The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

At long last we visited Damien Hirst's sculpture at the Met, where it's on loan for the next few years. As our eyes adjusted to the optical illusion formed by the interplay among the glass, the formaldehyde, the gaping shark, and the light streaming in from Central Park, we overheard a curator telling a group that the original shark had decayed (the production was finished in 1991). The owner--not Hirst--then had to find a new shark to put into the tank.

But we'll sidestep what this means about art and collecting and ownership to say that the work itself is nothing short of creepy and gross. The Met did a good job of situating Hirst's thing within the context of the sublime, hanging other shark pictures nearby. And it is terrifying to imagine the shark alive and to see it preserved, dead.