An Artist in San Francisco Made 9,000 Paper Butterflies Out of P**n Magazines in Protest of Damien Hirst

Truong Tran counters Damien Hirst's "obscene" use of live insects in his art.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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To protest Damien Hirst's "obscene" use of live insects in his 1991 "In and Out of Love" installation, Truong Tran cut out images of white males from porn magazines and hand-crafted 9,000 paper butterflies for an exhibition entitled "Or I Know You Are But What Am I Or The Fleecing of Americana Or 9000 Butterflies For Damien Hirst Or I’d Rather Do This And Call It Art Or What You’ve Heard Is True Or And Away We Go Or The Miseducation Of Gnourt Nart Or It’s Complicated Or I Meant to Say Please Pass The Sugar." 

For "In and Out of Love," Hirst hatched butterflies and allowed them to mate before they died. By using porn images in his protest, Tran also "explores the themes of loss, reconciliation, cultural appropriation and desire." The butterflies are attached to coastal paintings, frames, cut-out dolls, and other objects that Tran is given or that he finds. He told The Independentthat his work is , "charged with unresolved issues that clearly define one’s consciousness...I don’t have any solutions, but in exhibiting these images I hope to show what they are doing to our psyche and consciousness. To me, that’s where the real art lies.”

For more photos from Tran's exhibition, check out the Telegraph Hill Gallery's blog. 

RELATED: Damien Hirst's Autobiography Will Include Every Shocking Detail About His Criminal Past (Or at Least What He Can Remember) 
RELATED: Florida Pastor Gets Caught Trying to Sell Fake Damien Hirst Paintings 

[via Independent

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