Abstract:
In 2017 Damien Hirst, the notorious Young British Artist (YBA) – who has been ‘Young’ for such a long time now that he probably needs to be considered ‘forever young’ – launched his latest extravaganza at the peak global art-industry show, best known to ‘hoi polloi’ as the Venice Biennale. The show, entitled ‘Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable’, took a preposterous fictional scenario as its premise: a decade prior to the Venice show, an ancient wreck named the ‘Unbelievable’, loaded with the prized booty of a first-century-CE manumitted slave, Cif Amotan II – an anagram for ‘I am a fiction’ – was salvaged off the coast of East Africa with Hirst’s own money, and now, semi-restored for posterity, it was being exhibited as a world first for the public’s delectation.
Details / PDF:
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