Damien Heist - Tinker Taker Stealer Spiv

11 'artworks' Damien Hirst has shamelessly stolen

True Daisy Robert Dixon 1984  •  Valium Heist 2000

 Never Been a Prayer 1994  •  All the Living and the Dead 1996

All the Living and the Dead 2003 - Lori Precious

Ad te. Domine. lavave? 2010  •  Royal Station Hotel - Conception 2006

High Windows - Happy Life 2006 - Heist

Heist further compounds the crime by flogging tasteful trinkets such as this dickchair (sic) and collectable plates, sporting butterfly motifs. No doubt available from Argos.

This is My Body John LeKay 1987  •   In the Name of the Father Heist 2005

Spiritus Callidus (a name for the devil) John LeKay 1993

 For The Love of God Heist 2007

(Cost £14 million to make. Reputedly sold for £50 million to a consortium. Heist was a member of the consortium)

Young Scientist Anatomy Set Humbrol (sculptor Norman Emms) 

Yin and Yang (found object from Carolina Science) John LeKay 1990

Hymn Heist 1996

(Hirst was successfully sued by Humbrol)

Rivet Lift 1962  •  Fold Seven 1969  •  Grid No. 3 1969 - Thomas Downing

Dicaprio 2007  •  Large Spot Clock 2007  •  Tetrahydrocannabinol 2004 - Heist

(Heist threatened Go Airlines with lawsuit for using dots in press advertising!)

Pharmacy Joseph Cornell 1943

My Way (how ironic!) Heist 1991 

(Later a room size installation called 'Pharmacy')

Preserved shark in JD Electrical shop, Shoreditch Eddie Saunders 1989

(Who caught the animal himself)

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living Heist 1991

(Who commissioned an Australian fisherman to catch his. Shoreditch was the homeland of Young British Artists at the time)

Floating Sphere Hans Haacke 1964

Loving in a World of Desire Heist 1995

Collection Box The Spastics Society (now Scope) c1960

The Boy From the Chemist is Here to See You Kerry Stewart 1993

Charity Heist 2003

Visible Pig (fibreglass cast of a sliced pig carcass) Debby Davis 1984

This Little Piggy Went to Market Heist 1996

Notable quotes:

1995: "It's very easy to say, 'I could have done that,' after someone's done it. But I did it. You didn't. It didn't exist until I did it."

(All very well if you actually did do it. You didn't – your factory of assistants did.)

Hirst said that he only painted five spot paintings himself because, "I couldn't be fucking arsed doing it"; he described his efforts as "shite"—"They're shit compared to Rachel Howard's. The best person who ever painted spots for me was Rachel. She's brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel."

2000:  "I don't think the hand of the artist is important on any level, because you're trying to communicate an idea."

(All very well if you actually come up with the idea yourself...) 

Hirst on 9/11

"The thing about 9/11 is that it's kind of like an artwork in its own right. It was wicked, but it was devised in this way for this kind of impact. It was devised visually... You've got to hand it to them on some level because they've achieved something which nobody would have ever have thought possible, especially to a country as big as America. 

So on one level they kind of need congratulating, which a lot of people shy away from, which is a very dangerous thing."




* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


...and whilst on the subject of thieving little shits...


Perhaps the plagiarist's plagiarist is 'artist' Glenn Brown.
 (Or, as my good friend Ruth Jenner coined him; Glenn Borrowin'. See, not difficult to credit someone for a good idea!).
Famous for taking famous artworks, projecting the images onto large canvases, repainting them in oils and then giving them pathetic, meaningless, pompous titles. Sure, the guy has great technical skill, but then so do thousands of painters in this world. His 2001 Turner Prize entry was this piece of crap, stolen from Sci-Fi illustrator Tony Roberts and given a cringingly wanky title for no particular reason.

Glenn Borrowin' 'The Loves of the Shepherds' 
 
Tony Roberts 'Double Star'


Brown has also stolen three of my favourite Sci-Fi illustrator's works, the amazing and totally original Chris Foss. 

Glenn Borrowin' 'Ornamental Despair' 
(Oh, please!)

Chris Foss untitled
Jesus Christ – spot the difference or what! For me the difference is that Foss has a far better command of lighting and colour, never mind originality and pure invention.

Glenn Borrowin' 'Exercise One (For Ian Curtis)'
(Pass the sick bag for that title)

Chris Foss 'Icebergs in Space'
Lazy fucker Brown couldn't be arsed tracing the spaceship this time

Glenn Borrowin'  'Dark Angel ( for Ian Curtis )'

(cough: Wanker!)

Chris Foss 'Floating Cities'

To give him credit this time Borrowin' made substantial changes, but pity a dog vomited all over the background

I remember a high school art project in which I used a Foss painting as reference and copied it quite closely, but did re-draft it by eye. The original Foss is here;

My art teacher commented that she liked it but the shadows inside the vessel didn't seem to match the shadows on the exterior. Naively I said "Well that's how they were in the original". Miss Ranson was horrified and lectured me on the evils of appropriation. I learned that lesson at 14 and got no marks for the assignment. Brown learned fuck-all and gets £20,000 plus a time for outright theft. Copyright law didn't agree with Brown's pathetic attempt at justification, and the great appropriator was forced to make out of court settlements to both artists.
Brown's nonsensical defense for ripping off all and sundry goes as follows; "To make something up from scratch is nonsensical. Images are a language. It’s impossible to make a painting that is not borrowed — even the images in your dreams refer to reality."
Yes, but there's a big difference between 'borrowing' and 'reference' and simply tracing someone else's original work you mindless little shite! True artists like Foss or HR Giger somehow managed to make art that was not 'borrowed' and invented new and original styles and genres that are totally their own. 


To those who say I 'just don't get it' or modern art don't need to make excuses for itself or it's homage or reference; I say big fat hairy cocks! Art is art and theft is theft and Heist and Borrowin' are talentless piss-weasles.