Simpsons vs. Science Ltd.: An Ontological Case

Last July (2014), amidst the craziness of the soccer World Cup, news broke out of a legal

dispute regarding the ownership of Damien Hirst’s Bombay Mix. While many here may have

heard of this story, let me briefly recount its salient features.

Installed in 1989, Bombay Mix is an early, therefore valuable example of Hirst’s ‘spot

paintings’ – more than 1000 such paintings were produced between 1986 and 2011. It was

commissioned by the Ritblats as a gift to their son, and installed on a wallpaper in the latter’s

private house in London. The house was later sold, and then sold again to the Simpsons in 2005.

Upon acquiring the house, the Simpsons found the spots intact on what common sense suggests

was their wallpaper on their wall, in their property.

But the Simpsons, it turns out, were no fans of Hirst’s work. “We’re not really into Damien

Hirst, said Mrs. Simpson to the Telegraph, so we didn’t think it’s a fantastic piece of art that we

can keep; we thought ‘what are we going to do with it?’”1 Well aware of the artist’s predominant

place in the artworld, and of the (sometimes ludicrous) value of his works, the Simpsons had no

trouble finding a solution to that conundrum: they hired professionals to carefully remove the

wall paper and mount it on an aluminium backing board, and then solicited the help of Adam

1 Ben Bryant, Robert Mendick, ‘Spot of Bother over Damien Hirst Wall Art Painting’, in The Telegraph,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/10963754/Spot-of-bother-over-Damien-Hirst-wall-art-painting.html, 12

July 2014

Lamberty, a reputed London art dealer, in hopes of selling it for ‘a few hundred thousand

pounds’.

As soon as word got out that Lamberty was seeking to sell Bombay Mix, Science Ltd. –

Hirst’s company – immediately moved to block all possible transactions. As they possessed the

document that certifies ownership of the piece, they argued that it was not the Simpsons’ to sell.

Worst: in removing the painting from its original location, the Simpsons had made it a worthless

strip of wallpaper with spots on it. Needless to say, the Simpsons disagreed with Science Ltd.’s

ownership claim, and a legal dispute ensued.

Obscenely well-paid and fabulously dressed lawyers have probably since been hard at

work on the case. But as they try to justify their client’s property claim, it seems inevitable that

they will have to intrude on the philosopher’s domain.

On the legal front, in fact, the case seems easy to resolve. The law tells us, for example,

that the Simpsons, as legal owners of the house, can claim ownership of its walls and of the

wallpaper upon which the spots were painted. Paul Howcroft, partner at Fladgate LLP, indeed

writes that the wallpaper is ‘part of the building, and the fact that specialists were required to

remove it intact proves this point’.2

Similarly, we have reasons to believe that the certificate of authentication is rightfully in

the possession of Hirst’s company. Science Ltd. came into its possession by means of a

transaction with its initial owner, Mr. Ritblat, whom they compensated with another spot

2 Paul Howcroft, ‘Hirst’s Bombay Mix-up’, http://artlawlondon.blogspot.com/2014/07/hirsts-bombay-mix-up.html, 21 July 2014

painting on canvas. Mr. Ritblat has reportedly confirmed that the transaction occurred to the

satisfaction of all parties, and even wrote Mrs Simpson to tell her that what she had was but a

“valueless bunch of multi-coloured spots.”3

Legal ‘property’, then, is not an issue. The real question, I think, is rather that of

determining just what is possessed by the parties involved in the dispute. Which is to say that

the case at hand is, first and foremost, an ontological case. In what is to follow, I will provide an

ontological argument to the effect that Science Ltd. is justified in its claiming ownership of

Bombay Mix. However – and this is what I believe will prove more controversial – I will

subsequently argue against Science Ltd.’s assertion that the Simpsons therefore cannot

legitimately sell the ‘spot painting’ they have in their possession as one of Hirst’s. I will argue that

the artworld would in fact be justified in recognizing its artistic and/or historical value and,

consequently, attribute financial value to what the Simpsons have in their possession – though

the argument will remain short of claiming that it ought to do so.

The Ontological Case

The Simpsons are the rightful owners of the wallpaper upon which the spots were painted. I

claim nonetheless that Science Ltd. owns Bombay Mix. In some ways, this already announces that

I will reject an empiricist ontological account of the piece, one that would reduce it to its

empirically perceptible properties. For all that Science Ltd. owns is a document, one that, so the

Simpsons and their art dealer claim, serves to validate the proper origin of the artwork that they

think is in their possession.

3 Ben Bryant, Robert Mendick, ‘Spot of Bother over Damien Hirst Wall Art Painting’

The Simpsons’ understanding of ‘who owns what’, however, presupposes the very kind of

empirically inclined ontology that I think fails to do justice to Bombay Mix. And we have a clue to

that effect in Lamberty’s response to Science Ltd.’s demand that the painting be destroyed:

“[Mrs. Simpson] and I cannot believe that it is in the interest of the history of art to destroy an

important early work by an important British artist. Is Science [Ltd.] really in the business of

destroying Holbeins?”4

In comparing Hirst’s and Holbein’s works, Lamberty is suggesting that the destruction of the

spotted wallpaper is identical to the destruction of a 16th century painting which, if destroyed,

forces the very artwork out of existence. This, he wants to argue, also holds of Hirst’s ‘spot

painting’. But while we may be tempted to agree that a visual work of art by Holbein ceases to

exist once its material support is destroyed, I think we have cause to resist that this is equally

true of Hirst’s ‘spot painting’.

So that we may see how Lamberty’s ontological presupposition fails to make sense of just

what Bombay Mix is, let’s take a closer look at the document in Science Ltd.’s possession

(distributed as a handout):

4 Sarah Cascone, ‘Damien Hirst Blocks Sale of Early Spot Painting’, http://news.artnet.com/market/damien-hirst-

blocks-sale-of-early-spot-painting-60488, 14 July 2014

Lamberty explicitly understands this document as a ‘certificate of authentication’. Which

explains his claim that this whole case is yet another demonstration of the problems raised by

“authentication committees and estates manipulating artists’ estates”.5 But does this document

truly accomplish nothing more than the certification of the work’s authentic origin?

This seems dubious, at best. For one, the document reads first and foremost as a set of

instructions for the proper installation Bombay Mix: it specifies how the spots are to be painted

on a chosen surface, determines the constraints that bear on their colour, names the people

habilitated to realise the work, etc. Furthermore, the document has not been produced by an

authentication committee, but by Hirst himself (or by an assistant carrying out his instructions).

That it is the output of Hirst’s intentions will later prove of great importance. Finally, the text

5 Ibid.

never uses the language of ‘authentication’. It is true that the ‘document certifies ownership’,

but it says nothing of the authentic origin of the piece per se. On the basis of these reasons, it

seems unlikely that this document serves a mere ‘certificate of authentication’.

What I want to argue is that the document is an actual component of Bombay Mix itself,

and its last line provides the best piece of evidence to that effect: “This piece must be painted

out before it is re-made for anywhere else”. This ultimate instruction disproves once and for all

the comparison Lamberty wants to establish between Bombay Mix and 16th century paintings.

For even if we could imagine a Holbein to come with a certificate of authentication, the

autographic nature of his paintings makes it virtually impossible that it would ever allow for the

destruction of its material support in order to change its location. But there is something more

to the fact that in order to change Bombay Mix’s location, its current installation ‘must be painted

out’, and not merely ‘over’. For that suggests, on the one hand, that its material support must be

destroyed in order for the work to be moved elsewhere and, on the other hand, that so long as

the document exists the artwork may yet be experienced again.

In order to explain how this is possible, and so that we may better understand the manner

in which the document participates to what Bombay Mix is, it will help to think of artworks in the

manner David Davies suggests we do, that is, as “intentionally guided generative performances

that eventuate in contextualized structures or objects (or events, as we shall see) – performances

completed by what [he is] terming a focus of appreciation.”6

6 David Davies, Art as Performance, (Maine: Blackwell, 2004), 98

Bombay Mix names the ‘focus of appreciation’, that is, the phenomenological space

where the work becomes meaningfully accessible as such to those investing it with interests

relevant to the interpretation and appreciation of artworks. That phenomenological space is

determined and structured by the outputs of Hirst’s generative performance, namely the ‘spot

painting’ and the signed document. Other ‘structural’ elements can be mobilized in one’s uptake

of the piece that would further specify the focus of appreciation, such as: the situation of Hirst’s

generative performance vis-à-vis his experiences with ‘spot painting’ over the years, or the

relation between this piece and other ‘installation art’ that came before (think of Sol LeWitt’s

work, for example). But then I want to say that, while such interpretative elements make for a

richer interpretation of the work, they are not outputs of Hirst’s generative performance and

thus do not structure uptake as immediately as the painting and the document do. Hence, though

I am admittedly somewhat simplifying the matter, I think it is safe to say that to experience Hirst’s

Bombay Mix as such is to first and foremost accomplish its focus of appreciation by attending to

these two structural elements intentionally generated in the context of accomplishing the work.

A first consequence of this ontological account is that the work cannot be properly

appreciated or experienced if one of these structural elements is destroyed. However – and that

is the interesting bit for our case: so long as either part of its intentionally generated structure

remains, Bombay Mix’s focus of appreciation may yet possibly become available again. Which is

to say that the artwork still exists qua artwork even if its appreciation by a public (artist included)

is made impossible for a time.

The certificate of authentication’s last line certainly invites us to think that this is right:

“This piece must be painted out before it is re-made for anywhere else,” we are told. As I have

pointed out, this sentence anticipates on the possibility (in fact, the very likely possibility), that

the ‘spot painting’ be destroyed. Yet its destruction does not bring about the destruction of

Bombay Mix for ‘it’ can then be installed anew somewhere else, anywhere.

This, however, must not mislead us to think that document is therefore the work. That

would amount to a counter-intuitive fall back on an empiricist account of the work – counter-

intuitive because the document actually calls for its installation by actual painting. By the same

token, Bombay Mix cannot just be the set of rules it conceptually spells out, be a ‘conceptual

artwork’. The fact is that, while it is antecedent to any installation of the work, it is not alone

sufficient to the proper structuring of its phenomenological space and, therefore, to its

completion by the proper specification of its focus of appreciation. True: its structuring effect is

greater than that of the painting, as it sets up the normative framework under which any

installation of the work must necessarily be performed if it is to count as an installation of that

work. But these very rules are not fully carried out, the generating of the focus of appreciation’s

structure not fully realized, until the installation has been performed.

And this is why we ought to say that Science Ltd. wins its case.

The Simpsons have removed the painting from its locus of installation. In so doing, they

have contravened to the rules of this art game, so to speak. For the document clearly stipulates

that the painting may not be anywhere else than it was without being first destroyed. As a result,

the painting and the document no longer stand in the proper structural relation towards one

another, making the adequate specification of the focus of appreciation impossible. By removing

the painting from its original location on the wall of what used to be Ritblat’s house, the Simpsons

have made the work inaccessible to any and all publics, including themselves. At least for a time.

For while Bombay Mix’s installation has been destroyed, the certificate remains intact

and preserves the possibility of the artwork’s experience. We have indeed seen that the

structuring role played by the normative nature of the document generated by Hirst in the

specification of his piece allows for, and in fact anticipates on that very possibility. And because

Science Ltd. is in the rightful possession of this document, only it can call upon Hirst and/or his

assistants to install the work anew and make its experience available. In other words: Bombay

Mix is currently and rightfully in the possession of Science Ltd.

What’s Left?

It looks as though Lamberty was therefore wrong in his belief that “a very seminal spot

work by Damien Hirst [is languishing] on the wall of the back room of an anonymous Fulham

house.” That back room is not the current locus of the piece.

Having said that, Lamberty may yet be right when pointing out the ridicule of being

“essentially not allowed to say that [he has] a picture by the artist that is actually by the artist.”7

For what is in that backroom of that Fullham house is not ‘nothing’. In fact, under my account,

and recognizing that the Simpsons are the legal owners of the wallpaper, it could be argued that

they were co-owners of the work with Science Ltd. until removing the painting from its location

– after all, the document certifies ownership, but maybe not exclusive ownership. But it seems

ridiculous to claim that what the Simpsons now own is nothing but a spotted wallpaper. Can one

7 Sarah Cascone, ‘Damien Hirst Blocks Sale of Early Spot Painting’

really ignore that its origin is tied to Hirst’s intentional accomplishment of Bombay Mix? So just

what is it that the Simpsons now own? And what is its value?

I would need more time than I have at my disposition to provide a full answer to that

questions. For sake of brevity, then, I will borrow Jacques Derrida’s concept of trace so that I may

at least sketch the contours of a solution.

The installed painting and the document, I have said, structure the availability Bombay

Mix’s focus of appreciation. Another way to put it is to say that they both are available ‘traces’ of

the work accomplished by Hirst, traces that a public is to ‘track’ in its interpretative efforts.

Making sense of the work, accomplishing its focus of appreciation and thereby experiencing it as

such, is to track the manner in which the painting and the document refer back to one another,

how their meaning intertwine, and thus describe its phenomenological space.

As we have seen, the work is neither just the painting nor the document. But it is also not

just the painting and the document. For to say so would lead us back to an empiricist account we

had good reasons to reject. The work, Davies tells us, is a performance completed by the

specification of its focus of appreciation. It is completed, we could also say, by ‘tracking’ the

‘traces’ left behind by Hirst’s generative performance. But these traces are not identical to that

performance, and therefore no amount of tracking can be sufficient to the complete

determination or restitution of the work’s ‘objective’ properties and meaning – the public only

ever deals with the traces. This is in line with the Derridean critique of ‘presence’, but it also

somewhat repeats what Kant had said about reflective judgements and how the determination

of their conceptual conclusion can never be objectively satisfied.

I bring in the concept of ‘trace’ here in order to supplement the conceptualization of the

painting and the document’s participation to the being of Bombay Mix as structural. That is

because a ‘trace’, contrary to the output of an intentional generative performance, can be left

behind quite unintentionally: think of the traces you leave in the snow as you walk. When Science

Ltd. recovered the document from Ritblat, it ought to have seen to the destruction of the painting

per the terms of the document. It however has failed to do so and thereby has left behind an

authentic ‘trace’ of the work’s historical becoming.

The Simpsons have picked up on this trace. And while it may not lead back to the work

anymore – but remember that no trace, whether intentionally left behind or not, can ever do so

completely–, it nonetheless refers back to its presence in as meaningful a way as the proper

installation of the spot painting or the document might. It cannot, it’s true, participate to the

adequate specification of the Bombay Mix’s focus of appreciation. But its referential value as a

trace of that work is not compromised for all that. Hence, as it attests to the ‘passage’ or historical

becoming of the work, it refers to its presence in the artworld and may thus be of artistic value.

It is certainly historically valuable, as the Simpsons claim.

And Hirst, or Science Ltd., has left this trace behind. They can lay no claim on it; a trace is

not the property of the foot having made the imprint on the ground. But it can be the property

of someone who casts a mould of it. And by removing the wallpaper, and then mounting it on an

aluminum backboard, I argue that this is just what the Simpsons did. That mould is theirs to do

with as they wish. It is a trace of Hirst’s work. And just how the artworld will choose to value such

a trace is for the artworld to determine.