Diamond skull by Hirst sold … to himself

 

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For the Love of God [Google gallery] is a sculpture by artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead of the skull. Costing $28 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London at an asking price of $100 million. It was sold on August 30, 2007 for its asking price, making it the most expensive single work by a living artist. Sold to an unnamed investment group, Hirst has kept a share in the work.

Genetologic Research, Very Short Novels and Cinema 299

I am not particularly a fan of “internet memes“, the internet equivalent of chain letters. The “Thinking Blogger Award” is a case in mind which was analyzed most satisfactory by Surreal Documents. However, the current meme started by Broken Projector in response to the work of David B Dale is too good to ignore. Apparently, Gautam of Broken Projector discovered Very Short Novels, an experiment in constrained writing by David B Dale, and liked it so much that he decided to write a 299-word piece on cinema, called Cinema 299. David D Bale responded by writing Surprise Ending, a “very short novel” on cinema, making the circle complete.

From memes to genes is a small step, I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the work of Maarten Vanden Eynde and Koen Vanmechelen.

Genetologic Research is a blog by Belgian/Dutch artist Maarten Vanden Eynde, subtitled “The Science of First Things”. Randomly picked, interesting posts include Mice and Men, Black Hole House, and The Cosmopolitan Chicken, a work by Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen who cross-breeds chickens. His work is currently on display at the Verbeke Foundation.

P. S. Although I stated that I am not a big fan of internet memes, I was very proud and honored to receive the “Thinking Blogger Award” in the past from Tales from the Reading Room, Beyond Groovy Age and Tim Lucas.

The perfect human

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdn6wrM1Hqw]

Andy Warhol by Jørgen Leth in 66 Scenes from America (1982)

“My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.”

Hjort: Some of your documentary films experiment interestingly with the relation between word and image. I’m thinking, for example, of “66 Scenes from America”, which presents a series of almost hyper-real, postcard-like images of America, that are identified, in a series of significantly delayed, laconic and minimalist comments. The longest sequence is that of Andy Warhol fastidiously eating a hamburger. Having completed this exercise, Warhol delivers the following line: ‘My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.’ What, exactly, is the purpose of the intentionally strained and awkward relation between images and words in “66 Scenes from America”? —Jørgen Leth interviewed by Mette Hjort & Ib Bondebjerg, September 2002