Art's Bling Fling

Art’sBling ART LOVES LUXURY, AND WHETHER IT’S DIAMONDS, GOLD OR Fling SWAROVSKI CRYSTALS, MORE ARTISTS THAN EVER ARE USING INCREASINGLY EXPENSIVE MATERIALS IN THEIR WORK. DAMIEN HIRST FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, 2007 PLATINUM, DIAMONDS AND HUMAN TEETH (C) THE ARTIST PHOTO: PRUDENCE CUMING ASSOCIATES LTD DaDLUXURYCULTURE COURTESY SCIENCE LTD AND JAY JOPLING/ WHITE CUBE (LONDON) he art market is booming. Luxury goods are expanding T into new international territories, the bling-bling fashion trend still resonates on the hip hop scene, and artists are enthusi- astically echoing the obsession with ostentatious materialism – sometimes with nuanced irony or humor, sometimes to raise eye- brows or question the importance of the material at hand. Epitomizing this phenomenon of show-off art, Damien Hirst has made the most expensive artwork in the world. Entitled ‘For the Love of God,’ it is a platinum cast of a real human skull encased in 8,601 diamonds. It cost $24 million to make, with Jay Jopling’s White Cube gallery footing half the bill. The 50-carat diamond mounted on the forehead is estimated to have cost $6-10 million alone. The asking price for this luxury artwork is $100 million. For lesser mortals, White Cube is selling limited-edition silkscreen prints of the work. They range from ‘For the Love of God, Believe’ (edition of 2,000; $1,800) and ‘For the Love of God, Pray’ (edition of 750; $10,000) to ‘For the Love of God, Laugh’; ‘For the Love of God, Shine’ and ‘For the Love of God, the Diamond Skull’ – complete with diamond dust. The last three come in editions of 250 and cost $20,000 each, plus tax. Online shoppers can “add an item” to their shopping cart as if they were buying a paper- back from Amazon. The skull is “the biggest single undertaking by a jeweler since the crown jewels,” claims Hirst. “I just want to celebrate life by saying, ‘To hell with death,’” he quips. “What better way of say- DAMIEN HIRST FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LAUGH ing that than by taking the ultimate symbol of death and coering it 2007 EDITION OF 250 in the ultimate symbol of luxury, desire and decadence?” SILKSCREEN PRINT WITH GLAZES AND DIAMOND DUST ON PAPER £ 10,000.00 +VAT The original skull from which Hirst’s platinum skull was cast is COURTESY SCIENCE LTD AND JAY believed to have been part of a Victorian collection. Scientific JOPLING/WHITE CUBE (LONDON) LUXURLUXURYYCULCULTURE.TURE.COM tests indicate that it is the skull of an 18th century male who died in his thirties. The teeth, one of which is missing, were extracted and inserted into Hirst’s sculpture. (Hirst has given the original skull – which he keeps at home – a set of gold replace- ment teeth, instead.) Of course, only an artist of Hirst’s status and per- sonal wealth would be in a position to collaborate with the Bond Street jewelers Bentley & Skinner on such an ambitious project. Indeed, the jewelers, who have been supplying diamonds to the royal family since Queen Victoria’s era, say that Hirst’s skull contains three times more diamonds than the imperial state crown. Such luxurious art is, as with luxury itself, all about eminence and privi- lege. ‘For the Love of God’ recalls Marc Quinn’s sculpture Self (1991), a life-sized cast of Quinn’s head filled with nine pints of his own frozen blood. By alluding to the passing of his own life in such a chill- ing way, Quinn reflected upon the preciousness of blood. Hirst’s skull, however, subverts this preciousness by using the earth’s most expensive rocks. It flaunts luxury in the face of death. Hirst follows a long line of artists who have used costly materials in their art. Nor is he the first to cre- ate a bling skull. The Italian artist Nicola Bolla start- NICOLAS BOLLA VANITAS (CAPPIO), 2006 ed making skulls out of Swarovski crystals as far SWAROVSKI CRYSTALS back as 1997. They sell for the far more reasonable PRIVATE COLLECTION COURTESY SPERONE WESTWATER, NEW YORK price of $13,000. Bolla’s motivation, however, was M LUXURYCULTURE.COM “If you think about mainly the novelty of using crystals in sculpture. “I am inventing a new type of sculpture; it’s like using the most expensive bronze,” says the Italian artist. “I make my sculp- thing you posses, tures like a jeweler makes jewelry.” Bolla painstakingly creates his sculptures without it’s not a Rolex, a the sponsorship of Swarovski. He describes one of car or a house. It’s his latest works as “an imaginary suicide in a jail for fashion victims.” Everything in the installation – from your life!” the door to the furniture, stool and noose – is made from crystals. “The message is about money, John Angelo Benson gold and the power of fashion and art,” he explains. “It’s about death as an extreme aes- thetic act.” Death and luxury also coalesce in ‘The Most Expensive Chair In The World – To Die For’ (2005), an electric execution chair with leather straps adorned with diamonds, by the British artist John Angelo Benson. It references Andy Warhol’s screen prints of the American electric chair and suggests an intersection of death, greed and desire. “The electric execution chair is recognized the world over,” says Benson. “It’s a symbol of man’s judgment in exacting the ultimate price: death. Diamonds, on the other hand, represent an enig- matic allure that commands a different price, one that gauges our sense of value and desire of exclu- JOHN ANGELO BENSON sivity to excess. This work could be seen as a THE MOST EXPENSIVE CHAIR IN THE warped paradox from my critical and sublime WORLD, TO DIE FOR 2004 thoughts of today. If you think about the most ELECTRIC CHAIR AND DIAMOND LEATHER STRAPS expensive thing you posses, it’s not a Rolex, a car IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ARTIST or a house. It’s your life!” M LUXURYCULTURE.COM As art now features in the media more widely than ever before, some companies are extreme- ly keen to sponsor artists. This clever marketing strategy gives them visibility, publicity and kudos. In one such example, the Brazilian-born, New York- based artist Vik Muniz was contacted by De Beers to see whether he would like to use their diamonds in his illusionistic photography. The result was his Diamond Divas (2004) series of silver-screen stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Lauren and Brigitte Bardot. “Somebody said to me, ‘What would you do if I gave you 10 million diamonds?’ I thought doing something really gross or disgusting would be too obvious, so I did something very glamorous. The idea is that people would buy it as a social experience, since having pictures of diamonds gives people the impression of having the diamonds themselves.” Indeed, the series proved so alluring that it sold out. The Diamond Divas have become hot property. In May, one of the prints of Marilyn Monroe, from an edition of 10, was auctioned at Christie’s in New York for $156,000. (The first market price for a simi- lar work by Vik Muniz is around $47,000.) But are artists like Muniz compromising their integrity by accepting such blatant product place- ment? Muniz, who has used valueless materials such as junk, dust and oil in other series, admits he felt uncomfortable making his Diamond Divas: “I come from a very poor background in Brazil, and I VIK MUNIZ had such emotional problems with it that I could SOPHIA LOREN (DIAMOND DIVAS), 2004 never show the Diamond Divas series on its own. COURTESY GALERIE XIPPAS LUXURYCULTURE.COM NICOLA BOLLA VANITAS (SGABELLO), 2006 SWAROVSKI CRYSTALS PRIVATE COLLECTION KICKCOURTESY BACK SPERONEAND RELAX WESTWATER, IN OUR NEW YORK M LUXURYCULTURE.COM So I have the Caviar Monsters, such as portraits of Frankenstein and Dracula, to go with it.” Some artists argue that the expensive materials are far from being the raison d’être of the artwork, that they merely add another dimension. For instance, Kevin Francis Gray produces his smaller sculptures in editions of seven: gold-plated, silver-plated, black, white, red, dark green and dark purple. What differentiates the gold-plated and silver-plated edi- SETH PRICE UNTITLED (VINTAGE BOMBER tions from the other five, which are made in “the DIPTYCH) colors of Buddhism,” is that they look, according to 2006 VACUUM FORMED HIGH IMPACT Gray, “more ornamental and desirable. Artists are a POLYSTYRENE bit like magpies,” the Irish artist says. “They’re attracted to things that look very beautiful. As a sculptor, I think gold and Swarovski crystals can enhance sculptures, but the fact that they’re expensive materials isn’t important. The material simply adds to what the sculpture is saying.” Invited by Swarovski to use their crystals in his work, Gray’s sculptures include urban youngsters with crystals that flow from the tips of their hooded jackets to their trainers. Earlier pieces have included six aggressive dogs in Swarovski crystals circling an absent victim and a young boy sitting in a Buddha position, ambiguously looking as though he could be about to meditate – or shoot heroin. “All my work has a gritty, urban edge. Choosing something glitzy and glamorous like Swarovski crystals, which only very wealthy, posh people can afford, creates an interesting dichotomy.” LEFT: SETHPRICE UNTITLED (VINTAGE BOMBER) 2006 However, Gray concedes that the glamorous VACUUM FORMED HIGH IMPACT aspect of his sculptures might be more appealing KICK BACK AND RELAX IN OUR POLYSTYRENE M LUXURYCULTURE.COM to some collectors than the meaning behind the sculptures themselves.

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