PRUNING TREES 2

Me: ‘ So… Reliquary eh, definitely a meta game then…but you know very well that his skull isn’t for keeping holy relics in, or like one of those errr, Monstrance objects with a glass centre where the Host wafers are kept.’
It was his turn to Laugh.
Dr Franklyn: Yes… and you just reminded me about the whole idea of Sleeping Beauty in her Glass Coffin - it’s all part of the same meta thing – a matter of wheedling out what the game actually is, not what I want it to be, and on the contrary, I think the skull is very much a reliquary, a repository and embodiment of all Hirst’s Quixotic and religious fancies – it could also be an answer to his alchemical yearnings. He doesn’t have to saw and pickle flesh and bone this time to try and transubstantiate death into Art – he’s done it enough – it’s lost it’s shock and awe - well, for those who had it anyway. This time that skull becomes transubstantiated, transmuted, cleanly into a precious metal, platinum by fire – keeping the teeth and making them much much more splendid than they ever could have been in that persons lifetime was a crucial, maybe a flippant decision, but it has good Dada value.’
I laugh again at this collision of ideas. ‘ Go on Doc, you’re on a roll here.’
Dr Franklyn: ‘..and the sheep, sharks and cows in glass boxes? now there’s a perfect parallel of your Monstrance, a Sleeping Beauty, all imbued with the same tangled morbid fears and philosophies of the miracle performed, the miracle dared, the miracle to be enacted again at some ‘perfect’ time, all are pokes and fist shakes at the ‘God’idea -the promisaries of everlasting life, of the Kingdom come covenant – Hirst loves it and hates it - he can't help himself.’