VOICEOVER: I have boiled Damien Hirst, embalmed the resultant tastiness, and hung
it on a coat hook that was stolen from the cloak room of the Crystal Palace in 1852. I
have insured this installation with Lloyd's of London for just under
£17 million.I have also hired the surviving cast members of Ocean's 11 to dig up Bernie Mac's corpse from Washington Memory Gardens cemetery in Illinois. At a date and time unknown to me, they will break into my DUMBO gallery, steal Mr. Hirst's husk from its hook, and replace it with Mr. Mac's. Disguised by full head latex Patrick Swayze masks, they will record the swap using a Sony DCR-TRV17 "night vision" camcorder. This video will be leaked to the Internet.
Mr. Hirst's unhooked remains will then be FedEx'd to graffiti artist Cartrain at his home in England, who will shortly thereafter be kidnapped off the street by a gang of five men in a black 1978 Ford Econoline van with air-brushed Star Wars murals on its sides. These men will be dressed as The Burger King.
Cartrain will be sedated with a heady mixture of Ketamine and diphenhydramine. He will be flown via a well-appointed Gulfstream G650 to JFK International airport and eventually deposited, along with the original Hirst-heist video tape, in the lobby of the Lloyd's office on West 53rd Street in New York.
After this has all played out for a sufficient length of time in the world's press, I will don a furry badger costume and attempt to present my insurance claim directly to Lloyd's CEO Richard Ward at the company's Lime Street headquarters in London. When this fails, I shall jet off to Orlando, climb to the top of the highest spire of Cinderella Castle, set myself on fire, and leap to my death.
A note in my jacket pocket will blame all of this on Marcel Duchamp.
Seriously? Is that an endowments for the arts thing? I'll keep fingers and whatnots crossed. Well, not all my whatnots. Although i could. I'm old and intensely gravity-ridden.
The entire project hinges on Mr. Hirst's willingness to be killed and hung on a hook. Larry Gagosian has indicated to me that his client would like to remain alive, so I haven't got much hope of getting things underway any time soon.