Damien Hirst's diamond skull

For the explanation of the work's physical aspect, New York times presents the best article as following. [A famous british artist, Damien Hirst's latest artwork is "The diamond encrusted skull" which is covered by 8,601 pave-set diamonds weighing 1,106.18 carats. The sculpture, titled "For The Love of God," worthes about $100 million, making it the priciest contemporary artwork ever created. It is reported that the title of the piece comes from Hirst's mother who asked her son, “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?”]1

As the article says, the work "For the Love of God" is one of the most expensive artworks in contemporary society.

On the other hand, to be one of the most priciest contemporary artwork, the artist's psycholosical aspect must be investigated. For the psychological aspect of the artist, according to the aercheologists, the skull is the home of the humanity. Also there is an opinion, the skull can be meaning of cheapest death, but diamonds remove the skull's original meaning. And then diamonds refreshes this artwork with new meaning. This can be meaning of the richest of the death which is opposite of original meaning. In other words, once the artwork does not have diamonds, it can not be one of the most expensive contemporary artworks. Everyone knows the diamonds is one of the expensive jewelly and the skull is the cheapest thing. And this two stuffs can be meaning of criticism towards the capitalism in the contemporary society. Nowaday, many people says, money is something better than others. Maybe Hirst wanted to emphasise to us about criticism of capitalism in contemporary society.

As the summary, this artwork has a lots of meaning including my own opinions. I am not sure whether my opinion is right or wrong but I like this artwork and I want to research about this artwork to get further informations.

1 http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/02/damien-hirsts-diamon.html