.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
"I have a funny theory, that death doesn't actually exist in life. All you can know is that life is going to end. My interest in death is very lively, about how to live, what is important. Loss of loved ones or of life is sad, but that is loss. I find the end of a relationship more upsetting than death." (D. Hirst)
In 'The Lovers (Spontaneous, Committed, Detached, Compromising)', the brains and entrails of two cows have been removed from their bodies, preserved in individual jars and collected together in four cabinets. The direct nature of this work seduces the viewer into considering the key elements that Hirst is obsessed with. 'I access people's worst fears', says Hirst. 'I like the idea of a thing to describe a feeling.' In this instance the fear is death and its relationship to life. Life is sustained by death; in order to eat something we kill it. Since nature in not benign, is moral living possible? Hirst is not being callous; he is simply pointing out the irony of the situation. Confrontation with the complex inner workings of their bodies provoke unaccustomed feelings of identification and alienation. 'Attention shifts from the external form, (the body as object of desire and aesthetic contemplation), to the inner workings (the body as process, flesh governed by appetites oral, sexual, intellectual). ( S. Kent, Border Territory', 'Lifelines', Tate Gallery Liverpool, 1989, p.24).
In 'The Lovers (Spontaneous, Committed, Detached, Compromising)', the brains and entrails of two cows have been removed from their bodies, preserved in individual jars and collected together in four cabinets. The direct nature of this work seduces the viewer into considering the key elements that Hirst is obsessed with. 'I access people's worst fears', says Hirst. 'I like the idea of a thing to describe a feeling.' In this instance the fear is death and its relationship to life. Life is sustained by death; in order to eat something we kill it. Since nature in not benign, is moral living possible? Hirst is not being callous; he is simply pointing out the irony of the situation. Confrontation with the complex inner workings of their bodies provoke unaccustomed feelings of identification and alienation. 'Attention shifts from the external form, (the body as object of desire and aesthetic contemplation), to the inner workings (the body as process, flesh governed by appetites oral, sexual, intellectual). ( S. Kent, Border Territory', 'Lifelines', Tate Gallery Liverpool, 1989, p.24).