AFC pointed me toward this great story: The Art Newspaper reports that Sotheby’s and Damien Hirst are planning an exhibition and auction of new work by Hirst this September, bypassing the traditional gallery system and heading straight to the auction block. As if that weren’t crazy enough, the centerpiece of the show (entitled “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever”) is–wait for it–”The Golden Calf.” This new work consists of a calf with gilt horns, hooves, and halo preserved inside Hirst’s signature tank of formaldehyde.
So why does this have me so wowed? If you’ve ever read visual theorist W.J.T. Mitchell, you know that the golden calf plays a major role in his symbolic universe. For Mitchell, the Biblical story of the creation of the calf represents the birth of the image and the greatest position an image could ever aspire to–the golden calf is literally worshiped as a god. Of course, this worship is condemned in the Old Testament as idolatry. Mitchell reads this condemnation as the first example of an argument over image reproduction rights–which the Old Testament God proclaims uniquely His. The calf also features in Mitchell’s iconology as an animal/image that goes before man, both created by and creating humanity. In short, the calf is a prime example of what WJTM calls “the surplus value of images,” or their ability to be laden with meanings and interpretations almost ad infinitum. (See What Do Pictures Want? for a more eloquent and detailed discussion.)
What does it all mean? Is Hirst reading Mitchell? Not that I know of. The golden calf story is famous and loaded enough that Hirst probably became interested in it on his own. (Maybe their similarity is what drew him to the story, since Hirst is also famous and loaded…) What I wonder more about is whether Mitchell is reading about Hirst, and what he’d make of this whole affair. Feels like a scholarly essay in the making…
