The Guardian - 21/10/2012

Damien Hirst has brought public art to a new low

When you have an attention-seeking artist and an ambitious town, you end up with this monstrosity

Available here.

Damien Hirst's controversial statue, Verity, on Ilfracombe seafront. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Subjects on Thought for the Day last week: war memorials, Felix Baumgartner, Malala Yousafzai, the joys of taxation and, with Ilfracombe in the news, the spiritual lessons of Damien Hirst.

Hirst has just presented the town with a 65ft sculpture, a variant on the flayed pregnant girls series he began in 2006, when he parked the original Virgin Mother in the courtyard of the Royal Academy. By dint of adding Old Bailey-style accessories to this Virgin, whose pose also references Degas's Little Dancer, he has transformed the sculpture, never much of a critical hit, into an allegory for truth and justice called Verity. Some people, as Hindu Akhandadhi Das said in his Thought for the Day, do not like it. But other people do. Either way, as Das noted, the sculpture is controversial and "thought-provoking". We are having a heated debate.

So much so that this gift to Ilfracombe could succeed more triumphantly than any other piece in the artist's career, even his shark, in fulfilling the ambition he once described in interviews with Gordon Burn. "It's, like," he said, "if a tree falls down on your land, or in your street, it looks… bigger. You drive to work every day, everything's the same, you know where you are. Then one day you drive to work, and a tree's fallen down, and you go, 'Fucking hell!' You look at the tree and it's massive. You never notice it until it falls down. Artists do that!"

But it is, crucially, thanks to the economic ambitions of Ilfracombe's tourism officials that this conception of artistic merit has found its ultimate expression, in the shape of the gigantic and arrestingly hideous Verity. In 2010, in the hope of attracting more visitors, Ilfracombe, to quote its regeneration board, "relaunched its destination identity" with the strapline "curious coastal charm". No disrespect to its creators, but the slogan had barely begun to resonate before Hirst, who lives locally, offered Verity, on a 20-year loan. In reply, I imagine, the officials could only ask a) how difficult is it to clean guano off a wiggly bronze foetus? and b) couldn't he make it 30 years?

For a struggling harbour town that might, in normal circumstances, be planning its tourism offer around walks, shops and, funds permitting, a one-squid aquarium, Hirst's gigantic insult to the landscape is a regeneration board's dream come true. Even a smallish Hirst in the car park would be better, in coastal curiousness terms, than a tinies' carousel, but the enormous Verity is not just bigger than any of Hirst's previous entrail-virgins, she towers, no doubt by design, over all recent products of artistic gigantism.

Ten inches higher than Gormley's Angel of the North, the Hirst sculpture is further equipped with realistic hair and a bottom as well as her controversial foetus and any amount of pick-your-own allegorical content. She is indisputably more of a landmark, being visible for miles, than Charles Jencks's recumbent, pregnant Lady of the North whose ginormous tits now serve as a top Northumberland destination.

"A significant piece of contemporary public art that reflects the context and history of the town is felt to have huge potential for the regeneration of the town," enthused Ilfracombe's regeneration board. "Its positioning should ideally be in a showcase location with visibility from within and around the town."

That this piece of public art is, in reality, comically alien to anything identifiably Ilfracombe (except for incomer Damien Hirst) and will be considered, even by many of Hirst's old admirers, as infinitely worse than artistically insignificant, cannot diminish its regenerative value.

As an approving official from English Heritage told North Devon planners, not risking any aesthetic judgment: "This sounds like an important and thought-provoking project that would add a considerable amount of interest to Ilfracombe." Even Hirst, to judge by the planning application, was quite happy for the focus to be, primarily, on the sculpture's "significant impact to the tourism industry".

This indifference to Verity's appearance, if it astonished parts of North Devon, may be less amazing to Londoners who have learned – fromMaggi Hambling's Oscar Wilde, from the St Pancras lovers, from a 33ft horse's head at Marble Arch and, above all, from the Animals in War monument in Park Lane – that the only reasonable expectation from most contemporary public sculpture is a chastening if unintended message about human futility. The one redeeming aspect of the Animals in War monument, 58ft wide by 55ft deep and featuring mules tottering towards a hole in a wall, is the way its inscription gives a voice to the dumb recipients of public sculpture, as well as the mules: "They had no choice."

Tom Lubbock, the brilliant art critic, once pointed out that for all the fuss about individual public sculptures, most are ignored. "The people who put them up don't care what they look like. The people who walk past them don't care either. Why should a few fusspots interrupt this happy reciprocity?" But in the event that people stop saying "fucking hell", both Ilfracombe and Hirst will have failed. From the cream tea point of view, the more gobsmackingly nauseating Hirst's allegory is said to be, the more profitable. Already, the national media have reported enough Clochemerle-style stand-offs to confirm, to every ailing resort in the land, the genius of putting the economy before the lamentations of leading art critics. For even property prices should benefit, according to television property expert Sarah Beeny. "It will attract tourists and new buyers to the area," she wrote in the Mirror. "I hope when opponents see the good this statue will do, they will change their minds." On this basis, rival resorts will note, Mr Hirst has yet to do a virgin with an allegorical balloon, golf club or designer tote.

Among the traders likely to benefit from this marriage of commerce and commerce, it emerges, is a harbour-front restaurant, 11 The Quay, owned by Mr Hirst. Whether or not he planned to become to Ilfracombe as, say, Rick Stein is to Padstow, or the Prince of Wales is to Poundbury, as Jack the Ripper is to Whitechapel, the scale of another Hirst enterprise should ensure, if it succeeds, that the rebranding of this small town as, effectively, Hirstacombe or Ilfrahirst is irreversible. Shortly before the Verity application, Hirst proposed a 500-home "eco-estate", to be characterised, his architect explained, by "the kind of homes he would want to live in". Their exceptional quality, he argued, should not be compromised by excessive demands for affordable homes. "This is a very ambitious project only made possible because Damien is a local developer who truly cares."

The evidence of Verity aside, that may be the most accurate description of the former YBA we have heard for some time.

Daily Mail - 14/12/2013

Don't let Mr Pickled Shark ruin our town: First he gave them this grotesque statue. Now Damien Hirst plans another treat for sleepy Ilfracombe, a £100m housing estate

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Brighton is still indebted to George IV for putting the place on the map. Just down the coast, George V is remembered with equal fondness as the man who gave Bognor its Regis.

But I wonder whether future generations here in Ilfracombe will feel quite the same about their own royal patron. 

Admittedly, Damien Hirst might not be directly related to the Crown. But his behaviour in this part of North Devon is not merely regal. It is bordering on imperial.

The world’s wealthiest artist (though some might quibble with the last part of that description) has made such a mark on this delightful chunk of seaside that it’s already being described as Hirst-On-Sea.

He’s got his own restaurant — with pickled fish on the wall in homage to that infamous pickled shark — and is in the process of building a café three doors down. In between is his art gallery, where £4,000 will buy you a limited edition print of one of Hirst’s trademark ‘spot’ paintings. 

Only this week, two larger ones  worth £33,000 were stolen from a West London art gallery.

Just up the road from the port, he has a hotel project underway. Drive west along for a couple of miles and you’ll see another acquisition, an eccentric-looking Edwardian mansion, though this should not be confused with his main home, a country estate a few miles to the east. Then there’s the farm he owns on Ilfracombe’s southern fringe (more of which shortly).

By far the most obvious Hirst imprint, however, stands at the entrance to the harbour.

A 66-foot tall bronze, pregnant nude, her skin flayed open down one side to reveal her organs and unborn child, stands astride a pile of legal textbooks. 

Sword in one hand, scales in the other, she answers to the name of Verity and has divided local opinion ever since she arrived last year. One local councillor won’t even visit the harbour any more for fear of a glimpse of Verity’s viscera.

But even North Devon’s very own, unpeeled Statue of Liberty is a mere pimple compared to what Hirst is planning next. This week, he unveiled his plans for a vast house-building extension to the entire town.

Actually, he himself did nothing of the sort. Famously reclusive — he didn’t even attend the civic reception to welcome Verity and has never met the mayor — he left it to his architect Mike Rundell to articulate the Hirst vision. 

‘He has a horror of building anonymous, lifeless buildings,’ explained Mr Rundell. ‘He wants these houses to be the kind of homes he would want to live in.’ To which one might reply: ‘But which one of his homes?’

The plans are so ambitious no one has put a price on them. But the project seems unlikely to come in at under £100 million when new roads and infrastructure are added on.

The proposal is to build 750 new homes, along with a school, shops and sports facilities on the seaward slopes of Winsham Farm, Hirst’s property on the south side of town. 

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Artist Damien Hirst poses in front of one of his most famous artworks, a pickled shark entitled 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living'

Having persuaded a few neighbouring farmers to invest a few acres of their own, he and his architects have produced an outline scheme that would cover nearly 200 acres of green fields and add another 3,000 residents to Ilfracombe’s population of 11,000, a whopping increase of 27 per cent.

This week, after a year of ‘stakeholder consultation’, plans were formally submitted to North Devon District Council.

In most parts of the country, a scheme of this magnitude would have furious local residents mobilising an action group in collaboration with the massed ranks of bat-fanciers, tree-huggers and those people who always manage to come up with an endangered newt at the crucial moment. 

The local authority would be split down the middle and the local paper would be full of blazing rows.
Not so here in Ilfracombe. There are plenty of residents who are furious at the plans. 

But among the local politicians and businesses, the majority view is that everyone should be grateful to Mr Hirst for his largesse.Damien Hirst's Verity statue in Devon town Ilfracombe

‘Everything he’s done so far has had a positive effect on the place,’ says district councillor Paul Yabsley. Even Verity’s innards? ‘Takings in the car park next to Verity are up £6,000,’ he says. ‘And we’ve just had one of our best seasons ever.’

Ilfracombe’s mayor, guest house owner Lynda Courtnadge, says the ‘Hirst effect’ has changed the complexion of the town, much as the art world — and the Tate gallery — have boosted St Ives in Cornwall.

What’s more, she says, Hirst does it all at his own expense, and all income from Verity (assuming anyone is weird enough to want a Verity doll) will go to charity. As for the new ‘Hirstville’ housing proposal, she says it would be a blessing.

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One of Hirst's spot drawings, limited edition prints of which sell for £4,000 at the artist's restaurant

‘Our target is a population of 15,000 because then the High Street would be really sustainable.’ Here, as everywhere else, there is a severe shortage of ‘affordable’ housing for first-time buyers. 
So what’s the great man like? Like almost everyone else I meet, neither Mrs Courtnadge nor Mr Yabsley has ever set eyes on him. 

The political class is not entirely united in his defence, however. ‘Damien Hirst is like a lot of celebrities,’ says Lib Dem district councillor Julie Hunt. 

‘They chuck their money in and then they think they can do what they want. That’s what happened with Verity and it’ll be the same with the houses.’

She admits she will ‘probably get in to trouble’ for departing from the official party line on Hirst and his works.

On the edge of town, where the new scheme would be built, there are many similar opinions. ‘Hirst is just trying to buy up the town,’ says Mary Wright, a former legal secretary whose bungalow overlooks the proposed site. ‘It’s the only topic of conversation round here.’

Many Hirst supporters tell me that he is doing for Ilfracombe what celebrity chef, Rick Stein, has done for the Cornish fishing town of Padstow — or ‘Padstein’ as foodies call it.

‘I’d be very happy if Damien Hirst was only opening a few fish restaurants,’ says Mary. ‘It’s all the other stuff we don’t need.’

Hirst fans also argue that he is similar to the Prince of Wales, who has created his new Poundbury community on the edge of Dorchester in Dorset. Yet the Prince is not only more visible (and approachable), but his scheme has evolved over 25 years, and he has not stuck a 25-ton sword-wielding cadaver at the entrance.

It is clear that views on Hirst divide according to age, sex and profession. The retailers certainly seem supportive. ‘We’ve got the most famous artist in the world and he wants to put his art here. That’s brilliant,’ says family butcher, Mike Turton, adding that Hirst is a loyal customer.

But among older women, however, there is less gratitude. ‘If he wants to build housing, why can’t he develop that?’ says Patsy, a café-owner, pointing at the unsightly wreck of a long-abandoned hotel opposite her tearoom. ‘And that statue is horrible.’

On the hill above Verity, I find an information panel which says the statue is a ‘gift from Damien Hirst’. Note the word ‘from’ not ‘by’. 

As with much of the Hirst brand, it is unclear how much is crafted by the master’s own hand and how much has been merely stamped with his imprimatur — like the £350 Damien Hirst polka dot kitchen bin or those spotty pieces churned out by underlings.

Prices for Hirst’s work have taken a dive in recent years. Senior curators openly refer to his work as ‘con art’ — and it’s not just short for ‘conceptual’. 

When his diamond-encrusted skull fetched a ludicrous £50 million in 2007, it emerged that the consortium which bought it included Hirst. Such are the foundations on which this alleged £215 million fortune rests.

It is beyond doubt that Hirst has brought benefits to this town. Before he landed here, there was just one art gallery. Now there are half a dozen. 

Sheila Shepherd, manager of the nearby Driftwood Gallery says he has been ‘massively’ good for the place. She speaks fondly of seeing him whizzing around in a Ferrari with snooker ace Ronnie O’Sullivan (Hirst is a snooker obsessive).

Up and down the country, other struggling seaside towns would dearly love a global celebrity like this to walk in to their town offering visionary schemes and wads of cash.

The ‘Hirst effect’ is embodied in Ilfracombe’s new marketing slogan: ‘Curious Coastal Charm.’ They’ve even got a cruise liner dropping in next summer (passengers will come ashore just below Verity’s entrails).

But it’s one thing to endow your town with a statue or a restaurant. It’s another to start building all over its outskirts. Will ‘Hirstville’ be an enduring asset for the people of North Devon? Or is it, like those overpriced splodges, another lucrative triumph of hype over common sense?

Feedback #1

I met with Shawn to discuss my project. We decided together that the film will be about the Damien Hirst influence on Ilfracombe specifically, rather than making it a debate about public art in general. What is the effect of a big celebrity living in a small town? Why did he choose to make a stamp on Ilfracombe with his own work? Is that egotistical? What is his relationship with Ilfracombe? Shawn said that Damien should know I'm doing this project, and try to get in touch with him - show this on film, even if that means shots of me getting doors slammed in my face.

I should talk to the tourist board, council (specifically the arts councillor), people who live in Ilfracombe, and businesses to see the effect that Damien has had on Ilfracombe - both good and bad.

Research:

• Nick Broomfield
• Louis Theroux
• Michael Moore - "Roger and Me"
• Bedminster Proper
• Tracey Emin - Margate
• News stories about Damien and Ilfracombe, TV news segments
• caravangallery.co.uk - "The Other South Bank"
• Chris and Jan Teasdale 
• Izzy Pullen - David the swimmer
• Read local news stories - are there people who are outspoken against Verity?

My project will be a more rounded exploration of how Damien has affected Ilfracombe. The audience should get to know Ilfracombe through the first quarter of the film by using landscapes and disembodied voices before introducing Damien and Verity - almost like a chronological journey. I should include moving image "photograpic portraits" of the people I interview to put faces to the voices, but not in a "talking head" way. 

I also need to think of what scenes I can visualise: shop fronts, the Landscape Theatre, the cinema, the harbour, etc. Make it visual, energetic, and humorous. The film should be 10-15 minutes long. 

I should identify names for interviewing and begin to build contact, and should go down and start filming. 

Mary Portas High Street Grants

In 2012, twelve English high streets shared £1.2m to rejuvenate shopping areas. Locations - including Bedminster in Bristol -  tried out ideas suggested by Mary Portas in her high street review to boost revenue. Minister of State for Communities and Local Government Grant Shapps said that the High Street must work hard to compete with out-of-town shopping centres and the internet, and would need to have something that the internet doesn't provide.

However, one year on, ten of the twelve high streets had seen a fall in the number of occupied rental units. Overall, results were mixed, with shop vacancies down in seven of the high streets, but more shops have closed than opened. 95 units closed in total. Only Bedminster and Margate had shown success with units opening. Units include cafes, banks, pubs, and shops. 

The overall concensus from Mary Portas was  "There is no simple solution to the crisis on our High Streets. There are no quick fixes but 400 towns up and down the country are working on different plans to try and reinvigorate their High Street. Let's celebrate their achievements so far and learn and share ideas. Real change will take time."

Verity

2003 - 2012

Made from: Bronze, stainless steel, glass fibre reinforced polymer

Dimensions: 20250 x 3800 x 7600 mm | 797.3 x 149.6 x 299.3 in

Verity is a gift to the North Devon Council from Damien Hirst, and is 20.25m tall and weighs 25 tonnes. 

She is "an allegory for truth and justice". Her body is cross-sectioned to show her skeleton, muscles, and developing fetus. She stands on scattered legal books and holds two signifiers of justice - scales behind her back and a sword held into the air. Her stance is inspired by Edgar Degas's Little Dancer of Fourteen Years (1881).

Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, Edgar Degas (1881)

Verity is weather and lightning-proof and and underwent extensive testing in a wind tunnel to determine her suitability to a seaside town by her capability to withstand high winds and sea spray. 

"She was fabricated in bronze in over 40 individual sand castings at Pangolin Editions foundry, in Gloucestershire. Her phosphor-bronze surface is 20 millimetres thick and her internal support structure is a single piece of stainless steel.  After two years of planning and production, Verity arrived in Ilfracombe in three parts in October 2012. After a week’s assembly on site, the sculpture was hoisted into final position using a 250 tonne crane."

Proposal

My proposal document for ESP can be found here.