Damien Hirst’s troubles with animal rights groups continue. A German museum has dismantled the artist’s installation Hundred Years (1990) in response to complaints from animal rights organization PETA. The work, a halved glass cube, sees flies hatch on one side, travel through a hole to reach artificial light, and die on arrival from an “insect-o-cutor”.
A formal complaint was also sent to the Wolfsburg Art Museum by the city’s veterinary office.
The work was included in a large group exhibition called “Performance! Bright!” which researches the use of artificial light in art, curated by the director of the Kunstmuseum, Andreas Beitin, together with Holger Broeker.
“We thought flies weren’t covered by the Animal Welfare Act,” says Beitin told The German newspaper Brunswick newspaperand added that the work should draw attention to the fact that public lights are dying of insects every night.
In a separate expressiona PETA representative said that “killing animals has nothing to do with art, it just shows the arrogance of people who will stop at literally nothing for their own interests.” The representative added that after Germany’s Animal Welfare Actno one may hurt or injure an animal without “reasonable cause.”
One Hundred Years was first exhibited in London in 1990 alongside one of Hirst’s most famous works, One Thousand Years. In the latter, a more brutal work, a severed cow’s head is found beneath the fly zapper. The dead flies should accumulate over the course of the exhibition.
“We share the basic idea of the animal protection association that animals are not there to entertain us or that we exploit them,” says Otmar Böhmer, managing director of the art museum. He said the work was dismantled before the show ended on July 10.
People view a cow’s head covered in flies, part of an artwork by Damien Hirst entitled ‘A Thousand Years’ at the Tate Modern art gallery on April 2, 2012 in London, England.Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images.
This is far from the first time the YBA star has been called in for his art by PETA, which is a well-known critic of its infamous installations of dead (and yes, even dissected) animals preserved in formaldehyde.
Beginning in the 1990s when Hirst exploded in the British art scene with his work 1000 years, the remember death Aspect of his work has long been the subject of the ire of animal rights activists concerned about his macabre fascination with art and death.
In 2017, Caroline Goldstein of Artnet News went so far as to try number how many dead beings Hirst’s art had so far produced. The answer? Almost a million (with the vast majority, approximately 912,005, being insects and butterflies).
Dead larvae aside, it’s unlikely that more flies will swarm the installation any time soon, nor is this likely to be the artist’s final battle with PETA. For its part, the museum claims to have tried to contact the artist and his studio to clarify whether the installation could be presented with artificial flies. Otherwise acc The mirrorit may never be exhibited again.
A Hirst representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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