I can always get behind a bashing on Damien Hirst. Recently, Morrissey interviewed his close friend and visual artist Linder Sterling for INTERVIEW magazine and the two discussed the abhorrent usage of dead animals in Hirst’s artwork. As a fellow vegetarian, I can understand what prompted Morrissey to lash out at Hirst. Damien has used multiple animal corpses as “art pieces” and his most famous of those type can be seen at the MET, which is a shark encased in formaldehyde. Morrissey, within the interview, called for Hirst’s head “to be kept in a bag”, and Linder called out the artist for his unnecessary “funerary”. Linder also said, “How many halved calves suspended in formaldehyde does the world need? To my way of thinking, none.”

Now don’t feel too bad for Hirst. The artist pulls in millions of dollars for his work and has become the new punching bag for the mainstream art world – and he is loving it. Hirst is one of the wealthiest working artists ever and scored the largest payday of any artist at a one-person auction. While I appreciate Morrissey and Linder calling him out for his misuse of animals, I think the more important quote from Morrissey came later in the interview when he called out the media and their “obsession with Hirst’s millions” which “reduces him to a mere factory outlet”. The article also discusses Linder and Morrissey’s 30-year friendship, which was the basis of The Smiths’ song “Cemetery Gates“.