For The Love Of God

When I was an art student back in 1981 I was a little in love with Trevor slightly older than me and far more worldly wise he had a thirst for understanding the roots of modern art. In stark contrast I was only interested in the decorative and the superficial. We would talk for hours about so much but Trevor’s biggest prophesies has now been realised, He felt skills based artists were redundant, that the way forward to fame and fortune was to have a brilliant idea and pay someone to realise it for you. So it was a case of getting others to realise your potential and then you sign it with your name. His hero was Marcel Du Champ. Last week he was vindicated as once more the spectre of Damien Hurst took hold of the media arena. He is the magpie of the art world stealing ideas from friends and getting technicians to make them, this time to sell for £50 million. For The Love of God his latest piece, nice work if you can afford the technicians. It is not a well kept secret that the idea came from a friend who’s work is very similar, the friend has shrugged it off what else can you do in the face of Damien Hurst’s PR Juggernaut. He said in an interview that he thought it looked too bling, he is right it does, it has the tacky stamp of a Hatton Garden jeweller embellished all over it, perfect for David Beckham or a Russian oligarch. But unlike the sale of my beloved Rothko I doubt any good causes will benefit from its sale.
If this piece of glitz does one thing I hope it is to remind us of beautiful Aztec treasures, including the crystal skull on display in the Museum of Mankind London that is now thought to be a fake. Best of all in the British Museum is the mosaic skull from Tezcatlipoca or the mosaic skull in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco Maybe Damien Hurst could bequeath his own skull to his friend to decorate, now that would be a piece worth seeing