On a Wing and a Prayer

Giovanni AloiEditor in Chief of Antennae ProjectLondon Editor of Whitehot Magazine

Lecturer in Visual Culture:Goldsmiths University of LondonQueen Mary University of London

The Open UniversityTate GalleriesChristie's Education

Sotheby's Institute of Artwww.antennae.org.ukwww.whitehotmagazine.com

Damien Hirst, The Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

POWER/KNOWL

EDGERELATIONSHIPS

GALLERIESMUSEUMSAUDIENCES

ART MARKETSART MAGAZINES

BOOK PUBLISHERSCURATORS

COLLECTORSACADEMICS

GALLERIESMUSEUMSAUDIENCES

ART MARKETSART MAGAZINES

BOOK PUBLISHERSCURATORS

COLLECTORSACADEMICS

VALIDATION OF ARTWORK

=

VISIBILITY OF ANIMAL DEATH

IN ART

Damien Hirst, The Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503-1506

Damien Hirst, Detail of butterfly wing panting, 2007

Mat Collishaw, Insecticide #14,

2010

ARTWORK AS MANIFESTATION

OF INTERMINGLING

DISCOURSES

MYTHOLOGY

Dosso Dossi, Jupiter Painting Butterflies with Mercury and Virtue, detail, 1522-24

Antonio Canova, Cupid and Psyche, detail,1796

MYTHOLOGYCHRISTIANITY

Workshop of Albrecht Düre,The Madonna with the Iris, 1500-10

Workshop of Albrecht Düre, The Madonna with the Iris, (detail), 1500-10

Workshop of Albrecht Düre, The Madonna with the Iris, (detail), 1500-10

MYTHOLOGYCHRISTIANITY

ART

Rachel Ruysch, A Still with Flowers, Butterflies and a Lizard in a Dell, early 1700s

Laurens Craen, Still Life with a Swallowtail Butterfly, detail, 1653

MYTHOLOGYCHRISTIANITY

ARTNATURAL HISTORY

Thomas Moffet, Insectorum Sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum, 1634

MYTHOLOGYCHRISTIANITY

ARTNATURAL HISTORY

CAPITALISM

RE-EMERGENCE OF

BUTTERFLIES IN CONTEMPORAR

Y ART

LONG ARTISTIC ABSENCE

BEGAN WITH THE VICTORIAN

PERIOD…

Jan Davidsz Heem, Festoon of Fruits and

Flowers, 1670

…IT COINCIDED WITH THE

COLLECTING OF TROPICAL

SPECIMENS…

Arthur Twidle, from Beautiful Butterflies of the Tropics, London R.T.S., 1920

…IT CONTINUED THROUGH THE

RISE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

…

Example of b/w photography of butterflies which circulated until the 1970s

… AND THE DRAMATIC

DWINDLING OF BUTTERFLY

POPULATIONS AROUND THE

WORLD.

Vogt, Moreno, Countryman, Butterflies in Space Teacher’s Guide, 2009

FLATTENING OF NATURE

Damien Hirst, Detail of White Symphony in White Major, 2006

Mat Collishaw, Insecticide #24,

2009

Piero Andrea Mattioli, Pedacij Dioscoridis Anazarbei de Medica Materia, 1565

William Curtis, The Botanical Magazine, 1803

Herbarium, 17th century. Pre-Linnean herbarium, 1600.

Plate: Doronicum americanum lacinato folio.

Ulisse Aldrovandi, De Animalibus Insectis, 1602

Thomas Moffet, Insectorum Sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum, 1634

Laurens Craen, Still Life with a Swallowtail Butterfly, detail, 1653

Maria Sybilla Merian, coloured copper engraving from Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, 1705

If one wishes to kill butterflies quickly, then one must hold the point of a darning needle in a flame, thus making it hot or glowing red, and stick it into the butterfly. They die immediately with no damage to their wings […]. (Merian in Neri : 2011, p. 161)

Maria Sybilla Merian, coloured copper engraving from

Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, 1705

Victorian Naturalists Ernst Haeckel and

Nikolai Miklucho

Ulisse Aldrovandi, De Animalibus Insectis, 1602

SYMMERTY AND THE ACCIDENT

Mat Collishaw, Insecticide #14, 2010

Damien Hirst, Detail of butterfly wing painting, 1990s

A Fibonacci spiral which approximates the golden section, using Fibonacci sequence square sizes up to 34.

The Parthenon, Athens, 438 BC

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503-1506

Golden Section on wing patterning and body structure of a moth. From the research of Md. Akhtaruzzaman  and Amir A. Shafie, 2012

THE SUBLIME

RUIN

[w]hen] music, as it were in a fit of desire for independence, seizes the opportunity of a pause to free itself from the control of rhythm, to launch out into the free imagination of an ornate cadenza, such a piece of music divested of all rhythm is analogous to the ruin which is divested of symmetry and which accordingly may be called, in the bold language of witticism, a frozen cadenza.

(Schopenhauer : 1819, p.240-41)

Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Idealised view with Roman Ruins, Sculpture and a Port,, 1620s

Mat Collishaw, Insecticide #16,

2010

THE SUBLIME ILLUMINATES THE MORAL PHSYCHOLOGY OF THE RATIONAL ANIMAL

Pierre Patel, Landscape with Ruins and a Sheppard, 1645

Mat Collishaw, Insecticide #15, 2009

Jan-Baptist Weenix, Ancient Ruins, first half of 17th century

Damien Hirst, Detail of White Symphony in White Major, 2006

Caspar David Friedrich, The Abbey in Oakwood, 1810

JMW Turner, The Chancel and Crossing of Tintern Abbey, Looking Towards the East

Window, 1794

Damien Hirst, Observation – The

Crown of Justice, butterflies and

household gloss paint, 2006

Damien Hirst, Devotion, butterflies and household gloss paint, 2003

WITNESSING THE ACCIDENT’S

AFTERMATH

Damien Hirst, Rapture, butterflies

and household gloss paint, 2003

What terrorizes us is not therefore just what we see in front of us, but it is what we see in the reflections of ourselves: the dramatic contradictions involved in what it means to be human and to be a human animal amongst other animals.

Damien Hirst, It’s Great to Be Alive, butterflies and household gloss paint, 2003

Damien Hirst, I Am Become Death, Shatterer of Worlds, butterflies and household gloss paint, 2006

Damien Hirst, Black Sun, flies and resin,

2004

Damien Hirst, Black Sun, flies and resin, 2004, detail

MYTHOLOGYCHRISTIANITY

ARTNATURAL HISTORY

CAPITALISM

If we find ourselves tangling with the sublime again today, the reason for this might be our embrace within a capitalist modernity whose form of capital has come once more to bear uncanny resemblances to the imperial, hyper-liquid and perplexingly spectral capital of the eighteenth century.

(White : 2010)

NATURE AS LIMIT TO

HUMAN POWER

Mat Collishaw, Insecticide #28, 2012

A key aspect of the recent resurgence of the sublime as a subject for study has undoubtedly been its relevance as an aesthetic of terrible nature, at a moment when, with growing fears about environmental catastrophe, nature has reappeared as a limit to human power, progress and wealth, something which even threatens to destroy us.

(White : 2010)

On a Wing and a PrayerOn a Wing and a Prayer

Damien Hirst, Detail of butterfly wing panting, 2007

Damien Hirst, Detail of butterfly wing painting