Damien Hirst art installation

"We didn't kill anything. Everything was destined for food."

Damien Hirst was thus quoted in NYTimes (11/9/2007)about his recent exhibit in Manhattan. Mr. Hirst, a British artist, born in 1965, says this as if we should get beyond THAT issue and just see his work for what it is -- an exhibit with dead animals -- in which he was paid ten million dollars.

Hirst is best known for exhibiting dead cows and sharks in formaldehyde in galleries and museums (because his paintings suck). Now on view in New York you can see his work right through a building window. On view in the Lever Building at Park Avenue and 54th Street in Manhattan, the artist exhibits 30 dead sheep, a shark and portions of beef along with sausages and stuff. Not interested? Then don't go near the corner because it will be illuminated 24 hours a day by fluorescent light.

The work was commissioned for 10 million dollars by real estate developer Aby Rosen who owns Lever House, the Seagram Building and the Grammercy Park Hotel (who else could afford 10 million for one art installation than a real estate developer?) and Alberto Mugrabi, a Manhattan dealer.

Notice Hirst's statement: "We didn't kill anything." He doesn't say we didn't kill any animals, 'thing' is a better word, a thing doesn't breath, doesn't feel, doesn't look you in the eye, doesn't love or cry in pain. A thing is not his mother/father/sister/brother/daughter/son or beloved pet. Therefore, it is okay? But I have to ask, at what expense to others do we degrade and put on display other species; and what do we loose in our own compassion for others when we participate in taking away another being's choice to live?

What about the argument: "they were already killed for food"? We didn't raise it, we didn't' slaughter it, we didn't buy it in plastic at the grocery store, and we didn't eat it. BUT if someone else did these things, then it's okay to look at it in a million dollar exhibit?

What's next for Damien Hirst? A dead man in formaldehyde? Will he say, he was already on death row? Or, the dead man walking agreed to it and lots of money was given to the poor man's family?

This exhibit already exists.


BODIES THE EXHIBITION. All Chinese bodies. This is a very disturbing exhibit. There are many protests and accusations that the bodies are coming from an unregulated China where people are arrested and executed without due process. Some of these exhibits have closed down due to problems (leaky bodies) and human rights issues. The Chinese Government has been accused of cooperating with the exportation of body organs from executed prisoners. This is touchy. The US economy, it is believed by some, would collapse if we stopped buying merchandise at dollar stores and Wal Mart (everything in Wal Mart comes from China). New Zealand would be in trouble as well. Its economy is so tied to China, Helen Clark did not meet with the Dali Lama this past May due to pressure from the Chinese government. Clark claims it is not so. BUT it is a fact that the Chinese government told the PM not to meet with His Holiness. I guess she wasn't going to anyhow.

It is the responsibility of all humans to consider others in all our actions. Even when we buy a cup of coffee, do we know how it got into our hands? Is this any different than looking at art? Don't we have an obligation for what we consume? For what we take into our heads and hearts as well as what we eat and wear? Who was it that said, 'I'd rather live in poverty without hurting others than make millions off the backs of those who had no choice.'

I once owned a book (I don't own books anymore because I don't have a home) about the connection between how we treat animals and slavery. It was chilling. "The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery" by Marjorie Spiegel. It shows a compelling relationship between how we treat animals and consequently our treatment for fellow human beings. There are other books (which I haven't read) that claim the holocaust was only possible because of how we treated animals.

I don't believe in censorship, but If we continue to support people like Damien Hirst we loose our compassion not only for animals, but for each other. A case in point: Michael Ross was a convicted serial killer from Connecticut. (He was executed in 2005). Psychiatrists spent years interviewing and studying him to see if they could understand him, to see if they could discover an evil gene. He raped and killed eight young women from 1981-1984 without any remorse, and did it for sexual pleasure. Ross grew up on an egg farm and from the young age of six, it was his job to kill the weak baby chicks by wringing their necks. While attending Cornell University he began to rape and kill young women. He strangulated them with his bare hands. He called these women chicks and he left all of them dead face down. He never killed any of his girlfriends. He said he could not kill the women he loved, or anyone he knew.

See the connection? No? Then imagine your pet in formaldehyde. Don't have a pet? How about your father? Many Chinese mothers, wives, sons and daughters are living with that right now.