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Two Different Approaches of Artists in the Neo-Liberal Era: Damien Hirst and Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Seunghyun Lee 1

1선화예술문화재단

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ABSTRACT

After postmodernism was firmly theorized early 1980’s, new neo-liberalist economic policies changed the landscape of world economy and society. This paper examines the effect of this socio-economic change on Damien Hirst and Felix Gonzalez-Torres and their artworks. Damien Hirst and Felix Gonzalez-Torres both exemplify how changes inthe artist’s attitude caused by neoliberalist economic policies influence the representation of society in their works. Neo-liberalism took capitalism one step further, allowing market economy to reach its extremes and society to be governed by extravagance. Whereas Warhol used the surface images of consumer society to represent his era, Hirst appropriated the foundational operating mechanisms of consumer society. For instance, in his work For the Love of God, Hirst ingeniously used expensive materials in the very process of making his art and thus established himself as one of the highest priced artists in the world. Whereas Hirst used the logic of market economy to be successful as an artist, Gonzalez-Torres used it to criticize consumer society through his artworks. A postmodern theorist Frederic Jameson once said that the invention and projection of global cognitive mapping is crucial. In a neo-liberalist world, however, the imminent mission is not just the cognitive mapping but rather the cognitive change for a better future.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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