I have picked Dali and Damien so I can compare their ideas, thoughts and their work.
‘It's amazing what you can do with an E in A-level art, twisted imagination and a chainsaw.’
This is the quote that inspired me to include Damien in my work.
Dali bio
1904. Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali I Domenici was born in Figures, Spain on May 11 at 8:45pm.
1922 He attended the ‘San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts’ in Madrid, Spain.
1925 Dali had his first one man exhibition in Barcelona.
1928 First Dali painting shown in the US.
1927 Dali is called to the Castle of San Fernando for 9 months of military service
1929 Dali meets wife Gala Éluard (his future wife). Dali joins the Surrealist movement.
1934 Gala and Dali marry on January 30.
1936 Dali gives a lecture in a diving suit at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. Appears on cover of Time Magazine.
1938 Dali visits Sigmund Freud in London.
1939 Dali creates the pavilion the Dream of Venus for the 1936 World’s Fair – an installation of art and performance that will profoundly influence the course of art in the world.
1940 Following the German occupation of Paris, the Dali’s flee to America to live for the next eight years, working with figures like Hitchcock and Disney. They divide their time between New York and California.
1941 Dali’s first major retrospective is held at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.
1942 Dali’s autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dali is published.
1943 Dali and Gala meet Eleanor and Reynolds Morse who purchase their first Dali painting, Daddy Longlegs of the Evening, Hope! They Morse’s become lasting friends and most devoted collectors.
1944. Dali publishes his novel Rostras Oscuras (Hidden Faces)
1948 Dali and Gala return to Spain for the first time after 8 years in the US, Dali returns to NY each winter
1952 Dali goes on a lecture tour in America on “nuclear mysticism”—his new theory of art which combines religion, math, science and Catalan culture in an attempt to revive classical values and techniques; he becomes an American celebrity anew.
1958 Dali and Gala marry in Gerona, Spain on August 8.
1965 Huntington Hartford’s Gallery of Modern Art, New York, holds a major Dali retrospective exhibition featuring the entire Morse collection.
1974 Dali’s museum, the Teatre-Museu Dali, in Figures, Spain, opens on September 28.
1982 Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida opens on March 7.
Gala dies in her castle in Pueblo, Spain, on June 10. King Juan Carlos of Spain confers the title of Marquis of Pubol on Dali. Dali succeeds in changing it to the Marquis of Dali and Pubol.
1989 Dali dies of heart failure on 23rd January in Figures. He is buried under the geodesic dome in the Teatre-Museu Dali.Damien bio.
1965: Damien was born on 7th JUNE in Bristol.
He grew up in Leeds with his mum and step dad.
1986: Moved to London, accepted into the BA fine art course at goldsmiths collage.
1988: Damien had his first one man exhibition called ‘freeze’ while still a student.
1989: Graduated.
1991: First solo exhibition.
1995: Awarded the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery, London.
1996: Directed a film: Hanging around for the exhibition spellbound: art and film at the Hayward gallery.
1998: Publishes autobiography.
‘Hirst works with a wide variety of materials and across numerous art forms. He tackles the big subjects of love, desire, life and death.’
Against Damien hirst.My opinion.
I’m not too keen on the fact that animals are hacked up to make his work, but I can’t deny that if I saw one of his pieces I wouldn’t stop and look. I suppose in a way I could compare his work to a scary film…
I know there will be a shock, but it’s the shock that excites me!.
I disagree with the critics such as the sun. If the money wasn’t spent on art, it would be wasted on something else of a lot less importance!. I just think they are complaining about Damien hirst because they need something to complain about. A lot of other people (including me), must admire his work or he wouldn’t be so popular.
Quotes.
The sun.
Damien’s work is constantly been criticised by the press and tabloids.
Damien won an award in 1995 (turner prize) with:
- Some went mad
- Some ran away
‘Have they gone stark raving mad?!. The works of the artist are lumps of dead animals. There are 1000s of young artists who didn’t get a look in, presumably because their work was too attractive to some people. Modern art experts never learn.’
The sun.
Daily mails verdict on the 1999 turner prize referred to Hirst’s work:
‘For 1000 years art has been one of the great civilising forces, ‘today pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all’
Not only have papers slandered his work, so have various people from the art world. Critics have labelled his work.
‘Over blown + silly’
‘Throw away one liners’
‘Boring and unremarkable’
Brian Sewell (art critic from London) was appalled by Hirsts prize winning work.
‘I don’t think of it as art, I don’t think pickling something and putting it into a glass case makes it a work of art…It is no more interesting than a stuffed pike over a pub door’
SHOCK
Damien
My view
I think the whole point in Damien’s art pieces is to shock the viewer. I think he aims to WOW his viewers. By this I mean he has made his pieces of art totally different to anyone elses. Damien has realised that he has had to do something totally out of the ordinary to get peoples attention, (pickling cows).
If Damien just drew ordinary pictures. He wouldn’t get the same publicity as he does now. A lot of Damien’s publicity is bad publicity, but because he gets so many people ranting on about ‘hacked up cows’ in the news papers. People will see photographs of his work in the newspaper etc and may decide they like it and go to one of his viewings. This way Damien hirst will have gained a lot of fans from people seeing his bad publicity.
