Damien Hirst's main obsession is wealth, not mortality

“For the Love of God” is a diamond-encrusted skull. Hirst has made a platinum cast of an eighteenth century skull and embedded 8,601 diamonds into it, with a value of some £12 million. He then placed the original teeth into the piece. “For the Love of God” carries a price tag of £50 million (US$99 million).

Amid the press furore, there has been little attempt to examine what the work might say about the current state of art or society. And what has been said is usually wide of the mark.

The first thing to be noted is that the skull really is as boring as the description makes it sound. It typifies the work of a man who has exhausted even the limited ideas with which he started. His current show also features a return to the embalmed animals with which he made his name. Even the titles (“Beyond Belief”) give some indication of the barrel scraping that is going on.