What Is Art?

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Damien Hirst, the artist who recently sold a diamond-encrusted human skull for $100 mil, has filled the Lever House’s lobby with a bunch of dead animals. "Lining the entire lobby will be some 15 medicine cabinets (a past theme for Mr. Hirst) filled with thousands of empty boxes and bottles with labels for antidepressants, cough medicine and other drugs. The 30 sheep are lined up in rows of formaldehyde-filled tanks, evoking docile schoolchildren in a classroom. Submerged in a 12-foot-tall tank are two sides of beef, a chair, a chain of sausages, an umbrella and a birdcage with a dead dove." He describes the effort as his most mature piece. [NY Times]