Thursday, March 22, 2007

Tanked


News that Damien Hirst is in negotiation with Steve Cohen, the new owner of his shark work The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living, sent us searching our picture files for the Lego sculptures above. It depict Hirst in front of the famous work. Charles Saatchi, who commissioned the pickled shark work for £50,000 in 1991, sold it three years ago to Cohen for £7 million. Now, because the formaldehyde has failed to adequately preserve the 14 foot Tiger shark, it needs repair or replacement. Hirst told writer Stuart Morgan (who visited New Zealand in the late 1980s) that he knew formaldehyde was not the perfect preservative, but that he had used it anyway because of it’s associations. The Lego Hirst has put us on the trail of other Lego works depicting contemporary art and artists which you are sure to see if you keep with us.