Damien Hirst was a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine, and sold for £50,000. The shark had been caught by a commissioned fisherman in Australia and had cost £6,000. The exhibition also included "In a Thousand Years". As a result of the show, Hirst was nominated for that year's Turner Prize, but it was awarded to Grenville Davey. Hirst's first major international presentation was in the Venice Biennale in 1993 with the work, "Mother and Child Divided", a cow and a calf cut into sections and exhibited in a series of separate vitrines. He curated the show "Some Went Mad, Some Ran
What Work Is Fame" and "Growth" are direct accounts of two of Levine's jobs as a young man. "Fear and Fame" is based on a job Levine had cleaning out and refilling acid vats in his mid twenties. "Growth" is about the job Levine held at a soap factory at the age of fourteen. Many of Levine's poems are based on his experience growing up in Detroit. The titular poem, "What Work Is", is based on Levine's experience of waiting in a Detroit employment line. "The Right Cross" is related to a boxing teacher who taught Levine to defend himself while growing up