Thought for the week - Manufacturing Art

Damien Hirst has this week managed to trouser 111million less one assumes commission and tax, for a mish mash of butterfly paintings, dead flies and pickled animals, 218 items created (do they mean manufactured) from his six studios (should that be factories) in two years, specifically for auction at Sotherby's.

I'm no connoisseur, and in all honesty I tend to be fairly conservative as far as art goes, yes I do actually visit galleries, much to Mrs Me's annoyance, and had chance to take a butchers or should be a fishmongers at one of his pickled sharks in New York in February, stupidly I asked whether it would be OK, if I could take a picture, apparently not. I cannot see that you would actually be infringing any intellectual property rights, since even a pickled shark happens to be one of natures creations rather than art. Suffice it to say the fish didn't look to keen on its predicament and to be honest I though it looked rather unhealthy still what do I know.

Just as a sort of postscript to the extraordinary price placed on the Hirst Brand of pickles according to a report in some papers including the guardian, a painting by Damien of a cat done when he was seventeen as a favour to his girlfriend has been deemed worthless as according to journalist Ian Johnstone "because the family pet was not sawn in half, suspended in formaldehyde or even dead".

Why the photo of Canary Wharf, well I quite like it, obviously the finance industry has been in the news this week as taxpayers around the world prop up banks after reckless investments and I suspect that some institutions have probably made the odd investment in art this week. Still its reassuring that some people still have the money to fill Mr Hirsts vault, I'm can't see myself swapping Tesco for Sotherby's as my preferred supplier of pickles now or in the future.