Damien Hirst and the legacy of the sublime in contemporary art and culture

PhD thesis


White, L. 2009. Damien Hirst and the legacy of the sublime in contemporary art and culture. PhD thesis Middlesex University Visual Culture / History of Art and Design
TypePhD thesis
TitleDamien Hirst and the legacy of the sublime in contemporary art and culture
AuthorsWhite, L.
Abstract

Research Questions:
• How can we understand the legacies of the eighteenth-century sublime in contemporary culture – including commercialised and commodified forms?
• What are the insistent reiterations of tropes, affects and themes of the sublime doing in contemporary art and culture?
• How are the aesthetic forms of the sublime bound in to economic, social and political histories?
• What happens when we read Hirst in terms of the histories of the sublime? And the sublime through Hirst?
• The work also more generally sets out to examine the cultural forms of our own global-capitalist moment, and to think this within the longer histories of capital.
Research Context
• Hirst is a highly successful artist but there is a dearth of serious critical writing about him. Most extant work on the yBas was produced in the 90s, as part of a critical polemic around the work. My own work starts from the historical distance which is now opening up between then and now to read Hirst as srt history.
• The work also positions itself with regard to a currently burgeoning body of literature around the sublime. I draw on the different approaches of aesthetics, criticism and cultural history to read the relation between past and present forms of the sublime.
• My work focuses on the intertwinement of the sublime (from its earliest histories) with commodified culture, rather than just high culture.
Research Methods
• Hirst is treated as a cultural symptom.
• The work investigates forms of historical repetition (Nachträglichkeit, Nachleben, figurality, hauntology, etc.)
• Hirst is a focal point for a wider exploration of a wide-ranging cultural history. Other objects of inquiry include: Alexander Pope and the Scriblerians, Bertolt Brecht, John Singleton Copley, James Thomson, Bruegel the Elder, Piranesi, Wordsworth, Steven Spielberg, Mary Shelley and Emile Zola.
• My approach is broadly Marxian, but I also critically interrogate Marx, and draw on other approaches including those of Freud, Lyotard, Derrida and Braudel.
• Particular attention is given to the early eighteenth century.
Findings:
• The strength of Hirst’s best work stems from its condensation of social contradiction into complex, haunting images – images which are in turn haunted by the histories of sublimity, an aesthetic formed in, and which also serves to help form, capital’s imaginary. Hirst and the sublime are bound in to a representational logic of an imperialism common to our own moment and that of early modernity. Such links to the imperialist imaginary belie the use of the sublime by contemporary leftist theorists (such as Lyotard) to valorize the sublime.

Keywordssublime; bathos; Damien Hirst; Eighteenth-Century Culture, Literature, Theatre, Art and Society; Scriblerian satire; capitalism; globalisation; commercialised culture; popular culture; contemporary art; young British artists; Charles Saatchi; commodification; culture industry; consumption; modernity; aesthetics; Marxian thought; Alexander Pope; Dunciad; Peri Bathous; John Gay; Beggar's Opera; Colley Cibber; Henry Fielding; James Thomson; Robert Walpole; Jonathan Wilde; John Singleton Copley; Berthold Brecht; Bruegel the Elder; Steven Spielberg; Jaws; Peter Benchley; Emile Zola; Wordsworth; Piranesi; Mary Shelley; Fernand Braudel; Jacques Derrida; Jean-François Lyotard; Edmund Burke; Immanuel Kant; (Pseudo-)Longinus; John Dennis; George Gilder; Peter de Bolla; Financial revolution; Imperialism; markets; meat; shop windows; fops; plagiarism (eighteenth-century); masculinity; class; nachträglichkeit; figurality; spectrality; phantasy; phantasmagoria; Camp; sharks in modern culture; labour; cultural representations of slavery
Research GroupDiasporas
Visual Culture and Curating cluster
Department nameVisual Culture / History of Art and Design
Institution nameMiddlesex University
Publication dates
Print02 Mar 2010
Publication process dates
Deposited02 Mar 2010
CompletedMar 2009
Output statusPublished
Accepted author manuscript
LanguageEnglish
Permalink -

https://repository.mdx.ac.uk/item/824q5

Download files

  • 200
    total views
  • 1059
    total downloads
  • 12
    views this month
  • 96
    downloads this month

Export as

Related outputs

Martial arts in/as science fiction
White, L. 2024. Martial arts in/as science fiction. 9th Annual International Conference of the Martial Arts Studies Association and Martial Arts Studies Research Network. Cardiff University, Cardiff 04 - 06 Jun 2024
Way of the intercepting pun: language and the body in Stephen Chow's carnival of kung fu
White, L. 2024. Way of the intercepting pun: language and the body in Stephen Chow's carnival of kung fu. in: Bettinson, G. and Lee, V. (ed.) The Cinema of Stephen Chow London, UK Bloomsbury. pp. 163–179
Sammo Hung: the Kung Fu comic's sublime body
White, L. 2024. Sammo Hung: the Kung Fu comic's sublime body. in: Barrowman, K. (ed.) Fighting Stars: Stardom and Reception in Hong Kong Martial Arts Cinema London, UK Bloomsbury. pp. 109–125
Retribution Shaw-Style
White, L. 2023. Retribution Shaw-Style. USA
Jackie Chan: a winning formula
White, L. 2023. Jackie Chan: a winning formula. USA
Fighting without fighting: Kung Fu cinema's journey to the West
White, L. 2022. Fighting without fighting: Kung Fu cinema's journey to the West. London Reaktion Books.
Reappraising the Kung Fu comedy film: from the protestant ethnic to hysterical resistance
White, L. 2022. Reappraising the Kung Fu comedy film: from the protestant ethnic to hysterical resistance. 7th International Martial Arts Studies Conference: Martial Arts, Tradition and Globalisation. Universities of Lausanne and Geneva 29 Jun - 02 Jul 2022
Crippled warriors: masculinities and martial arts media in Asia
White, L. 2022. Crippled warriors: masculinities and martial arts media in Asia. in: Kim, Y. (ed.) Media in Asia: Global, Digital, Gendered and Mobile London and New York Routledge. pp. 239-252
Legacies of the drunken master: politics of the body in Hong Kong Kung Fu comedy films
White, L. 2020. Legacies of the drunken master: politics of the body in Hong Kong Kung Fu comedy films. Honolulu, USA University of Hawai'i Press.
Conference report: Bruce Lee’s cultural legacies
White, L. 2018. Conference report: Bruce Lee’s cultural legacies.
How Jeff Koons sold out – and why his jumbo tulips don’t belong in Paris
White, L. 2018. How Jeff Koons sold out – and why his jumbo tulips don’t belong in Paris.
Toward an aesthetic of weightlessness: Qinggong and Wire-fu
White, L. 2017. Toward an aesthetic of weightlessness: Qinggong and Wire-fu. in: lok, s. (ed.) RoCH Fans and Legends Derby / Manchester QUAD / Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art.
Carnival of the drunken master: the politics of the Kung Fu comedic body
White, L. 2018. Carnival of the drunken master: the politics of the Kung Fu comedic body. in: Bowman, P. (ed.) The Martial Arts Studies Reader London Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 199-212
Netflix ninjas and the legacy of the Kung Fu craze: asiaphilia and asiaphobia in Marvel’s Daredevil
White, L. 2018. Netflix ninjas and the legacy of the Kung Fu craze: asiaphilia and asiaphobia in Marvel’s Daredevil. 4th Annual Martial Arts Studies Conference: Bruce Lee’s Cultural Legacies. Cardiff University, UK 11 - 12 Jul 2018
Enter the Xiaozi: youth in the Hong Kong Kung Fu comedy film
White, L. 2017. Enter the Xiaozi: youth in the Hong Kong Kung Fu comedy film. World Youth Martial Arts Mastership International Academic Conference. Cheongju University, Korea 03 - 04 Nov 2017
The ethics of violence in the Kung Fu comedy
White, L. 2017. The ethics of violence in the Kung Fu comedy. Martial Arts Studies Conference, 2017. Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom 11 - 13 Jul 2017
Jackie Chan vs. Walter Benjamin: postcolonial “Utopias of the Body” in Kung Fu comedy
White, L. 2017. Jackie Chan vs. Walter Benjamin: postcolonial “Utopias of the Body” in Kung Fu comedy. Research Seminar Series, Department of English Literature, Linguistics and Cultural Studies. University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom 08 Mar 2017
Marvel’s Daredevil: Ninjas, Blind Swordsmen and the Oriental Obscene
White, L. 2017. Marvel’s Daredevil: Ninjas, Blind Swordsmen and the Oriental Obscene. Them! The Visual Cultures of 'Othering' in Post-Referendum UK and Post-General-Election USA. Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom 13 Jan 2017
Through the window: Wing Chun as woman warrior
lok, s. and White, L. 2015. Through the window: Wing Chun as woman warrior. Martial Arts Studies. Cardiff University 10 - 12 Jun 2015
A ‘narrow world, strewn with prohibitions’: Chang Cheh’s The Assassin and the 1967 Hong Kong riots
White, L. 2015. A ‘narrow world, strewn with prohibitions’: Chang Cheh’s The Assassin and the 1967 Hong Kong riots. Asian Cinema. 26 (1), pp. 79-98. https://doi.org/10.1386/ac.26.1.79_1
Lau Kar-leung with Walter Benjamin: storytelling, authenticity, film performance and martial arts pedagogy
White, L. 2014. Lau Kar-leung with Walter Benjamin: storytelling, authenticity, film performance and martial arts pedagogy. Journalism Media and Cultural Studies (JOMEC). 5, pp. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.18573/j.2014.10277
Damien Hirst: the capitalism sublime?
White, L. 2012. Damien Hirst: the capitalism sublime? Marxism in Culture. Institute of Historical Research, University College London 01 Jun 2012
Kung-fu cinema's Shaolin heroes in the Longue Durée of Chinese revolt
White, L. 2012. Kung-fu cinema's Shaolin heroes in the Longue Durée of Chinese revolt. Riot, Revolt, Revolution. University of Brighton 05 - 07 Sep 2012
Vicissitudes of violence: Hong Kong martial arts cinema and the 1966/7 unrest
White, L. 2012. Vicissitudes of violence: Hong Kong martial arts cinema and the 1966/7 unrest. Genre Beyond Hollywood. University of Southampton 08 Jul 2012
Nature, the metropolis and the apocalyptic sublime
White, L. 2012. Nature, the metropolis and the apocalyptic sublime. Landscape & Eschatology. Tate Britain
Towards a radical aesthetics of kung fu cinema: authenticity and the pedagogy of performing bodies in Lau Kar-leung’s Shaolin Cycle
White, L. 2011. Towards a radical aesthetics of kung fu cinema: authenticity and the pedagogy of performing bodies in Lau Kar-leung’s Shaolin Cycle. Radical Aesthetics and Politics: Intersections in Music, Art and Critical Social Theory. Roosevelt House, Hunter College, CUNY 09 Dec 2011
Radical, like in the 80s
White, L. 2011. Radical, like in the 80s. Radical Philosophy. 168, pp. 56-58.
Damien Hirst’s shark: nature, capitalism and the sublime.
White, L. 2010. Damien Hirst’s shark: nature, capitalism and the sublime. Tate Papers (Tate's Online Research Journal). 14.
Damien Hirst, Colley Cibber and the bathos of the commercialised sublime.
White, L. 2007. Damien Hirst, Colley Cibber and the bathos of the commercialised sublime. Taste, vision, transcendence: sublimity 1700-1900.. University of Sussex 05 Jan 2007
Sublimity, beauty and decorum
White, L. 2007. Sublimity, beauty and decorum. in: Petry, M. (ed.) Richmond Burton and Maisie Kendall: decorum Hornsey MOCA in conjunction with the Royal Academy Schools. pp. 5-10
Damien Hirst's diamond skull and the capitalist sublime
White, L. 2009. Damien Hirst's diamond skull and the capitalist sublime. in: White, L. and Pajaczkowska, C. (ed.) The Sublime Now Newcastle Upon Tyne Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 155-171
The sublime in the work of Cornelia Parker
White, L. and Pajaczkowska, C. 2009. The sublime in the work of Cornelia Parker. in: White, L. and Pajaczkowska, C. (ed.) The Sublime Now. Newcastle Upon Tyne Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 181-196
The sublime now
White, L. and Pajaczkowska, C. White, L. and Pajaczkowska, C. (ed.) 2009. The sublime now. Newcastle Upon Tyne Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Ideal homes/artificial horizons
White, L. and Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture 2007. Ideal homes/artificial horizons. Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture.