Morrissey has verbally attacked the artist Damien Hirst for the way he uses dead animals in his work. In an article for Interview Magazine, where Morrissey interviewed his friend, the artist Linder Sterling, the singer said Hirst - whose art has included a dead cow and calf cut into pieces and put ...
Morrissey has verbally attacked the artist Damien Hirst for the way he uses dead animals in his work.
In an article for Interview Magazine, where Morrissey interviewed his friend, the artist Linder Sterling, the singer said Hirst – whose art has included a dead cow and calf cut into pieces and put in a glass container – should have his head “kept in a bag”.
Speaking to Sterling, Morrissey said: “I dislike the ‘use’ of animals in art, such as in the work of Damien Hirst. But in your latest performance piece, ‘Your Actions Are My Dreams’, you have a woman serenely sitting atop a calmly satisfied horse, which is, of course, alive and healthy. Do you agree that Hirst‘s head should be kept in a bag for the way he’s utilised – and sold – dead animals?”
Sterling appeared to agree with Morrissey‘s sentiment, saying:
“Dead butterflies, cows, horses, humans, sheep and sharks – it reads like the inventory of a funerary Noah. How many halved calves suspended in formaldehyde does the world need? To my way of thinking, none.”
Morrissey met Sterling in Manchester in 1976, and later wrote The Smiths‘ ‘Cemetery Gates’ lyrics about their friendship.