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CHARLES SAATCHI, advertising mogul and art collector:
"Art books dated 2105 will be as brutal about editing the late 20th century as they are about almost all other centuries. Every artist other than Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Damien Hirst will be a footnote."
ROBERT HUGHES, Australian art critic:
"Hirst is basically a pirate, and his skill is shown by the way in which he has managed to bluff so many art-related people, from museum personnel such as Tate's Nicholas Serota to billionaires in the New York real-estate trade, into giving credence to his originality and the importance of his 'ideas'."
BRIAN SWEWLL, the Evening Standard's art critic, on Hirst's skill as a curator:
"Hirst has bought the whimsical at whim, and the whimsical is too often superficial or gratuitously nasty. There is no evidence of shrewd judgment in his choice, only of impulse immediately indulged by a man too rich to care. He is not much of a curator - but then, illiterate and inarticulate, why should he be?"
New York Times editorial:
"Mr Hirst… has gone from being an artist to being what you might call the manager of the hedge fund of Damien Hirst's art. No artist has managed the escalation of prices for his own work quite as brilliantly as Mr Hirst. That is the real concept in his conceptualism."
ADRIAN SEARLE, Guardian art critic:
"Hirst's power, such as it is, lies in a reputation impermeable to criticism, having enough money to live and make art as he wishes, and an unaccountable ability to fill more column inches than any serious adult could sensibly want."
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NORMAN ROSENTHAL, former Royal Academy exhibitions secretary:
"He is an incredible artist and a crucial figure from his generation, there's no doubt about that."
IAN McMILLAN, British poet and journalist:
"I think he's a God. I think he's wonderful."
PETER SCHJELDAHL, New Yorker art critic:
"Hirst relies on broad, gruesome jokes to establish quick communication."
WALDEMAR JANUSZCZAK, Sunday Times art critic:
"Hirst's ridiculous auction will lighten the mood of the entire nation. Who else but an artist could ignore all this nonsense about recessions and cutbacks so blithely and stride so crazily in the opposite direction?"
MICHAEL KIMMERMAN, New York Times art critic:
"Warhol got there first and did it all better, years ago, including the deadpan corporate routine and the death-obsessed imagery."
RICHARD LACAYO, Time magazine:
"Hirst's career always threatens to amount to a core of genuine invention surrounded by a vast penumbra of middling merchandise."
GRAYSON PERRY, British artist:
"We get the art we deserve and Damien is the perfect artist of our times of fluff economies, New Labour and celebrity hype... His work has always been largely about money: I fear his accountant has become his most influential artistic adviser."
FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 17, 2008
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