The case of the missing pencils

What happens when you take a(some) large(small) animal(s), preferably dead, soak it(them) in formaldehyde and then put it(them) up for display? And what happens when your autobiography has a title so long that you need to use the whole cover for it? And what happens when you get pissy about some kid who made fun of you on a national scale?


Well, you get called a collossal nob.

The person I am going on about is Damien Hirst. In case you dont remember him, he's the chap who likes to do insane things in the name of art. He won the nonsensical Turner prize for his coveted bisected cow in formaldehyde in 1995. Hirst went on to create a giant statue of a pregnant woman, who had part of her skin 'missing' so we could look at the life growing inside amongst other animals in formaldehyde, crystal encrusted platinum skulls and cows with gold horns.

Now i'm a philistine when it comes to art, my eyes welded to the works of the great masters of old, but sure we don't need to feed the ego of a man who is, quite frankly, the artistic equivalent of the village idiot (or a very illegal, very powerful drug).

Recently in the news for the revival of his 'feud' with a 19 year old amatuer artist going by the pseudonym Cartrain, Damien has gone ahead and got Scotland Yard to arrest him for a theft of some pencils from his latest show 'Pharmacy'(which, surprise surprise, is like a pharmacy). The pencils were worth about £500,000.
As it turns out not only did Scotland Yard arrest the boy, but they also arrested his father for harbouring the stolen goods.

Why would a 19 year old steal Hirst's pencils? Well, it has to do with an incident in which Cartrain made collages which had images of Hirst's work in them (namely the platinum crystal encrusted skull). Being a aspiring young chap he sold the collages on a site which charged roughly £69 for each collage. Not a bad idea you might say.

Hirst complained to he Design and Arts Copyright committee for his copyrights on the said skull being infringed. They in turn pressured the lad to turn in his stuff and go home. He took his revenge by nicking the overpriced items and issuing a ransom note, demanding his collages and artwork back or else he'd "sharpen" them.

It's not as if Hirst's work isn't 'nicked'. His tiger shark in formaldehyde (starting to see a pattern?) was alleged to have been inspired by a person called Eddie Saunders who ran a simple electrical goods shop in Shoreditch two years prior to Hirst's monstrous marine masterpiece. Ok, so maybe there are loads of folk who hang up sharks, but to market it for millions by attaching a poem to it? You have to some kind of genius to pull it off. Perhaps at being a con.

My gripe isn't with his persona, it's with his idea that he is allowed to exert his enourmous clout as a public figure to prosecute a person who, quite frankly, was doing something harmless and trivial. Cartrain's work was in one instance making fun of Hirst but really, Can you not take a joke Mr Hirst?