The Selfs Measures V The Tailors Truth - Art that fails to fulfil its promise.

It is In fair Venice, where we lay our scene…

It is 2017 and a monumental exhibition is taking place, spanning a combined space of 54000 sq/ft, at the time it would have filled an entire half of the MoMAs exhibition space single handedly if placed there.

This gargantuan show is filled with promise, not least of all because it is by renowned artist Damien Hirst. Called “treasures from the wreck of the unbelievable” its plain speaking title actually hints at a show devoid of the sort of pretentious and overblown language. It delivers succinctly the concept for the show, that of treasures recovered from a shipwreck lost in antiquity, one which is immediately fascinating.

Those around the show maintain this hook, presenting it straight faced, the entire exhibition is set with all the connotations of genuine museology. The shows curator, Elena Geuna, delivers interviews in the preceding press events as though talking about a genuine exhibition of recovered artefacts. It even goes so far as to welcome visitors with screens playing “genuine” footage and photos of the items being recovered amongst the sand and silt of the seabed.

So far all is as it should be. Yet In truth this footage and images hold the best of what this show has to offer. They fully sell the illusion that these are lost treasures, with photos printed on 5 metre high light boxes, showing divers dwarfed by coral coated carvings torn straight from antiquity set against the backdrop of that dark and dramatic sea floor lighting, truly awe inspiring scenes.

They alone could sell the whole show to me, punctuate them with a handful of “recovered” pieces throughout the building, and this may have been one of the most interesting and the most enjoyable artistic explorations of the 21st century (as one review noted, there was potential here for it to be the Nat Tate of its genre).

But it all falls apart once you get up close, to Hirst or the work, both fail to maintain the concept. Avarice undermines it all, through the sheer scope (190 pieces) and what that does to the magic of illusion, through to the factory like production methods Hirst employs that leave areas distinctly lacking in the much needed artistry to fit the clothes Hirst words and premise cut for them.

Removed from the depths, the “coral” appears poorly painted and in some places purely comical in how fake it is. Sections of some works are cartoonish in their form, and many fail to capture the sense of an artists hands, of shifting technique or style in time as they should. Compounding this failing is the fact that each piece is rendered in triplicate, from coral coated and weathered, through to marble and gold versions. They ostensibly stand as “restorations & reproductions” but in truth they are simply there to provide different price points of sale for the series.

Hirst sets up concepts that question myth, the reverence we have for the past, and the very nature of authenticity. Then answers it all by delivering a set of expensive unconvincing objects for sale surrounded by serious people holding straight faces as he himself smirks in the corner, a child attempting to weave a believable tale to inspire, who keeps laughing at their own falsehoods.

He talks of a post truth era whilst the artwork only speaks of the results of unimaginable wealth. Intended as a critique of institutional archeology and museums, it instead offers its best critique on hoarded wealth and hubris. A misfired shot hitting someone else’s target.

I want to be clear this is not meant to paint this as the worst art show, nor even the one with the greatest disparity between artist statement and creation (I’d have picked a web3 artist if I wanted that) but rather this show straddles the line, it nearly achieves until the you get close, and is so wholly undone by the artists own ego and greed that it is infinitely more frustrating than a show that was simply bad on all fronts. I write about this particular show because it COULD have been great, if only it hadn’t been so poorly dressed by the artists own words.

In doing so it exemplifies how nuanced the point I’m making is, how in the world of art, so open as it is to subjectivity and interpretation and all the delicacy that comes with it, the artist themselves can crush the magic by mislabelling it as more than it is. I’ll always enjoy a plate of chips, but if you sell them to me as a new potato paradigm, my disappointed and disdain for your ego will rather spoil the taste.