million years of evolution behind it, then "wonder radiates round the world again" [3]. 

 

But when Mr. Hirst imports innumerable dead butterflies from breeding farms in the tropics so that he might gleefully glue their body parts on to canvas in order to make art - and money - we go away feeling somewhat despondent, even a little demoralised. 

 

For it's as if life itself has been enframed and we witnesss a gathering of lost souls [4] exhibited for our macabre delight ...      

 

 

II.    

 

Having said this, I'm aware of the need to curb what Giovanni Aloi calls misplaced outrage when it comes to Hirst's use of butterflies. For as he rightly notes, whilst one can subscribe to the view that killing creatures for the production of art is unethical, it's important to acknowledge that what Hirst is doing is nothing new and that most artworks rely upon animal slaughter: 

      

"Watercolours are mixed with ox gall, an extract of bovine gall bladder, and tempera with egg. Sepia, the reddish-brown favourite of life drawing, is derived from the ink sac of the common squid and many other pigments rely on pulverised insects to provide us with the brilliant and subtle hues used in paintings. Canvases, meanwhile, are sized with rabbit skin glue. And ferrets, squirrels, and hogs are killed to make artists’ brushes." [5]

      

Aloi goes on to argue that Hirst is simply being honest about this and making the destructive reality of art apparent:

 

"His work reveals how the achievements of art have depended on our willingness to sacrifice the lives of animals. Or perhaps more disturbingly, Hirst shows us that aesthetic beauty can derive from so-called acts of cruelty towards animals and nature." [6]

 

Finally, Aloi points out that the farms that breed Hirst's butterflies not only help sustain local economies by providing legal and regulated work, but protect the environment by dramatically reducing habitat destruction. The poaching of rare specimiens from the wild - to be sold to international collectors on the black market - is also something that the farming of butterflies helps to prevent. 

 

So, whilst I still remain unimpressed in a Lawrentian sense with Hirst's butterfly mandalas, I would encourage readers to think twice before mounting their moral high horse.   

Damien Hirst: Expulsion (2018): detail

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'Butterfly' [I], The Poems, Vol. I, ed. by Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 590. 

      Both short versions of this poem are located in The 'Nettles' Notebook, but readers might like to know that a significantly longer third version of 'Butterfly' can be found in The Last Poems Notebook; see The Poems, Vol. I, p. 610. This can be read online by clicking here. 

 

[2] Damien Hirst's Mandalas exhibition was held at the White Cube Gallery (Mason's Yard, London), 20 Sept - 2 Nov 2019: click here for details.

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Butterfly' [2], The Poems, Vol. I, p. 591.

 

[4] Those who know their ancient Greek will recall that the word for butterfly - Ψυχή [psyche] - also denotes soul. 

   

[5-6] Giovanni Aloi, 'The misplaced outrage over Damien Hirst's dead butterflies', Apollo (30 Sept 2019): click here to read online. 

Excessive Brightness Drove the Poet into Darkness

Damien Hirst: Black Sun (2004) 

Flies and resin on canvas (144" diameter)

Photograph: Prudence Cuming Associates 

© Damien Hirst and Science Ltd.

 

 

I. 

 

For D. H. Lawrence, darkness is not thought negatively as a total lack or absence of visible light. 

 

In fact, for Lawrence - as for Heidegger - the dark is the secret of the light [1]; an idea that reminds one of the esoteric teachings of Count Dionys on the concealed reality of the sun and the invisibility of fire.

 

According to the latter, the brightness of sunshine is epiphenomenal and there would be no light at all were it not for refraction, due to bits of dust and stuff, making the dark fire visible: 

 

"'And that being so, even the sun is dark [...] And the true sunbeams coming towards us flow darkly, a moving darkness of the genuine fire. The sun is dark, the sunshine flowing to us is dark. And light is only the inside-out of it all, the lining, and the yellow beams are only the turning away of the sun's directness.'" [2]

 

Thus our luminous daytime world is really just a surface effect; the underlying reality is of a powerfully throbbing darkness, as great thinkers have always understood and which is recognised within various religious mythologies [3].

 

 

II. 

 

Some of Lawrence's loveliest poetry is written, therefore, beneath the dark light of a black sun [4]. But he also acknowledges the chthonic reality of darkness and likes to write of the hellish aspect of flowers, insisting, for example, that they are a gift of Hades, not Heaven [5]. 

 

This is clear in these lines from his famous poem 'Bavarian Gentians':    

 

"Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark

darkening the day-time, torch-like, with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom" [6]     

 

In 'Gladness of Death', meanwhile, Lawrence dreams of actually becoming what some might term a fleur du mal:

 

"I have always wanted to be as the flowers are

so unhampered in their living and dying,

and in death I believe I shall be as the flowers are.

I shall blossom like a dark pansy, and be delighted

there among the dark sun-rays of death. 

I can feel myself unfolding in the dark sunshine of death

to something flowery and fulfilled, and with a strange sweet perfume." [7]

 

At other times, however, Lawrence's dark musing is less floral in character and takes on a more nihilistic aspect as he longs for complete non-existence:

 

"No, now I wish the sunshine would stop,

and the white shining houses, and the gay red flowers on the balconies

and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out

between two halves of darkness;

the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with muffled sound

obliterating everything. 

 

I wish that whatever props up the walls of light

would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down,

and it would be thick black dark forever.

Not sleep, which is grey with dreams,

nor death, which quivers with birth,

but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable." [8]

 

Now, I know that post-Freudians - even really smart ones like Julia Kristeva [9] - will tend to read a poem like this in terms of dépression et mélancolie, but those of us who know Lawrence will understand the necessity of being made nothing and dipped into oblivion [10].   

 

Notes

 

[1] Martin Heidegger, Basic Principles of Thinking (Freiburg Lectures, 1957), in Bremen and Freiburg Lectures, trans. Andrew J. Mitchell, (Indiana University Press, 2012), p. 88.

      In a poem entitled 'In the Dark', the narrator (whom we can assume to be Lawrence) tells a frightened female figure (whom we can assume to be Frieda) that even when she dances in sunshine, it is dark behind her - as if her shadow were the essential aspect of her being. 

      See D. H. Lawrence, The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 170-71. And cf. this stanza from 'Climb down, O lordly mind': "Thou art like the day / but thou art also like the night, / and thy darkness is forever invisible, / for the strongest light throws also the darkest shadow." The Poems, Vol. I, p. 411.     

 

[2] See D. H. Lawrence, The Ladybird, in The Fox, The Captain's Doll, The Ladybird, ed. Dieter Mehl, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 180. 

      Lawrence probably got this idea of the black sun from Mme. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine (1888), though it by no means originated in theosophy; the ancient alchemists, for example, also wrote of the sol niger. Today, it's our physicists who talk of dark energy and dark matter; and neo-Nazis who fetishise the symbol of the black sun.       

 

[3] In Greek mythology, for example, Erebos was one of the primordial deities; born of Chaos, he was a personification of darkness.

 

[4] Lawrence's 'Twilight', for example, opens with the line: "Darkness comes out of the earth". See The Poems, Vol. I, p. 12.

 

[5] See 'Purple Anemones', The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 262-64.       

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'Bavarian Gentians' [1], The Poems, Vol. I, p. 610. 

      See also 'Glory of Darkness' [1], The Poems, Vol. I, p. 591, in which Lawrence eulogises the darkness embodied in some Bavarian gentians which make "a magnificent dark-blue gloom" in his sunny room.  

 

[7] D. H. Lawrence, 'Gladness of Death' [2], The Poems, Vol. I, p. 584.  

[8] These are the first two stanzas of Lawrence's '"And oh - that the man I am might cease to be -"', The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 165-66. 

      This theme of an annihilating darkness can also be found in 'Our day is over', ibid., p. 369.

[9] See Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, trans. Leon S. Roudiez, (Columbia University Press, 1989). 

      For Kristeva, depression is a form of discourse with a language to be learned, rather than strictly a pathology to be treated. This depressive discourse often reveals itself in poetry or other creative forms of self-expression. See Garry Drake's M.A. thesis - D. H. Lawrence's Last Poems: 'A Dark Cloud of Sadness', (University of Saskatchewan, 2008) - which reads Lawrence's work in light of Kristeva's theory: click here. 

[10] I'm referring here to one of Lawrence's last poems, 'Phoenix', which can be found in The Poems, Vol. I, pp. 641-42. 

Most of the poems by Lawrence that I refer to in this post can be found online:

 

'In the Dark' - click here.

 

'Twilight' [aka 'Palimpsest of Twilight] - click here. 

 

'Purple Anemones' - click here. 

 

'Bavarian Gentians' - click here. 

 

'Glory of Darkness' - click here.

 

'And oh - that the man I am might cease to be' - click here.

 

'Our day is over' - click here. 

 

 

For a sister post to this one, click here. 

 

 

Banksy

Banksy: Girl with Balloon (London, 2002) 

 

(Note the chalked message on the wall; if that doesn't make you want to 

vomit, pop the balloon and shoot the artist, I don't know what would.)

 

 

I. 

 

There's a rather poignant moment in his interview with the Sex Pistols when Bill Grundy mourns the passing of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Brahms. Classical composers mocked by Rotten as wonderful people whom, as Steve Jones reminds us, are long since dead [1]. 

 

It's as if Grundy realises that his time too is over and that the world he knows and loves - in which the majority shared his values and musical preferences - is coming to an end. 

 

Strangely, I felt something similar when I recently discovered that Britain's favourite artwork (according to a poll of 2,000 people conducted in 2017) is Girl with Balloon (2002) by Banksy ... 

 

Turner, Constable, Blake and Bacon have all died and no longer turn anybody on it seems, apart from a few old farts, myself included, and it's just our tough shit if tastes have changed and people now want banal (because immediately accessible) images and naive political clichés - which, let's be honest, is mostly what Banksy trades in - instead of complex, challenging works.

 

 

II. 

 

Now, just to be clear, I've nothing against a former public school boy making millions from the art world with his (sometimes amusing) stencilled designs whilst posing as part cultural prankster, part urban guerilla. And if people want to regard him as a folk hero and put his prints on their walls, that's fine by me. 

 

But, having said that, I do tend to agree with Alexander Adams, who argues that when one compares Banksy with, for example, Jean-Michel Basquiat - "another artist who started in the streets and moved to art galleries" - we soon discover the former's limitations: 

 

"Basquiat's art is alive because we see the artist changing his mind, discovering, adapting and revising. We see the art as it is being made. While Basquiat's art is palpably alive, Banksy's is dead - it is simply the transcription of a witty pre-designed image in a novel placement. There is no ambiguity or doubt, no possibility of misinterpretation. There's no fire and no excitement." [2]

 

Ultimately, concludes Adams - himself an artist, as well as a critic and poet - "Basquiat's art is so much richer and more inventive than Banksy's, which by contrast seems painfully limited and shallow" [3].

 

I'm not sure I agree, however, that a century from now people will still be viewing Basquiat and will have forgotten Banksy. And, as regular readers of Torpedo the Ark might appreciate, I have a lot of problems with several of the terms used here:   

 

"Banksy lacks most of the characteristics of a serious artist: originality, complexity, universality, ambiguity, depth and insight into human nature and the world generally." [4]

 

Indeed, reading this almost makes me want to embrace Banksy and tell Adams to keep his opinions to himself. 

 

One also wonders if Adams isn't just a tad jealous of an artist who, like Damien Hirst, has achieved such astonishing fame and fortune (speaking personally, I know that I would love to wield even a fraction of Banksy's influence over the popular imagination and envy both his talent for graphic design and flair for self-promotion).   

 

But, then, just when I'm starting to feel a certain fondness and admiration for Banksy, I think again of the above image and its message of hope and realise that Adams is right to ultimately brand him nothing but a "cosy culture warrior and peddler of pedestrian homilies" [5].     

 

Notes

 

[1] Bill Grundy's infamous interview with the Sex Pistols on the Today programme took place on 1 December, 1976: click here to relive the moment on YouTube - one which is as significant and as memorable for those of the punk generation as the Kennedy assassination was for those who witnessed events in Dallas on 22 November, 1963.

 

[2] Alexander Adams, 'Banksy and the triumph of banality', essay in The Critic (Jan 2020): click here to read online. Adams is quoting here from an earlier article of his which appeared on the Spiked website comparing Banksy and Basquiat.   

 

[3-5] Ibid. 

 

 

Decorating the World with David Bromley

Anglo-Aussie artist David Bromley, who is best known for his images of youngsters that nostalgically recreate a memory (or fantasy) of a Boy's Own childhood and decorative female nudes painted in black outline with clever colour combinations that also make one long for the past, is certainly not without his critics.   

And no doubt some of the criticism is fair. But, in so far as this criticism relates to his production techniques and the manner in which he has successfully branded himself and his work ensuring mass commercial appeal, much of it seems laughably passé; this is, after all, not only a post-Warhol world, but an age in which Banksy, Hirst and Koons all operate as artist-celebrities.   

To suggest, as Peter Drew suggests, that by proliferating images on an industrial scale Bromley dilutes the meaning and substance of his work, is to return to hoary old notions of originality and artistic aura (the latter being a magical quality said to arise from a work's uniqueness and which cannot possibly be reproduced). 

I mean, I love Benjamin as much as the next man, but c'mon ... 1936 is a long time ago and the myth of presence - which this idea of aura clearly perpetuates - is something that Derrida has, one might have hoped, put to bed once and for all.     

And Drew's assertion that all great art is a form of self-expression, is also one that deserves to be met with scorn. The last thing I want to see revealed on a canvas is subjective slime; I really don't give a shit about the artist's feelings, or care about the condition of their immortal soul.

Ultimately, even if Bromley is simply in it for the money, then, that's his business and his choice. But I like his tots and tits - not to mention his use of flowers, birds and butterflies - and he has, after all, six kids to support.    

One suspects, however, that Bromley is actually a more interesting figure than this and I rather admire his attempt to take art outside of the usual gallery network and into a more public arena, weaving his images into the fabric of everyday life and contemporary culture. 


See: Peter Drew, 'Too Many Bromley's', post on peterdrewarts.blogspot.com (25 May 2010): click here.

bromleyandco.com

Reflections on the Death of a Cow (with Reference to the Work of Damien Hirst)

Figure 1

Along with sharks, skulls and flies, the artist Damien Hirst obviously has a thing for cows ...

One of the iconic works with which he made his name back in the 1990s, for example, Mother and Child (Divided), is a sculpture comprising four glass tanks supported by signature-style thick white frames, containing a cow and a calf, each cut in two and preserved in a translucent turquiose solution of formaldehyde.

Whatever one may think of the work - whatever may one think of Hirst himself - there's no denying it has a certain devastating beauty coupled with a terrible sense of sadness and loss. For not only is the calf fatally isolated from its mother, but both animals are also bisected and thus self-divided as well as separated from one another. 

Hirst seems to suggest that just as individual integrity is rendered impossible by death, so too is the hope of some kind of heavenly reunion or renconciliation between the generations. Further, Hirst wants the viewer to question why it is that corpses seem to often have a greater fascination and mystery than living beings - and even, once you overcome your initial horror, a greater beauty.

Cattle standing around in a field, he once said, lack the aesthetic interest of his cows suspended in formaldehyde. For the former are little more than soon-to-be beef burgers; dead beasts walking, chewing the cud whilst waiting for slaughter. In other words, they are organic components within an industrial food system that Heidegger describes as essentially genocidal in character and which Derrida brands as carno-phallogocentric.

The violence and injustice of our treatment of nonhuman life, particularly those animals reared on farms exclusively for food and for profit, is powerfully brought home in another of Hirst's works, The Promise of Money (2003):

Figure 2

Now, I'm not sure what Hirst is protesting with this work (if anything). But, to me, it speaks powerfully about the ongoing animal holocaust that many vegetarians, vegans, animal rights activists, and even ethically concerned carnivores are rightly sickened by. Eating well, may involve the sacrifice of animals, but it needn't involve appalling systematic cruelty, nor the symbolic cannibalistic sacrifice of other human beings (due to the voracious greed of those who thrive on such).     

I think Derrida is right to argue the crucial importance of determining a more caring and respectful (almost reverential) way of relating to the living animal in its otherness. If Hirst's sensational strategy of shock and awe can help provoke this, then that's great. Personally, however, I prefer the attempt by D. H. Lawrence to equilibrate with a black-eyed cow called Susan in all her cowy wonder:

"She knows my touch and she goes very still and peaceful, being milked. I, too, I know her smell and her warmth and her feel. And I share some of her cowy silence, when I milk her. [...] And this relation is part of the mystery of love: the individuality on each side, mine and Susan's, suspended in the relationship."

Notes

Figure 1: Damien Hirst, Mother and Child (Divided). This is a photo of the exhibition copy that Hirst created for the Turner Prize retrospective at Tate Britain in 2007. The original work (1993), is in the Astrup Fernley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo. © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. For more details, click here.

Figure 2: Damien Hirst: The Promise of Money (2003), Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates  / © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. For more details, click here.  
 
D. H. Lawrence, '...... Love Was Once a Little Boy', Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 329-46.

To read more on Lawrence's relationship with Susan the cow, click here.

This post is dedicated to David Brock and Thomas Bonneville.