Birth of 21st Century Art?

The darkness is a work of art in itself. Perhaps it is the real work of art. The public visits that are carefully orchestrated at the gallery, with timed tickets and small groups and - obviously - draconian security, are restricted to two minutes. In two minutes your eyes can't adjust to the darkness. In two minutes the iridescent object can only register as a dream of eye sockets that are blue-green pools sunk into a shimmering spectral mask. As you move closer the ghostly head bursts into all the colours of the spectrum ... and then two minutes are up and you are escorted out of the building. You can re-enter White Cube, Mason's Yard to see the rest of Damien Hirst's exhibition, and go to White Cube, Hoxton Square to take in still more of it. But after seeing the work he calls For the Love of God, it's not the same any more, looking at animals in formaldehyde and butterflies trapped in paint and fish arrayed on shelves. The old dispensation of Damien Hirst's art - that immaculate pharmacy - doesn't seem as urgent, as real, after seeing his new order. This isn't a disparagement of him, even if he had recently started to seem a bit saggy and sad, like a poorly preserved shark. It applies not just to Hirst's art before the skull but to what every artist in the world is doing at this moment. For the wonder at the crystalline heart of this exhibition is not only a memento mori, a death's head. It is also a birth, as scary as shattering as the one TS Eliot's Magi witnessed: a birth like a death. What is being born, exactly? It might be the art of the 21st century. (For full source and article click the Headline). Irish Art