Janitor delivers definitive verdict on contemporary art

The world of contemporary art suffered a tragic setback in October, with the destruction of an audacious masterpiece by the internationally acclaimed British genius, Damien Hirst. Toiling tirelessly on his latest “assemblage,” Mr. Hirst completed his statement for the prestigious Eyestorm Gallery in London, only to see all his inspired efforts swept away in an unconscionable act of Philistine desecration. It’s impossible to appreciate the magnitude of the loss without some knowledge of Mr. Hirst’s distinguished history.

He is perhaps best known to American aficionados for his inclusion in the controversial “Sensation” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum – the same display that prominently featured the Chris Ofili version of the Virgin Mary, smeared with elephant dung. The Hirst contribution to that smash-hit show involved several of his signature pieces, showing the carcasses of pigs and sharks which he sliced apart with chain saws, then preserved in formaldehyde and sealed in Lucite cases.

As one dazzled critic aptly observed, “The artwork itself has a visual power that is virtually unmatched by any possible description of it. One cannot really hope to understand it. … His emotional distance from the animals also allows him to make his work sometimes sickeningly funny. In ‘This Little Piggy Went to Market, This Little Piggy Stayed Home,’ each half of a bisected pig in tanks of formaldehyde, slide past one another on an automated track, separating and putting themselves back together over and over again.”

Asked to explain the purpose of this famous work, Mr. Hirst, 35, observed: “I hope that it makes people think about things that they take for granted. Like smoking, like sex, like love, like life, like advertising, like death. … Ordinary things are frightening. It’s like, a shoe is intended to get you from one place to another. The moment you beat your girlfriend’s head with it, it becomes something insane. … That’s what art is.”

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In 1995, Mr. Hirst amazed the art world with another breakthrough animal sculpture, wittily titled, “Two F---ing, Two Watching,” which broke new ground by using utterly unpreserved, freshly slaughtered animal carcasses left to rot for the most discerning connoisseurs of aesthetic excellence. It showed a dead cow and a sliced-open bull copulating with one another by means of a hydraulic device.

He attempted to import the piece into the United States, but New York health officials felt concerned that it might explode. If it were sealed shut, the methane gasses would build up and shatter the glass, but if it were not sealed tight, the bureaucrats worried it might “prompt vomiting among the visitors with its overwhelming odor from the rotting flesh.” Mr. Hirst offered to provide “filters to clean the air” but the health officials still ruled his masterpiece unacceptable for New York City.

Back in London, he soon began working with used cigarettes as a major theme in his work, as in his celebrated piece (valued at a million dollars), “Party Time.” As Mr. Hirst explains his elaborate symbolism: ”The cigarette pack is possible lives, the cigarette its own actual life, the lighter is God because it gives fuel to the whole thing and the ashtray is a graveyard, it’s like death. The concept of a slow suicide through smoking is a really great idea, a powerful thing to do.”

In keeping with this potent theme, Mr. Hirst prominently featured cigarette butts in ashtrays in his ill-fated recent assemblage at the Eyestorm Gallery. Additional elements in his latest masterpiece included empty beer bottles, a paint smeared palette, torn and stained newspapers, half-full coffee cups, partially eaten sandwiches, and candy wrappers.

After he completed work on the project, he celebrated with a group of admirers the night before the show’s opening. Gallery owners confidently predicted that the assemblage, “an original Damien Hirst,” would command a price in the high six figures – bringing in at least $500,000.

Unfortunately, the overnight janitor knew nothing of these plans, and looked at the art work with a sinking heart. “I sighed because there was so much mess,” he later told the London press. “So I cleared it all in bin bags, and I dumped it.”

Mr. Hirst took this reversal in stride and reportedly found it hysterically funny. The gallery allowed the janitor to keep his job, since he had unwittingly provoked “debate on the question of what is art – which is always important,” said the supervisor of the exhibition.

In pursuing that debate reasonable people might ask: who displayed more common sense – the effete aristocrats prepared to pay hundreds of thousands for the Damien Hirst trash, or the hard-working janitor who tried to clean it up?

This story from England also carries powerful lessons for the United States, reminding us how lucky we are that most decent and ordinary people in this great country still lack the sophistication and education necessary to view stinking garbage as a pricey artistic statement.

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