Unbelievable Treasures
Minerva|September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5

Is Damien Hirst’s trove of ‘antiquities’ brought up from the sea-bed just a shipload of crock, or is it an historically accurate, if anarchistic, tribute to marine archaeology?

Sean A Kingsley
Unbelievable Treasures

Roll up, roll up for the greatest show on earth. As Venice slowly sinks beneath the waves, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, 189 of them in all, have surfaced in artist Damien Hirst’s latest, boldest extravaganza, which has been a decade in the making, at the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana.

The bad boy of Brit Art invites us on a voyage of discovery to gawp at a 2000-year-old lost cargo once shipped on the Apistos (the Unbelievable) by the powerful Roman art collector Aulus Calidius Amotan, whose costly write-off would become enshrined in the Dinner Conversations of Apollonius of Samos. Hirst’s supposed sponsorship of the wreck’s salvage off East Africa is given a patina of real time and place through moody underwater video and stills tracking the artworks as found from the sea floor to the surface.

Big, brash and splendidly over the top, with a creative price tag exceeding $50 million, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable confuses art critics like no other mega-show of recent years. Some can’t see beyond what they judge to be its offensive scale and cost. Others accuse Hirst of conceit, glowing in acclaim for art that was actually made by a team of artisans. It’s as wrong, they say,

treasures Is Damien Hirst’s trove of ‘antiquities’ brought up from the sea-bed just a shipload of crock, or is it an historically accurate, if anarchistic, tribute to marine archaeology? Sean A Kingsley tries to fathom the answer Roll up, roll up for the greatest show on earth. As Venice slowly sinks beneath the waves, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, 189 of them in all, have surfaced in artist Damien Hirst’s latest, boldest extravaganza, which has been a decade in the making, at the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana.

Denne historien er fra September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5-utgaven av Minerva.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

Denne historien er fra September/October 2017 Volume 28 Number 5-utgaven av Minerva.

Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.

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