Prophets of doom

With his skull studded with diamonds, was Damien Hirst prophetising the crise and collapse of economies of Western civilization? He was actually only joking, in particular with the market of contemporary art, but a mark of prophecy is to be unaware of the true meaning of his visions. Moreover, ancient prophets and oracles were de facto the psychoanalysts of old ages, and psychonanalysis tells as that a diagnosis is a cure. What is thew diagnosis? The main theme of all of Hirst’s works is the obliteration of death in contemporary society. Science in fact has resolved all our material problems, with the negligible exception of death, and we cope with this unavoidable truth by psychoanalytical repression of the fear of death. Perhaps, if we face the problem, our economical and social nevroses will disappear.

Bill VIola (II)

I already discussed the recent exhibit of Bill Viola at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome (http://castorphans.blogspot.com/search/label/Bill%20Viola); I stressed the spiritual travel mounted in the exhibit; it should be added that it is fundamentally a travel in the netherworld, or in a cemetery; the video-paintings resemble the small pictures we can find on italian graves, pictures that are intendend to preserve the image of the dead, but that spread instead a sense of inescapable mourning. The images of Viola are at first splendidly aesthetical; but when they slowly begin to move, this motion conveys the sensation of a ghost dead long time ago.
On the other hand, death and kitsch are the two pillars of contemporary art from -at least - Warhol to Hirst. There are many resistant artists (Kounellis, Josef Beuys etc.), but they are not liked very much by the market.