Bar Bespoke Shark in A Glass

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In a speech at the Royal Academy in 2004, art critic Robert Hughes used The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living as a prime example of how the international art market at the time was a "cultural obscenity". Without naming the artwork or the artist, he stated that brush marks in the lace collar of a painting by Velázquez could be more radical than a shark "murkily disintegrating in its tank on the other side of the Thames". [23] Owing to deterioration of the original 14-foot (4.3m) tiger shark, it was replaced with a new specimen in 2006. It was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from 2007 to 2010. [1] Controversially, Hirst hired an Australian shark hunter to catch the big fish, asking him to capture “something big enough to eat you.” Hirst also plays on the fear response, deliberately displaying the shark with its mouth wide open, and sharp teeth visible. Preserving it in formaldehyde allows the shark to stay remarkably well preserved as if actually still alive.

Its technical specifications are: "Tiger shark, glass, steel, 5% formaldehyde solution, 213 × 518 × 213cm." [9]

Shark in a Glass

Hirst has made other works subsequently which also feature a preserved shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine: The Immortal [10] (a great white shark, 2005), Wrath of God [11] (2005), Death Explained [12] (the shark is split in two, lengthwise, 2007), Death Denied [13] (2008), The Kingdom [14] (2008) and Leviathan (a basking shark, 2010) [1].

a b Smith, Roberta (16 October 2007). "Just When You Thought It Was Safe". The New York Times . Retrieved 16 October 2007. The seas off the British Isles are home to many different types of shark, which reflects the remarkable diversity of marine habitats around our shores. Damien Hirst Made the Vitrine Resemble a Fish Tank The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst, 1991, via Fineartmultiple While there is a predatory quality to Hirst’s shark, we are also aware that it poses no real threat. Instead, it hangs suspended and unmoving before us like a museum specimen in preserving fluid, for us to stare at with morbid fascination. Many of us may have never seen a shark as close up as this before, and by displaying it in this innocuous, sleep-like state, we can encounter what would normally be a fearsome creature in an entirely new, inert, and medical way. Hirst has made a miniature version of The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living for the Miniature Museum in the Netherlands. In this case, he put a guppy in a box (10 × 3.5 × 5 centimetres) filled with formaldehyde. [16]Since the shark was initially preserved poorly, it began to deteriorate and the surrounding liquid grew murky. Hirst attributes some of the decay to the fact that the Saatchi Gallery added bleach to it. In 1993 the gallery gutted the shark and stretched its skin over a fiberglass mold, and Hirst commented: a b c d e f g h i j Vogel, Carol "Swimming with famous dead sharks,2 The New York Times, 1 October 2006. Retrieved 23 February 2007 Most sharks need to swim continuously to receive oxygen through their gill slits to survive, however some species, including whitetips, have muscles that pump water through their gills, enabling them to rest. Sharks in British waters