Stop Thief! Damien Hirst v. Lori Precious

We love a good controversy around here and there is a rip-snorter going on in LA tonight. Damien Hirst is showing his latest incarnation of butterflies on canvas at Gagosian, and LA aritst Lori Precious is crying foul.

As Precious sees it, Hirst has stolen her idea and now quite a few of her fans (and Hirst-bashers) have come out in support of her claim. Here's what she posted on Supertouchblog:

"THIS WORK IS EXACTLY LIKE THE WORK I HAVE BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST 14 YEARS OF MY LIFE!
LOOK AT MY WEBSITE: WWW.LORIPRECIOUS.COM. IF YOU ARE AN ARTIST, OR ANYONE WHO CARES ABOUT CREATIVE INDIVIDUALITY, PLEASE SPEAK OUT AGAINST DAMIEN HIRST TO ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN! LORI PRECIOUS (WHO DOES ALL HER OWN WORK, WITH NO ASSISTANTS)

Unsettling use of the third person aside, yes, I thought, I do care about "creative individuality" and so I thought I'd take a look at Precious's work. Here is the most accurate side by side comparison of the works in question that I could get from sources on the web, Hirst on left, Precious on right, to scale, almost:

       

Hirst's piece: The Explosion - Exalted, 2006
Butterflies and household gloss on canvas, 84 inches diameter  (213.4 cm)

Precious' piece: detail All the Living and the Dead, 2005 Butterflies and stainless steel. 32 inches diameter.

Similar? Clearly. But theft? That's not so clear.

As you may have guessed, many bloggers have seized on the opportunity to slam Hirst (there is no shortage of unknown, under-employed artists blogging when they should be in the studio cultivating their 'creative individuality'), and while I have never considered myself a Hirst cheerleader, it might be worth taking a quick look at a few facts.

Timeline or Something's in the Air

In 1991 his first solo exhibition, In and Out of Love, which included his now infamous live butterflies emerging from, and dying on canvas, was held at the Woodstock Street Gallery in London; he also had a solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery in Paris. (I remember seeing a version of this in LA at what was then the Temporary Contemporary, MoCA in 2001.)

Lori Precious has posted: The idea came to me in 1992, after years of photographing stained-glass windows and also of collecting butterflies. I was on a trip to Paris visiting churches and cathedrals, and I was in the St. Chapelle Catherdral and it was there I had a vision of the windows done entirely in butterfly wings.

But of course, these two are not the only, nor were they the first, to use butterflies as a medium.

Medium; The Message it is Not

Butterfly wings are the 'materials' in question. Obviously there is no rule/law, real or implied, which prohibits one artist from using the same materials as another. The field of painting would have dried-up, so to speak, had this been the case.

As a quick primer--random and unscientific--on artists using butterflies in art from 1860 to today, here are just a few examples:

John Hampson, circa 1860.

Joseph Cornell, 1930.

Jean Dubuffet, 1953.

(unknown artist, discovered on Flickr; "Museum of Modern Art, Montreal, May 5, 2005) If you know the artist, can you Email me, please?

Need more, from folk, to design, to? Here, here, here, and here.

Content or It's Not Really About the Butterflies, Right?

In fairness, I will not present what I think each artist is up to. I will let them do the talking this time.

Lori Precious says this of her work on her her website;

"Inset into these stainless steel structures are re-creations of stained glass windows made entirely of butterfly wings. The fragile beauty and death of the butterflies has, once again, metamorphosed into these images of guarded faith. My work is made from this intangible, perhaps irrational faith that acts as protection from both real threat and a shapeless fear. While the structure guards a fragile interior, it also reveals an isolated, luminous beauty that is a scar of sorts, a point of vulnerability and exposure."

Damien Hirst said this of his work in the LATimes;

""They're macabre," Hirst observes, sounding not at all displeased. "The beauty of the geometry is more than you expect — and then you realize that a lot of butterflies died to make it like that. So you are aware of the sort of tragedy...People shake my hand recently and say: 'Wow — you've found God,' " Hirst says with a chuckle. "Well, I haven't, really. I would say that I don't believe in God, at the end of the day. With the butterflies, it looks religious, but it's kind of a byproduct, an accident...I think everything's in a bit of a crisis," he says. "I'm drawn to things that fail, and that kind of old religious thing, the idea of the soul — it's a security blanket that's been around for a long time."

Critically speaking, the two approaches could not be more dissimilar. But I said I was not going to comment, so I'll shut up.

Form or How to Make a Circle

Are they "mandalas" or "stained glass windows"? Do we really need to go into the history of the Mandala or the gothic arch? Or stained glass for that matter. Ms. Precious has been working with these motifs since around 1992. Hirst first worked with butterflies in 1991. Hirst's first circular painting surfaced in the late nineties, I believe, and has been a recurring motif since then in works from the Birthday Card Suite, to the Spot Paintings and the Spin Paintings.

So what do we make of all this? Precious was first with the stained glass thing, and Hirst first with the butterfly thing. Has the absurdity set in yet? Just a few minutes surfing the web produced these wonderful images. (roll over each for details)

      

    

      

And so it Goes...

In my view, the case is open and shut, sadly--I was hoping for a good fight. Artists, like other creative types, often have similar ideas at the same time. Witness the yearly line-up of films, books and television shows that get released and experience more uncanny 'coincidences' than you might think possible. Sorry folks, but that is the way of the world. The controversy will continue, regardless, and while a less generous critic might congratulate Ms. Precious on her ability to coordinate a publicity stunt that will certainly gain her more fans than ever, I actually think she honestly feels she has been wronged. That is regrettable (particularly for a fellow Art Center alum).

Let me add, for my friend at Artforum Talkback; I am assuming no ill intent from either artist. 

Mat Gleason over at Coagula has said:

"Comparing two works of art by different artists is often difficult to tell, and the eccentric personalities of artists usually make me shy away from reporting on these stories, as they are fraught with personal feelings and conflicting dates, intentions, etc.; plus there is always that endless need for validation and recognition along with the occasional palpable desire for revenge that is never going to be satiated in the lifetime of the average artist."

Well said, Mat (though he does not, in the end, agree with my conclusion--2/22/07:10:33PM).

In the end, the squabbling will recede into the background and we will be left with the works themselves. Go see them both. It'll be worth it. And then see more, and then some more after that.

--Daniel

 
   

Comments

[Dean Robinson]

I own perhaps one of the first examples of Ms. Precious works using butterfly wings. The art piece is from the mid 1980's and is admired to this day.
I don't think that the argument is a matter of who worked in what medium first, as much as innovation VS plagiarism.
Ms. Precious work is well thought out and superior in execution. Every art piece that she creates is produced with great care, craftsmanship and concept. Unlike Hirst, Ms. Precious is a true conceptual artist, a creative genius that would never stoop to copying others, or compromise her craft.
Ms. Precious works have been plagiarized since her early shows at the Richard Bennett Gallery.
At what point will the art world step back and say "no-more" to the opportunistic parasites like Hirst.
So...choose a side, innovation(Precious) or
immitation (Hirst), there is no grey area.
I suggest that anyone that has not had the pleasure of viewing Ms. Precious' work in person, do so. Her art speaks for itself.