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Exercise 5: Finding Out More

This exercise asks us to watch/listen to a discussion from the Khan Academy on Damien Hirst’s shark in formaldehyde piece (here).

We are asked to make notes, paying particular attention to the following:

• Hirst
• the piece
• Hirst’s other work
• information on other artists whose work is concerned with mortality
• references to ‘time’

There is a transcript available under the video, so I won’t type up all of my notes, but I will mention the information relevant to the ideas above.

With relation to Hirst and the piece itself, a lot is said about … Read the rest

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Exercise 4: Looking at Context

This exercise asks us to look at Damien Hirst’s 1991 piece title The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. The work is essentially a steel and glass tank filled with blue formaldehyde and a suspended shark. The piece is also referred to as ‘the shark in formaldehyde’.

We are asked to answer to following questions:

• Write down a few words giving your first reaction to the piece.
Weird. Scary. Ugly.

• Do you have an emotional response to it?
The thought of the formaldehyde makes me feel a bit queasy. The work in general … Read the rest

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Exercise 3: Reading About Art

This exercise asks us to read an excerpt from Art History: The Basics by Grant Pooke and Diana Newall (2008, Abingdon: Routledge) and make notes of anything interesting, as well as writing down any new terms or words we come across.

The first thing that struck me was the amount of words that I normally know the meaning of, but had to actually look up to see how they were being used in this context. Here’s a list, along with some other definitions that were new to me:

Arbitrary: Founded on or subject to personal whims, prejudices, etc.

Aesthetic… Read the rest

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Project 1: Exercises 1 & 2

Marcel Duchamp, 1917, Fountain, photograph by Alfred Stieglitz
Marcel Duchamp, 1917, Fountain, photograph by Alfred Stieglitz [Public Domain]

Exercise 1 asks us to write down a few words about our first response to Marcel Duchamp’s piece Fountain, shown in the photograph.

Looking at the original work, right, I would say it does not surprise me that this is presented as a piece of art, but, at the same time, it does not appeal to me and I don’t understand how anybody could see this is art. My first impression, without looking up any further information about the piece, would be that it is representative of something important … Read the rest