The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Damien Hirst · a platinum cast of an adult human skull at life size, its whole surface set in pavé with diamonds, the original teeth of the skull set into the cast’s jaws, a large pink diamond at the centre of the forehead · made in London in 2007, fabricated to the artist’s design by the jewellers Bentley and Skinner · first shown in Beyond Belief at White Cube, Mason’s Yard, London, in June 2007, alone in a darkened room under guard · the unit scored is the single unique object, which stands whole as made, with nothing known to be lost or replaced; the skull from which it was cast is not part of the work, and the present owner, location and condition are not confirmed
Mode
Sculpture as made object of real precious material, the cost its medium and the price part of its matter; a vanitas fabricated by jewellers to the artist’s design
Mythos
The memento mori and Yorick; the reliquary, the jewelled catacomb saint and the Mesoamerican mosaic skull of a god; the golden calf
Phase
Made in London in 2007 and first shown that June at White Cube; a sale announced that August, on terms never confirmed, a year before the market broke
Presentation
A platinum cast of a human skull at life size, its surface in pavé diamonds, its own teeth in the jaws, a pink diamond at the brow; shown alone and lit in a darkened room
Register
Dazzle against the dark, stupefaction more than recognition, with kitsch at the edge; cold and splendid
Scale
One object the size of a head held in the hand; thousands of stones, one brow stone, one set of teeth
Governing Proposition
A human skull, cast at life size in platinum, is covered over its whole surface with diamonds, set close in pavé around the orbits and into the nose; a large pink diamond burns at the centre of the forehead, and in the jaws are the skull’s own teeth. Everything a skull is has been turned into value but the grin, which belongs to someone who was alive. The wager of the work is that wealth now stands where the relic stood, as the charm against death, and that an object made of nothing but wealth will show it, with its cost as its material and its price as part of what it shows. What it shows of the market, it also serves.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
In 2007 Damien Hirst had an adult human skull cast at life size in platinum, and the cast was covered over its whole surface with diamonds, set close together in pavé. The skull’s own teeth were set into the cast’s jaws, and a large pink diamond was placed at the centre of the forehead. The work was made in London to the artist’s design by the jewellers Bentley and Skinner, and it was given its title: For the Love of God. The skull from which it was cast is not part of the work. What is scored is the single object.
It was first shown that June, in Hirst’s exhibition Beyond Belief at White Cube in Mason’s Yard, London. It stood alone in a darkened room, under guard, and it was the one lit thing there. It was a sculpture made of real platinum and real stones, its cost part of its making and its price announced with it, and it was received as an amount of money as much as an object. That was the work’s intention, not its accident: its cost is its material, and the price is part of what it shows.
The parts are few, and each carries the argument. Without the teeth the work loses its one remainder of a body and becomes a jeweller’s novelty with no one in it. Without the pavé it is a platinum skull, a vanitas in an expensive metal, without the excess that makes the case. On resin instead of platinum, or in paste instead of diamond, its claim on value fails. Only the brow stone could go with little loss: it is a centre of display, a third eye or the jewel of a crown, and the market needs it more than the work does. The idea asks for the greatest covering, and the greatest covering is a budget, not a law.
Movement II
In the dark the light breaks into thousands of points over the shape of a face. The brow stone burns at the centre, and below it is the grin. The response reported from the room at White Cube is closer to stupefaction than to recognition: the eye is dazzled before it reads what it is looking at. Splendour and death in one object is a real claim on the sublime, and at its best the work joins the glitter of the reliquary to the dread of the charnel house.
The effect is single. It comes at once, in one register, and looking longer does not deepen it. For many viewers the height tips into kitsch, and the work runs that risk knowingly, since its subject is the glitter it uses. The visual form is given rather than made: the shape of a skull, cast and covered evenly, so that once the eye has grasped the covering it learns little more from the arrangement. The making is exact, the stones set to the contours of the skull, around the orbits, into the nasal cavity and along the sutures, graded in size to the curve; but the form is a cast, and the craft is the covering of a found shape.
What the work knows is in its substance. In glass or crystal it would be a souvenir, and its claim on value and on the relic would collapse; without the teeth it would be a jewel; smaller than life it would be a charm. It is the size of a head held in the hand, as Hamlet holds Yorick’s. Yet most of its public has known it through photographs and a price, and the argument reaches them without loss. That shows how much of the work lives outside the object, in what is said about it, and that is the condition of everything it discloses.
Movement III
Take the two most distant things on the object: the brow stone, the most valuable thing there, and the teeth, the only part with no market value and the only part that was alive. They obey one law. Everything a human skull is has been converted into value: platinum for bone, diamonds for skin, the price for the face. The one part that cannot be converted is left showing, and the exception proves the law. The title makes the same move. It invokes God, and hands the invocation over to an exclamation.
The skull is the most archetypal image Western art holds: Golgotha, the memento mori, Yorick, the vanitas still life. Here the material makes it a second archetype. Bone covered in precious stones is the structure of the reliquary and of the jewelled saints of the catacombs; a skull covered in stones is the structure of the Mesoamerican mosaic skull, which was the face of a god. The thing adored for its price is the golden calf. These are not allusions. Relic and idol are what the object physically is.
And the archetype is stated once and entirely. The person whose teeth these are has no name, no history and no face; the particular life that would let the archetype act is covered over, with everything else. The law is complete, and it governs a small territory: from bone to stone, in one object the size of a head. What the work brings into the open is plain: that wealth now stands where the relic stood, as the charm against death; that value is the medium of this art, not its byproduct; and that the conversion fails at the mouth, where no carat count reaches the grin.
Movement IV
In August 2007 a sale was announced, to an investment group. Who was in the group and what was paid have never been confirmed; later reports placed the artist and his gallery among the buyers, and the terms were never made public. The commercial facts of the work are not reliably known to anyone outside the sale. That opacity is itself a disclosure, made by the act rather than the object, and it shows the art market to itself as plainly as any essay could. If the price is part of the work, and the price cannot be known, the question of what was sold is part of the work as well.
The departure was to make the cost of materials, and the price, the content of a sculpture at a scale no artist had staked. The inheritance is wide: the memento mori and the vanitas, the jewelled reliquary, the mosaic skull; and, in its own decade, the fabricated luxury object of Jeff Koons, with Hirst’s own death in vitrines and cabinets behind it. Price and production as content had been opened by Warhol. The stake was real and partly paid: the money was at risk, the sale was doubted from the day it was announced, and much of the reception was derision. But the form is the reliquary’s, precious stuff around bone, a pattern seven centuries old, and the turn is in context and economics, not in the object.
A year later the market broke. The skull became the emblem of the boom that ended in 2008, and it is cited in nearly every account of art and money since. That reach is in discourse, the press and the public image, and it is wide; but the work redirected little practice, no line of artists is known to have taken its turn as a starting point, and much of its reach is as the thing argued against. It is a culmination rather than a reorganisation: a monument to a field more than a pressure on it. Its disclosure is also its complicity, and it does not settle which.
Movement V
The object is as durable as a sculpture can be made. Platinum and diamond will outlast most of what is made beside them, but the fabric weighs least in the reckoning of survival. In nineteen years the work has been famous worldwide and shown in public at intervals, and it has spent most of its life in private keeping, known to most people only in reproduction. Fame and price are presence, not proof of permanence. As far as the record shows it is whole as made, its teeth in place, nothing lost or replaced; where it is now and in whose hands is not confirmed.
Its surface is fixed to its moment. The argument is bound to its price and to the market of 2007, and as those recede the object must stand without its event, which it has not yet shown it can. The questions it has kept open are real: whether it is a vanitas or a celebration of what a vanitas condemns, a critique of the market or its monument, kitsch and whether it knows it. But the return is mostly to the event and its money; the object, once seen, gives the same thing again. Beside Hirst’s shark of 1991, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, which stands at 8.2, it is the later and smaller turn, and the more exactly made.
The orders it holds are touched in one gesture: death and the body in the teeth, money in the material, the sacred in the relic and the idol, labour and the earth only by implication in stones that were mined and cut. Absent are the person whose skull this was, the family, the state, the natural order but for carbon and metal, and any world beyond the room where the object is lit. What remains is a head of light in the dark, a stone burning at the brow, and under all that value a row of teeth that belonged to someone, the one thing on it that was never for sale.
Act III · The Twelve
The parts are few: the cast, the teeth, the pavé, the brow stone and the title. Subtract the teeth and the work loses its one remainder of a body; it becomes a jeweller’s novelty with no one in it. The teeth are the hinge between relic and commodity and cannot go. Subtract the pavé and there is a platinum skull, a vanitas in an expensive metal, without the excess that makes the argument. Set the stones on resin and the claim on value fails, since the cost is part of what the object is. The brow stone yields most: a centre of display that the market needs more than the work does. Held below 8 because the idea fixes only the greatest covering, and the greatest is a budget, not a law.
Score: 7.8 / 10
What the object brings into the open can be stated. Wealth stands in this culture where the relic stood: the charm against death, the substance in which the dead are made sacred. Value is the medium of this art, not its byproduct, and the price is part of what is shown. And the conversion fails at the mouth: the grin is a dead person’s teeth, and no carat count reaches it. A further disclosure came by the act: a sale was announced whose buyers and terms were never confirmed, and the market’s opacity stood as plainly as any essay could set it out. Held at 7.5 because the meaning is the vanitas, the oldest in Western art, restated in the medium of its moment more than uncovered; and because its disclosure is also its complicity, and it does not settle which.
Score: 7.5 / 10
There is elevation, and it is of one kind: dazzle against the dark. At White Cube in 2007 the skull was shown alone in a darkened room under guard, the one lit thing in it, and the response reported is closer to stupefaction than to recognition: the light broken into thousands of points over the shape of a face, the brow stone burning, the grin below. Splendour and death in one object is a real claim on the sublime, and at its best the work joins the glitter of the reliquary to the dread of the charnel house. What holds it down is range and frequency: one effect, in one register, seen at once and not deepened by looking; and for many viewers the height tips into kitsch, the work’s acknowledged risk.
Score: 7.2 / 10
The skull is the most archetypal image Western art holds: Golgotha, the memento mori, Yorick, the vanitas still life. Here it is not only evoked but made into a second archetype by its material. Bone covered in precious stones is the structure of the reliquary and of the jewelled catacomb saint; a skull covered in stones is the structure of the Mesoamerican mosaic skull, which was the face of a god. And the thing adored for its price is the golden calf. These structures are built into the object, not alluded to: relic and idol are what it physically is. The title invokes God and hands the invocation to an exclamation. Held below 8 because the particular is effaced: the person whose teeth these are has no name, history or face.
Score: 7.7 / 10
The inheritance is wide and old: the memento mori and the vanitas, the jewelled reliquary, the Mesoamerican mosaic skull; in its own decade the fabricated luxury object of Jeff Koons; and Hirst’s own earlier death in vitrines and cabinets. The departure is to make the cost of the materials, and the price, the content of a sculpture, at a scale no artist had staked: real platinum and real stones, the price announced with the work. The stake was real and partly paid: the money was at risk, the sale was doubted from the day it was announced, and much of the reception was derision. Held at 7.5 because the form is the reliquary’s, precious stuff around bone, a pattern seven centuries old; the turn is in context and economics, not in the object.
Score: 7.5 / 10
Change the form and what the work knows changes a great deal, because its knowledge is in its substance. In glass, crystal or paste it is a souvenir, and its claim on value, and on the relic, collapses. Without the teeth it is a jewel; without the life-size cast it is a charm. The form is the instrument: real platinum, real stones and a dead person’s real teeth, at the size of a head held in the hand, as Hamlet holds Yorick’s. Held below 8 because the visual form is given, not made: the shape of a skull, cast and covered evenly, and the eye learns little from the arrangement once it has grasped the covering. And the argument reaches most of its public through photographs and a price without loss, which shows how much of it lives outside the object.
Score: 7.8 / 10
Evidence over promise: nineteen years, and the axis can be forecast only in part. The questions it has sustained are real. Is it a vanitas, or a celebration of what a vanitas condemns? Is it a critique of the market or its monument? Is the price the work, and if the buyers cannot be known, what was sold? Is it kitsch, and does it know it? And the old question, what a skull in precious stones has meant from the reliquary to the mosaic skull of a god. But the return is mostly to the event and its money, not to the object; the object, once seen, yields the same thing again. The well so far is the discourse around the market of 2007, and whether that discourse lasts is not yet shown.
Score: 7.0 / 10
Published, so intrinsic force and achieved reach are scored together, in the field of British and international art of the 2000s and the art market that became its subject. Intrinsic force: not a reorganisation of what a work can be, but a culmination. Price and production as content had been opened by Warhol and carried into fabricated luxury by Koons; Hirst pressed the case to its limit, with the cost as material. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: the emblem of the market boom that ended in 2008, cited in nearly every account of art and money since, a reach in discourse, the press and the public image, wide and lasting so far. It redirected little practice: no line of artists is known to have taken its turn as a starting point, and much of its reach is as the thing argued against.
Score: 7.4 / 10
Weighed on form, then presence, then fabric. Form: one object, whole as made, the original teeth in place; nothing is known to be lost or replaced. Presence: nineteen years, famous worldwide and shown in public at intervals, but kept for most of its life in private keeping and seen by most people only in reproduction; fame and price are presence, not proof of permanence. Fabric: as durable as a sculpture can be made, platinum and diamond. Held a tenth below what the span alone would give, for a surface fixed to its moment: the argument is bound to its price and to the market of 2007, and as those recede the object must stand without its event, which it has not yet shown it can. The fabric weighs least and does not offset the charge.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Judged as command of the medium, the making by Bentley and Skinner to Hirst’s design credited to the work. The command is high and exact: a platinum cast true to the skull; thousands of stones set to its contours, around the orbits, into the nasal cavity and along the sutures, graded in size to the curve; the real teeth fitted into a metal jaw; the brow stone placed as the one point of focus. The making is load-bearing, since the object’s argument is that it was made in fact, without economy. Held at 8.0 because the sculptural form is a cast, not modelled, and the craft is the jeweller’s covering of a found shape; the choices that are the artist’s are few, and fine: teeth, platinum, pavé, brow stone, darkness.
Score: 8.0 / 10
Take the two most distant elements: the brow stone, the most valuable thing on the object, and the teeth, the only part with no market value and the only part that was alive. They obey one law: everything a human skull is has been converted into value, and the one part that cannot be converted is left showing, so that the exception proves the law. Platinum for bone, diamonds for skin, the price for the face, the title’s invocation of God turned into an exclamation: each element makes the same move. The law holds through the work’s afterlife, where the sale itself became a question of what value is. Held below 8 because narrowness is not coherence: the range runs from bone to stone in one object, and the law, once grasped, governs a small territory.
Score: 7.8 / 10
The orders held are several, and the object touches them in one gesture. Death and the body, in a real skull’s teeth. The market and money, in the cost and the price as material. The sacred, in the relic, the idol and the title’s address to God. History at a reach, in the remains of a stranger and the old forms of jewelled bone. Labour and the earth are there in the stones, mined and cut, but held only by implication. What holds the axis lowest of the twelve is what is absent: the person whose teeth these are, the family, the state, the natural order but for carbon and metal, and any world beyond the room where the object is lit. Integrated, not listed, but few: a single small object, and the figure describes the form.
Score: 6.6 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
7.5 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier III · Major
Strongest Dimensions
The Imperishable at 8.2, then The Made at 8.0, then The Inevitable, The Living Form and The Inner Law at 7.8. An object of platinum and diamond, whole as made, its teeth in place; a making exact to the contours of a skull and load-bearing, since the argument is that it was made in fact, without economy; a few parts, each required, in which the knowledge lives in the substance; and one law, everything converted into value, proved by the teeth, the one part that cannot be.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 6.6: death, money and the sacred touched in one gesture, labour and the earth only by implication, and no person, family, state or world beyond the lit room. Below the rest, The Bottomless Well at 7.0 and The Sublime at 7.2: a return that goes mostly to the event and its money, and one effect, dazzle against the dark, seen at once and not deepened by looking. Next above them, Pressure on Tradition at 7.4: wide reach in discourse, little redirected practice. They are one fact: a single small object whose argument lives largely outside it.
The Necessity Cap clears at 7.8 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears: The Living Form at 7.8, The Made at 8.0, The Inner Law at 7.8, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet on all five: The Imperishable at 8.2, The Archetypal Deep at 7.7, The Unconcealment at 7.5, The Swerve at 7.5 and Pressure on Tradition at 7.4 each fall short of the bar of 8.5. The Universal Minimum is unmet at The Sublime, 7.2, The Bottomless Well, 7.0, and Pressure on Tradition, 7.4, all below 7.5; The Encompassed, which it exempts, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 6.6. Three of the five summit conditions are met. The twelve sum to 90.5, an average of 7.54 that displays 7.5: the work stands where its aggregate places it, in the band of Tier III, short of the 8.0 at which Tier IV begins and of the 9.0 that the summit requires.
Basis · a reading from knowledge of the object and of its record, from wide reproduction and the press; not from standing before it, and its look in the darkened room is known by report only. The work scored is the single unique object: a platinum cast of an adult human skull at life size, its whole surface set in pavé with diamonds, the original teeth of the skull set into the cast’s jaws and a large pink diamond at the centre of the forehead, made in London in 2007 to Hirst’s design by the jewellers Bentley and Skinner and first shown in Beyond Belief at White Cube, Mason’s Yard, in June 2007. As far as the record shows it stands whole as made; nothing is known to be lost or replaced, and nothing stands in place of an original part. The skull from which it was cast, the exhibition that launched it, the announced sale, Hirst’s later diamond skull of an infant (For Heaven’s Sake, 2008), his other skull works and the prints and editions made after the image are context, and are not scored. The making by the jewellers is credited to the work. The membership of the buying group and the terms of the sale are stated as unconfirmed. No words are quoted but the title. Facts that could not be verified are not given, among them the number of diamonds, their total weight and the weight of the brow stone, the dimensions, the cost of production and the asking price, the age, sex, date and source of the skull from which the cast was taken and where that skull is now, the later showings and their places, the origin of the title in a remark of the artist’s mother, Hirst’s naming of the Aztec mosaic skull as a source, the sourcing of the stones, the size and length of the visits at White Cube, and the present owner, location and condition of the work.