Cartrain: Damien Hirst (or rather who the fook) stole my Christmas skull (?)
Two years ago, Cartrain hit the headlines after appropriating Hirst’s diamond skull and an aggressive legal campaign against the teenage artist ensued. But now who’s appropriating who? And what is it like to be the 18-year-old artist "Cartrain", who has already made international news in several world languages?
ADP magazine 3(1): Somewhere between “Fook off” and “KunstLeaks”
Published 11 Febuary 2011. Striked out text, corrected caption, modified title and Update at bottom of text added 14 February 2011 after call from White Cube gallery...; updated email added 18 February 2011.
Tapping the lectern... art enthusiasts, first, compare and contrast:
The following is R.J. Preece’s interview of Cartrain via email:
R.J. Preece: Cartrain, chicken or egg? First I received your fantastic gift of the artdesigncafe.com Christmas greeting. It was sent to some on my mailing list, which may include spies in London [and was up on our Facebook page]. Then a few days later I received Hirst’s version via a Flash Art mailing. Did Hirst copy your work this time?
Cartrain: I have not yet seen Hirst’s Christmas skull... but I can already say he stole it from me. He stole my collage in 2008. He steals everything. I remember hearing that he was
arrested as a teenager himself for shoplifting. It’s just a shame he doesn’t preach what he practices...
R.J. Preece: What are the five adjectives you’d use to describe Damien Hirst?
Cartrain: Lucky. Iconoclastic. Middle aged. Geeky. Artist.
R.J. Preece: How does it feel to be 18 and get a ton of media attention for your art and activities? Isn’t it sometimes overwhelming? Were you surprised to learn that you got lots of coverage in Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, and South America (that I sent you)—in addition to English language press coverage?
Cartrain: In 2008 I was speaking to a famous radio host in Canada. The interview went out live and I had no clue that I was going out to about 2 million people live on air. The interview was shit and I made myself sound like a twat...
It freaks me out a bit when I see myself in the papers though.
R.J. Preece: Jonathan Jones wrote about you (and also my colleague Roisin Byrne). Is he a nice guy?
Cartrain: Jonathan Jones wrote in 2007, “No one is going to mistake Cartrain for an artist.” The very next year in 2008 he called my work “avant garde”.
So yeah you can really turn people around if you work hard enough...
R.J. Preece: Last year we ran a presentation called "Damien Hirst + Tracey Emin = White Cube Annunciation", and you were identified as the "child". This is because, like them, to a certain extent your art/artist combo has produced art+media coverage, and like them, you don’t have a media/communications background at all, and so the media "found" you. Do you understand this angle, why some think you might be the "next Damien", because via copyright, authorship issues, appropriation, Internet and new media, and a middle finger up to an elite system, that you might be a kind of leader?
Cartrain: I never want to be the “Next” anything really. I want to be myself and have other media outlets call other people “The next Cartrain”. That’s when things get interesting...
R.J. Preece: You’re 18. You’ve already achieved a lot. You’re already selling. You already know how to be part of an army. Now you are art school aged. You have more recognition than even some entire art faculties. If you "submit" to a BA Fine Art, your art may change and you could essentially lose what you’ve built. The Brand Artist for example would advise you to only take classes to strengthen your knowledge of craft—no theory, no art history if it’s changing how you think, just "making" art in whatever way that interests you. And then take other kinds of classes if you wish.
Cartrain: As long as I stay away from the dull “Tardis”* thought of school that they teach at Goldsmiths I should be fine.
However I always like to think of myself as self-taught. And I don’t like learning institutions that fuck your head up...
* From wikipedia: The TARDIS [Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space] is a fictional time machine and spacecraft in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who.
Update: Three days later on 14 February 2011, R.J. Preece received a telephone call from Damien Hirst’s gallery representative in London. He was informed that the Christmas skull alleged to be done by Damien Hirst above actually was not by Damien nor came from his studio, even though it was clearly attributed to Hirst in the Flash Art mailing below, which happened to be forwarded to him by Glenn Harper, editor of Sculpture who also thought the work was by Hirst due to the Flash Art mailing. In any event, this left Preece feeling like an absolute twat.
So, with the mysterious Christmas skull appropriation artist still unknown, this concludes another interesting day in the world of Art Design Publicity.
Slapping the lectern:
From: ArtDesignCafe
To: Helena Kontova
Cc: White Cube, Sculpture
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 10:09 AM
Subject: Info request: Flash Art Christmas skull controversy
Dear Helena Kontova,
Could you please advise regarding your Christmas skull mailing and the caption under the image? Are you, Mr Politi or a rogue Flash Art employee the real artist of this image, or who did you receive the image from? According to White Cube, this image in your mailing did not come from Hirst’s studio.
I’m not sure but there might be an artist out there who has (a) appropriated Hirst’s skull, (b) appropriated Cartrain’s Christmas skull version (or maybe it was art world ’synchronicity’ again) and (c) stolen Hirst’s identity in one shot!
This query occurs in relation to the updated article:
Cartrain: Damien Hirst (or rather who the fook) stole my Christmas skull (?)
http://www.artdesigncafe.com/Cartra...
Kind regards,
R.J. Preece
artdesigncafe.com
Rotterdam
As of 18 February, still no reply...
ads by artdesigncafe
Facebook comments
