Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst is an English multi millionaire artist best known for his controversial preserved dead animals works. He also produces paintings, is internationally renowned and dominated the art scene in Britain during the 90's. What I like to talk about Hirst is the fact that he doesn't actually make his artworks. I've recently read an article about him in CNN and wonder if we can really call Hirst an artist. What actually separates an artist from others?

Daniel Hirst and his  formaldehyde-preserved shark

Some fellow artist, like Lin Hsin Hsin from Singapore argues that if one does not actually creates their own work, hands on, then they can't be called artists. Lin Hsin Hsin founded the first virtual museum in 1994, is a doer and believes that art creation is a holistic process that must be done by the artist themselves from start to finish.

However, let's consider a composer. Is composer an artist? Definitely. What is the art creation process? The artist composes the song, creates the arrangement, and finally comes up with a playable music. This is the holistic art creation, the artwork is a song. However, does it stop here? Does the composer perform the music themselves? Sometimes no. So when the music is never played, is it art? I leave the answer to you. When it is being performed to an audience by a group of other artists, is it still art? Definitely. Is the original composer still an artist? That's the answer.