Hirst's diamond creation is art's costliest work ever

Sean O'Hagan
Sunday May 21, 2006
The Observer
Compared with the epic works that have made his name - the shark in formaldehyde, the bisected cow - Damien Hirst's work in progress is a small, delicate object: a life-size human skull. Not just any skull, mind, but one cast in platinum and encased entirely in diamonds - some 8,500 in all. It will be the most expensive work of art ever created, costing between £8m and £10m.
Unveiling his latest work exclusively to The Observer, Hirst said: 'We have been buying diamonds slowly and have worked out that it will take about eight and half thousand to completely cover the surface of the skull.'

Hirst, who is in London for meetings with his latest collaborators, Bond Street jewellers Bentley & Skinner, added: 'The biggest expense will be the 50-carat beauty that will sit on the forehead. That one alone will cost in the region of £3m to £5m. It is certainly the biggest single undertaking by a jeweller since the Crown jewels'.

Hirst, 40, who was recently ranked as the most powerful individual in the contemporary art world by Art Review magazine, is reputedly worth in the region of £100m.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1779775,00.html
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I wonder whether he has made sure to use diamonds that didn't require slave labor to mine/cut them (virtually all diamonds out there do; even the ones which are "certified" probably aren't).

Wear diamonds? Are they really worth it????? (If you wear synthetic diamonds, this doesn't apply.)
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2002/03/01/html/ft_20020301.1.fulltext.html
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7. Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds
More than one-half of the world's diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.

8. Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa
There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers.

9. Diamond Wars are Fought Using Child Warriors
Many diamond producing governments and rebel forces use children as soldiers, laborers in military camps, and sex slaves. Child soldiers are given drugs to overcome their fear and reluctance to participate in atrocities.
http://www.fguide.org/Bulletin/conflictdiamonds.htm

key substances that anchor the Earth's energy grid. The impulse of greed has caused profound imblances. Time is short.

- Story Keepers of the Jaowyn peoples

...and I saw not one thing about diamonds certified as not being conflict diamonds, probably being conflict diamonds, in this article. Not that it's my personal business - I don't buy diamonds, and don't plan to anytime soon - but the part about certified diamonds being highly likely to be falsely certified irks me.

If you really have a source for that, let me know. I'm sure a lot of Canadians, in particular, would be interested.

"Since there is such a huge market for "certified diamonds" these days, be wary of counterfeit GIA and AGS certificates. If you have any concern about the authenticity of a GIA report, contact the GIA Gem Trade Laboratory by phone (760/603-4500) or fax (760/603-1814). If you suspect a forged AGS certificate, verify the report number with AGS (702-255-6500)."

On a similar vein: About 10 years ago, there was an examination of diamonds as to whether they were "real" or "synthetic". Over 50% of them being sold as "real" were actually synthetic - it didn't matter if you bought them at Nordstrom or JC Penny. Stores aren't interested in challenging certifications - not if it lowers the potential selling price.

And no guidance whatsoever on how many certified diamonds (%-wise) might be fake in THIS case, rather than the "about 10 years ago" case.

As I said, not my business, not my industry, but I hate just GUESSING about these things.

To whit, http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1453803,00.html

would lhao at the idea that a 15-20 Million dollar bejeweled anything is " art's costliest work ever".

Hell, Phil made a black pearl & diamond necklace $ earring set a few years ago for the wife of an owner of a co you all know, and by the time he was finished (the hubs sort of designed it as it went along) it cost over a mil.

think that making a human skull out of millions of dollars of diamonds is a good thing. Notwithstanding the controversy of how they may have been mined, who mined them, and at what cost, they're going to use them to inflate the career of an 'artist' who's only talent seems to me to be the creation and display of anything but 'art'.

and this sounds like the pinnacle of wondrous crap. He should donate it to Sudan so the warlords can fight and kill each other over it till just one remains. It could be performing art!

The problem is the damage this piece does to art.

And, for that matter, the damage Damien Hirst does to art.

I never heard of this artist until I read the initial post in this thread. Apparently, his most famous art piece is a dead 14-foot tiger shark floating in a glass tank full of formaldehyde--and the fish is currently in the process of falling apart. I want that tank; I can only dream about the kind of aquarium I could make with a tank big enough to hold a 14-foot shark. What the hell is the point of the dead shark? Does floating a dead shark in a thousand gallons of formaldehyde say something about death, dead sharks, sharks generally or anything else that can't be accomplished in some other manner?

He's got a whole series of Dead Animals In Formaldehyde, including a sheep and a cow.

Now! What in fuck is the point of a platinum skull covered in diamonds?

On edit: I know sharks are arguably not fish due to their skeletons not being bony. I'm reasonably certain that the one Damien Hirst has floating in formaldehyde cares nothing about whether he's a fish.