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
Formaldehyde not acutely toxic as ingestion of many milliliters is tolerated. The main concerns are associated with chronic (long term) exposure by inhalation. This may happen through three main sources: thermal or chemical decomposition of formaldehyde-based resins, emission from aqueous formaldehyde solutions (i.e. embalming fluids), and the production of formaldehyde resulting from the combustion of a variety of organic compounds (for example, exhaust gases). As formaldehyde resins are used in many construction materials it is one of the more common indoor air pollutants. At concentrations above 0.1 ppm in air formaldehyde can irritate the eyes and mucous membranes, resulting in watery