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Although the idea for the piece is just over 20 years old, it still shocks, intrigues and divides people just as much as it did back then. It is actually the second incarnation of the piece, as the first had to be replaced in 2006 due to decay because of poor preservation.
While planning a trip to the Tate Modern in London, where Hirst currently has a retrospective of his work, I watched a program about him on Channel 4. Here I learnt some of the interpretations of the piece.
The title points to the fact that a living person cannot possibly conceive what it means to be dead, until they are dead, in which case they can no longer think about the state that they are in. Hirst describes the dead shark as a metaphor for this and also as a tangible symbol of people's fear of death compared to a fear of sharks which can ultimately cause death. To me this piece allows people to come unnervingly close to a man eater, whilst being completely safe, leaving them to consider what it would mean to die, possibly because of a shark and how it feels to be dead.
It may be a weak link but I thought because of how much it deals with fear, of a monster or death, it linked enough with my work. It's about representing the almost universal fear of death in calmer and more approachable way, even if that means staring at a dead shark of all things. I'm not a massive fan of all of Hirst's work, but I think his conceptual ideas, particularly the ones linked to death, of which there are a lot, are pretty amazing. Looking at his work and thinking about it's concepts really inspires me and will definitely help me develop my current project.
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