infobong.com

According to a Guardian story, Damien Hirst was commissioned by the British space agency for the first human art put on Mars. I guess this goes to show how little I know about British space exploration, since I had no idea they planned Beagle 2, a Mars probe set to land around Christmas next year. Although Hirst is best known for large-scale shock art like a preserved cow cut lengthwise, the inter-terrestrial piece is a small spot painting made from a color calibration chart. This is hardly Hirst's first small-scale piece, I remember back in college, The Idler held a contest to give away Hirst originals, cigarette butts signed by the artist. The accompanying picture in the magazine showed Hirst with a cigarette stuck in his foreskin.