concept:era contemporary
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
Installation (1991) by Damien Hirst. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A 14-foot tiger shark suspended in steel-and-glass tank filled with formaldehyde solution. Commissioned by Charles Saatchi for £50,000. The defining artwork of the Young British Artists movement.
Scholarly Significance
Defining YBA artwork; its title performs the work's philosophical content. Shark-in-formaldehyde introduces natural-history-as-art and death-as-spectacle as YBA signatures.