‘Shark ok, but pig a mistake’

‘‘You do turn round after a few years and look at your stuff and you think it’s embarrassing,” Hirst said in an interview. ‘‘Certainly everything you make is not a masterpiece.’’

‘‘Some of my spin paintings I think are a bit silly,’’ Hirst said, referring to a series of paintings made by dropping paint onto a canvas on a spinning table. ‘‘The cut-in-half pig that moves like a bacon slicer I suppose I thought was a bit silly in retrospect,’’ he added. ‘‘I think you want people to rub their chins instead of belly laugh if you want to get it in the museums in 200 years’ time.’’

Not all his bad ideas have come to fruition. ‘‘I was toying with the idea of putting vibrators all over a pig and I was going to call it Pork You Pine,’’ he said. ‘‘I didn’t do it.’’

But he stands by his most famous work, a shark preserved in formaldehyde and titled ‘‘The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living.’’ —Reuters