How to post a large chunk of words with pictures on OSS and become as famous as Damien Hirst

Hello everyone I am getting really sick of OSS so I’ll keep this short.

Final zine

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Yeah so for this zine I wanted to do a similar concept as my previous project, a sort of idiot’s how to guide, but this time on the infamous artist Damien Hirst. I don’t know about you but from what I’ve been reading/hearing he’s very well known especially in the art/design world, and everyone has an opinion on him. Unless you want nothing to do with the art world you should really check him out, especially since they teach his stuff at the exclusive NYAEP *jeng jeng*

(the following are his actual art works and all images belong to the official website of master Hirst)

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Mother and Child Divided exhibition copy 2007 (original 1993) Damien Hirst born 1965 Presented by the artist 2007 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T12751
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To sum it up Damien Hirst is one of the richest living artists in the world, and is most commonly known for placing dead animals in tanks (usually filled with a blue liquid called formaldehyde for preservation purposes) and giving them long pretentious names. Obviously there has been lots of controversy on whether Damien Hirst’s works can be considered art, especially since he didn’t actually ‘do’ anything to the objects/bodies. Personally I was very intrigued when first coming across one of his books in the library, but have gotten more suspicious after reading reviews about him. Honestly now I don’t quite know what to feel about his work, whether they’re actually great pieces of art or just the product of a rich man being pretentious, and that feeling is what I hope to convey with this zine.

And so this zine is like a handout/booklet trying to teach people how to be like Damien Hirst, but ends up failing.

I initially thought of simply photoshopping weird things into pictures of Damien’s works but nah where’s the fun in that. So I decided to construct my very own Hirst box. The first 3 pictures are of some discarded box found on top of the b1 lockers and they served as a reference during the construction process.

Making the box

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cutting (more like scraping) acrylic sheets
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lots of duct tape and hot glue
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first layer of duct tape, was deciding between using white or black tape, but in the end the white tape I had was too wide

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random flower plucked from b1, first trial
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my reservoir of blue watercolour water

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using newsprint sheets as a backdrop
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the paper towels didn’t really help tbh

More trials

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the project 3 brief lol
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garlic chilli packet
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curry sauce
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do you ever feel like a plastic bag
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drifting through the wind, wanting to start again
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random flower from b1

 Initial draft

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Feedback: longer/more pretentious titles, edit lighting in pictures to that of one taken in a real museum, short description on who Damien Hirst is and why he is famous, include price tag of works/materials needed, increase size of name in front cover, use glossier paper, include fake gallery contact information, wrap zine with ribbon etc to make it more formal, fake artist description, increase the satire, be mindful of font size hierarchy

So yeah and we arrive to my final zine. Don’t think it needs much elaboration/description as I think it is simple enough to be understood on its own. Here are some reference pictures of actual Damien Hirst books.

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Final project reflection

Reflection

To be honest I was quite excited for this project as I felt it had lots of room for appropriation, which is something I quite enjoy doing and have done in previous projects. (https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/awong011/2016/03/22/research-paper-on-chinese-paintings-lol-jk-project-2-final-post/) I feel that appropriation, if done well, can better express information about an object/person by letting viewers see it in a totally different light.

When our group first met up in class to discuss possible objects I had lots of fun coming up with ways to appropriate various objects/artworks we came across this semester. I had ideas like making a statue of a Buddha where one hand was raised in the ‘do not fear’ mudra while scrolling on a smartphone in the other, painting weird images on chinese ceramics and a lot more that were pretty wild. But after awhile I realised that I had difficulty forming a thesis statement with these wild ideas, which was a problem I faced in semester 1 where I would have grand concepts that lacked a coherent message.

After consulting with the stand-in teacher (I forgot her name I’m sorry) and Sujatha I got a better idea on how to form a relevant thesis statement for our object, rather than just flipping things on its head for fun.

Another thing I learned from this process was that too many options limited creativity, which was evident when my team and I had lots of ideas but couldn’t quite settle on a object to focus on. In the end we chose a plate we saw at the Asian Civilisations museum and from there began the process of visual analysis/research/idea generation/consults to arrive at our final product.

In the end, I really enjoyed this process of working with my 3 other teammates (Chenyue, Fern and Ziyu) and is definitely more enjoyable than studying for a paper like we did last semester. See everyone around school next year! Cheers!

Art Installation

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Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, Art Installation seeks to challenge definitions of art and establish a dialogue on what exactly can be considered art. The installation blurs the line between the actual art piece and objects commonly used to demarcate them in curated galleries. The placement of lighting fixture and this artist statement on an empty wall, along with the white tape on the floor, implies the presence of an art piece. But a lack of any painting or sculpture then forces the viewer to question their prevailing concept of art and hopefully to include the objects used in this installation. The title Art Installation also points to how the objects fluctuate between being indicators of the presence of an art installation and being the actual installation themselves.