I went to the Damien Hirst at the White cube recently..really worth a look if you like a laugh. They really were pitiful daubs from a self obsessed artist that clearly feels he needs to prove he can paint…which he can’t.
Apart from the shameless copies of Bacon and Auerbach (no doubt ironic or homage) the worst of his crimes is the ham-fisted handling of paint. Disgusting, over-blown, self publicising philistinism.I think he might actually HATE art.
On the way back from that festival of giggles I went past the vandalism that is the demolition of the Atlantic bar and grill (part of the Regent Palace Hotel) a listed building that the Crown estates applied for permission to demolish and which has it seems now been granted. It’s just a hole in the ground, all the art deco splendour ground into dust. I then walked past the now closed New Piccadilly, which was an intact 50’s coffee bar. I believe run continually by the same family, which now stands empty and will no doubt remain so until it becomes so cheap to buy or rent the land that some shark raises it to the ground for yet another, mall, car park or office block.
Apparently they’re doing something similar to the Café Royal, where Oscar Wilde started his quarrel with the Marquis of Queensberry that was his ultimate undoing.
This is why I want to move out of London, we don’t seem to value the important stuff anymore.
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