Monday, April 22, 2013

Teeth and Blood

Damien Hirst “For The Love of God”
             Everyone has a different way of expressing themselves; Damien Hirst just does it with real teeth and tons of diamonds, which is pretty awesome. His unique work of art, “For the Love of God,” consist of 8,601 diamonds. This is just mind blowing. Hirst was inspired by the Comic book character, Tharg the Mighty, from the Comic book series 2,000 A.D. Tharg was a powerful god like figure who controlled the universe, and also had a mind stone in his forehead which you can also see in Hirst’s sculpture. The title given to the work of art was taken from a phrase he commonly heard from his mother throughout his life; “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?”
Most of the art work that Hirst has done has been revolved around the subject of death. The fact that it is covered by diamonds, diamonds, and more diamonds, makes we reflect on the controversy on blood diamonds which, according to Wikipedia, means a diamond mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, invading army's war efforts, or a warlord's activity. It’s funny, or not really, that this sculpture was conceived of a large amount of deaths. In pop culture you are able to see how blood diamonds are played out to be; the book Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney involves a refugee family smuggling blood diamonds into the United States from Africa.
Whenever I see this sculpture, I am automatically reminded of the traditional Hispanic celebration of “El Dia De Los Muertos,” or Day of the Dead. When looking at the materials he used to make this (THEM TEETH), I am then reminded by the artist Phil Hansen, and his huge portrait of Kim Jong Il, MADE OF HIS OWN BLOOD. Made of 500ml of his own blood on over 6,000 bandages, you will be AMAZED.

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