In a speech at the Royal Academy in 2004, art critic Robert Hughes used The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living as a prime example of how the international art market at the time was a "cultural obscenity". Without naming the artwork or the artist, he stated that brush marks in the lace collar of a painting by Velázquez could be more radical than a shark "murkily disintegrating in its tank on the other side of the Thames". [23] Goldstein, Caroline (13 April 2017). "How Many Animals Have Died for Damien Hirst's Art to Live? We Counted". Artnet News . Retrieved 18 June 2022. I frequently work on things after a collector has them, I recently called a collector who owns a fly painting because I didn’t like the way it looked, so I changed it slightly.’ Mr. Hirst often aims to fry the mind (and misses more than he hits), but he does so by setting up direct, often visceral experiences, of which the shark remains the most outstanding. Similar data from other young sharks is beginning to give scientists a picture of how these animals use the ocean and how people could improve conservation efforts, according to Kochevar. There is little question that the great white’s brief stay at the Monterey Bay Aquarium has helped stoke public support for shark research and conservation, he adds. Not long ago, the aquarium’s trustees decided to increase their shark research budget by half a million dollars.

In Monterey, however, biologists working on the aquarium’s shark conservation and ecology project believed it was possible for a great white to survive — and thrive — in one of the facility’s giant display tanks. They also believed that letting the public see these magnificent hunters up close could pay big dividends for their efforts to protect sharks, which are under increasing threat. Hirst has made a miniature version of The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living for the Miniature Museum in the Netherlands. In this case, he put a guppy in a box (10 × 3.5 × 5 centimetres) filled with formaldehyde. [16] It was a white-tipped reef shark and in an instant several more materialised in this Galapagos lagoon where I had the privilege to snorkel earlier this month. Those lessons bore fruit in August 2004, when a commercial halibut fisherman caught a young, five-foot long female great white in the waters off Huntington Beach. After being held in the Malibu pen for three weeks, she was moved to the aquarium for display. Over the next six months, nearly one million people came to see her. “She was an incredible ambassador for white sharks and shark conservation,” says Kochevar. Hirst has made other works subsequently which also feature a preserved shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine: The Immortal [10] (a great white shark, 2005), Wrath of God [11] (2005), Death Explained [12] (the shark is split in two, lengthwise, 2007), Death Denied [13] (2008), The Kingdom [14] (2008) and Leviathan (a basking shark, 2010) [1].Brooks, Richard. "Hirst's shark is sold to America", The Sunday Times, 16 January 2005. Retrieved 14 October 2008.

Tate. " 'Mother and Child (Divided)', Damien Hirst, exhibition copy 2007 (original 1993)". Tate . Retrieved 18 June 2022.The researchers say the tag showed that after being released, the shark swam more than 100 miles offshore and to depths of greater than 800 feet. “It’s clear she survived and thrived,” says Kochevar, adding that the shark first swam several hundred miles south along the California coast, “then took a hard right and headed offshore for a while, then returned to the coast. … There’s no question that she was hunting and feeding on her own.”

Controversially, Hirst hired an Australian shark hunter to catch the big fish, asking him to capture “something big enough to eat you.” Hirst also plays on the fear response, deliberately displaying the shark with its mouth wide open, and sharp teeth visible. Preserving it in formaldehyde allows the shark to stay remarkably well preserved as if actually still alive. Owing to deterioration of the original 14-foot (4.3m) tiger shark, it was replaced with a new specimen in 2006. It was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from 2007 to 2010. [1] a b c d e f g h i j Vogel, Carol "Swimming with famous dead sharks,2 The New York Times, 1 October 2006. Retrieved 23 February 2007 It is completely isolated from its natural setting. Instead of being in motion, in the water, we see it completely frozen and preserved. For most, it may be the first time we have come so close to a shark, with many of us only seeing them on television or perhaps at an aquarium. Here we have a direct experience of the shark, not filtered through any media. Thus we are forced to consider the shark in a new and different context and re-evaluate how we perceive the animal. In Hirst’s piece, we come face to face with the reality and physicality of this familiar image and are forced to consider it in a new setting.a b Smith, Roberta (16 October 2007). "Just When You Thought It Was Safe". The New York Times . Retrieved 16 October 2007. Suddenly, a large crescent shaped tail flashed only inches before my facemask and a rough object momentarily brushed my belly – a shark! In the great white’s case, the tag worked perfectly. After popping off the shark on schedule, the tag was retrieved from surly seas off the coast of Santa Barbara by Stanford University doctoral student Kevin Weng. “They lose container ships out there!” he exclaimed after using a long-handled net to scoop the tag out of the whitecaps. But could great white sharks be lurking around Scottish seal colonies on the hunt for prey, in particular the Monach Isles, which is home to the second largest grey seal colony in the world?