Suddenly, a large crescent shaped tail flashed only inches before my facemask and a rough object momentarily brushed my belly – a shark! There is also the tantalising prospect that great white sharks may haunt our waters. Great whites – demonised by Jaws! Since the shark was initially preserved poorly, it began to deteriorate and the surrounding liquid grew murky. Hirst attributes some of the decay to the fact that the Saatchi Gallery added bleach to it. In 1993 the gallery gutted the shark and stretched its skin over a fiberglass mold, and Hirst commented: Goldstein, Caroline (13 April 2017). "How Many Animals Have Died for Damien Hirst's Art to Live? We Counted". Artnet News . Retrieved 18 June 2022.

The seas off the British Isles are home to many different types of shark, which reflects the remarkable diversity of marine habitats around our shores. Kennedy, Maev "Art market a 'cultural obscenity'", The Guardian, 3 June 2004. Retrieved 1 September 2007. I frequently work on things after a collector has them, I recently called a collector who owns a fly painting because I didn’t like the way it looked, so I changed it slightly.’ In Monterey, however, biologists working on the aquarium’s shark conservation and ecology project believed it was possible for a great white to survive — and thrive — in one of the facility’s giant display tanks. They also believed that letting the public see these magnificent hunters up close could pay big dividends for their efforts to protect sharks, which are under increasing threat. With this goal in mind, several years ago the aquarium’s researchers began experimenting with ways to keep a captive shark happy. First, they built an enormous 4-million-gallon pen in the ocean off Malibu, California. When commercial fishing boats accidentally caught a great white, the aquarium arranged for it and several others to be moved to the pen. There, researchers learned to feed the sharks and understand how they behaved in captivity.Icon-Icon (18 May 2017). "Damien Hirst's Golden Calf: a Complex and Controversial Work of Art". ICON-ICON . Retrieved 18 June 2022.

Critics have also questioned the ethics of the part of Hirst's oeuvre that involves dead animals. One estimate puts the number of creatures killed for Hirst's pieces at 913,450, including animals and insects. [24] Mr. Hirst often aims to fry the mind (and misses more than he hits), but he does so by setting up direct, often visceral experiences, of which the shark remains the most outstanding.As NATURE’s Oceans in Glass shows, displaying a great white — one of the sea’s most impressive predators — has long been a dream of aquariums around the world. But previous efforts to care for the sharks — which can grow to weigh two tons and measure 21 feet long — have largely ended in failure. The great whites proved too big, too aggressive, or too sensitive to live penned up. Some wouldn’t eat, says biologist Dr. Randy Kochevar of the aquarium, “and sharks can’t survive long if they aren’t feeding.” a b Davies, Kerrie (14 April 2010). "The great white art hunter". The Australian . Retrieved 14 April 2012.

In the great white’s case, the tag worked perfectly. After popping off the shark on schedule, the tag was retrieved from surly seas off the coast of Santa Barbara by Stanford University doctoral student Kevin Weng. “They lose container ships out there!” he exclaimed after using a long-handled net to scoop the tag out of the whitecaps. Tate. " 'Mother and Child (Divided)', Damien Hirst, exhibition copy 2007 (original 1993)". Tate . Retrieved 18 June 2022. It is completely isolated from its natural setting. Instead of being in motion, in the water, we see it completely frozen and preserved. For most, it may be the first time we have come so close to a shark, with many of us only seeing them on television or perhaps at an aquarium. Here we have a direct experience of the shark, not filtered through any media. Thus we are forced to consider the shark in a new and different context and re-evaluate how we perceive the animal. In Hirst’s piece, we come face to face with the reality and physicality of this familiar image and are forced to consider it in a new setting. Controversially, Hirst hired an Australian shark hunter to catch the big fish, asking him to capture “something big enough to eat you.” Hirst also plays on the fear response, deliberately displaying the shark with its mouth wide open, and sharp teeth visible. Preserving it in formaldehyde allows the shark to stay remarkably well preserved as if actually still alive.Akbar, Arifa. "A formaldehyde frenzy as buyers snap up Hirst works", The Independent, 16 September 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2008.

Created in 1991 by Damien Hirst, entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is an artwork that consists of a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine. Demonised in the classic 1970s novel and film, Jaws, there can be few creatures that hold such fear and respect. a b c d e f g h i j Vogel, Carol "Swimming with famous dead sharks,2 The New York Times, 1 October 2006. Retrieved 23 February 2007 Damien Hirst Made the Vitrine Resemble a Fish Tank The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst, 1991, via FineartmultipleBrooks, Richard. "Hirst's shark is sold to America", The Sunday Times, 16 January 2005. Retrieved 14 October 2008. While there is a predatory quality to Hirst’s shark, we are also aware that it poses no real threat. Instead, it hangs suspended and unmoving before us like a museum specimen in preserving fluid, for us to stare at with morbid fascination. Many of us may have never seen a shark as close up as this before, and by displaying it in this innocuous, sleep-like state, we can encounter what would normally be a fearsome creature in an entirely new, inert, and medical way. But could great white sharks be lurking around Scottish seal colonies on the hunt for prey, in particular the Monach Isles, which is home to the second largest grey seal colony in the world? Owing to deterioration of the original 14-foot (4.3m) tiger shark, it was replaced with a new specimen in 2006. It was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from 2007 to 2010. [1] Hirst has made a miniature version of The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living for the Miniature Museum in the Netherlands. In this case, he put a guppy in a box (10 × 3.5 × 5 centimetres) filled with formaldehyde. [16]