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precious hirst butterfly art
Precious on the Left, Hirst on the Right

Everyone from Michael Silverblatt who says it's about context, to Jonathan Lethem who says Hirst is 'lame' have weighed in on the alleged theft by Damian Hirst of the signature style of local LA artist Lori Precious. Hirst's latest works use animals as he has before, in this case butterflies in the shape of rose or arched cathedral windows. Precious has been doing more-or-less the same thing for 10 years (see the picture above). The whole tempest began at LA master art blog Supertouch in the comments section to a preview post of Hirst's LA show at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. It seems unlikely that Hirst will care about Precious' protests, but it's also understandable that she'd want to get some attention for her own work.

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