Wry On The Rocks

As if Damien Hirst and his ringmaster, Larry Gagosian, had to offer any more proof that anyone sucked into buying one of 2 million “spot” “paintings” done by one of Hirst’s 44 “assistants”, has the intelligence just a notch above asparagus, they have come up with a new ploy. 

Anyone that signs up for a gold voucher and visits all 11 of the Gagosian galleries spread around the globe, from NYC to Paris to Athens to Hong Kong, et. al., will receive a signed print FOR FREE!.

The estimated cost of such a travel endeavor would range, according to travel agents, from $15,000 at the barest $5 a-day trip to $75,000 for the affluent.  The cost of a print if you simply took a cab to, say the NYC gallery,….about $3,500.

Nonetheless, the Gallery reports that 700 people thus far have signed up for vouchers to be able to brag about their free  Damien Hirst print.  Wouldn’t it just be cheaper and save a whole lot of time if they just wore a sticker that said, “Hello, I’m dumber than asparagus” ?

Dominating entertainment news this week is the announcement by supermodel Heidi Klum that she and pop singer Seal are ending their seven-year marriage.  In a recent interview with the media, Seal expressed his continued love for runway star Klum, and puzzled  that he ,”can’t understand why she wants to leave him.” 

I have a more puzzling question……

It was reported that Nancy Clarke passed away this week.  Beginning as a volunteer floral arranger in the early ’80′s, Mrs. Clarke served as the official White House florist for six presidents before retiring in 2009.

Friends are requested to send flowers in lieu of cards or charitable donations.

The modern day version of PT Barnum and Tom Thumb are at it again.  Larry Gagosian  and “artist” Damien Hirst, that wonderful pair that have brought the art world a rotting shark in a tank, dead sheep and maggots feeding on a cows head, have a new exhibit.  Or rather exhibits.

8 Gagosian galleries around the globe are simultaneously exhibiting a series of canvas’s on which Tom Thumb, nee D. Hirst, has attached a bunch of circles.  Actually, Tom Thumb’s assistants did the attaching as it is beneath a wealthy ”artist” like TT to stoop to glueing circles on canvas particularly when you have to glue about 1,500 of the damn things.  In the New York gallery alone, there are 74 “different” works.  By “different”, ring-master Gagosian means some of the works are small and some are big.  Some have 50 circles, some have only 8.

As usual, art critics for major media have bent semantics to the breaking point to try and justify the buzz which they alone (aside from some shrewd buck-turning “investors” like London’s Charles Saatchi) create.  For example, NY Times’s Roberta Smith wrote that the project was, “a blatant promotion of both the Hirst and Gagosian brands, and a sitting-duck symbol of the end-time, we’re-doing-this-because-we-can-decandence that has subsumed so much of the art world; another example of money celebrating itself.”

But, Ms. Smith realized that she couldn’t end there, because maybe the lack of clothes on the emperor might imperil her profession, so she subsequently and quickly writes that the project is ..”more complicated…challenges you to hold opposing ideas at the same time.”  Kind of like an art critic trying to justify what she knows is nothing but pure crap!!  But, meanwhile, mssrs. Gagosian and Hirst are laughing all the way to the bank.

AP News just released a news flash that the Russian satellite that was to probe Mars has instead crashed  into the Pacific Ocean at 2:45 AM EST.  A Russian spokesperson for the space program was quoted on the tragedy of Phobos-Grunt as saying knweyhnk, which roughly translates to “Aw, Shit!”