Amusing Comeuppance for Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst is known in part for his appropriation of images from other artists. So the coolpublic (newspeak I invented) and a bunch of the art world were nonplussed when he sued a 16 year old artist named Cartrain for using images of his diamond encrusted skull work entitled For the Love of God (shown below) integrated into works in his portfolio.

I can imagine British web 2.0 denizens thinking "Jings, what a tosser!" or perhaps "Stone the crows, he's a bleeding nonce!" after determining that the indescribably wealthy (he sold an entire show at Sotheby's) pot has in fact called the aspiring 16 year old kettle black.

Now a group known as redragtoabull has done a wonderful thing - they have decided to deliberately appropriate the skull image and deliberately use it in a series of compositions in hope of inciting dialogue......or worse/better. Here's a statement from their site:

"All of the works below are for sale and once TWENTY MILLION POUNDS has been raised ALL the proceeds will go to make an exact copy of a sculpture known as "For the Love of God". This will then be sold for FIFTY MILLION POUNDS and the THIRTY MILLION POUND profit will then be used to repay the Street Urchin his 200 quid, help other Street Urchins and also feed starving children in Africa and Sussex."

One of the artists is Jamie Reid who "designed 90% of the Sex Pistols LP and poster imagery" as he so vitriolically and justifiably pointed out in comments to a punk action slideshow post at PCL Link Dump

ha-HA! Striking a blow for fair play and commentary by society at large!! Art Heroes! David slaying Goliath with color and design!

The works are clever, funny, appealing and thought provoking, both message wise and process wise.

Both pix link to redragtoabull...... where one can view them as well as submit.

Oooh! Submit!