Damien Hirst Art, Bio, Ideas

"The difference between art about death and actual death is that one's a celebration and the other's a dull fact."

1 of 9

"I want to make art, create objects that will have meaning forever. It's a big ambition, universal truth, but somebody's gotta do it."

2 of 9

"Art goes on in your head. If you said something interesting, that might be a title for a work of art and I'd write it down. Art comes from everywhere."

3 of 9

"I didn't just arrive on the planet going 'F*** you' to everybody, which is what a lot of people seem to think."

4 of 9

"I was taught to confront things you can't avoid. Death is one of those things. To live in a society where you're trying not to look at it is stupid because looking at death throws us back into life with more vigor and energy. The fact that flowers don't last forever makes them beautiful."

5 of 9

"Great art - or good art - is when you look at it, experience it and it stays in your mind. I don't think conceptual art and traditional art are all that different."

6 of 9

"I remember when you used to have your profession on your passport and I always thought that being a painter was the best one to be, because my heroes were Goya and Francis Bacon."

7 of 9

"I was brought up Catholic, and I felt the power of art from a very young age - seeing the brutality of all those images of flayed apostles and tortured saints was a pretty strong introduction."

8 of 9

"As an artist you're looking for universal triggers. You want it both ways. You want it to have an immediate impact, and you want it to have deep meanings as well. I'm striving for both."

9 of 9

Summary of Damien Hirst

One of the late-20^th century's greatest provocateurs and a polarizing figure in recent art history, Damien Hirst was the art superstar of the 1990s. As a young and virtually unknown artist, Hirst climbed far and fast, thanks to Charles Saatchi, an advertising tycoon who saw promise in Hirst's rotting animal corpses, and gave him a virtually unlimited budget to continue. His shark suspended in a tank of formaldehyde, entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, wowed and repulsed audiences in 1991. In 1995 (the same year that he won the coveted Turner Prize) Hirst's installation of a rotting bull and cow was banned from New York by public health officials who feared "vomiting among the visitors." Hirst, the Sid Vicious of the art world (the Sex Pistols were his favorite band), is the logical outcome of a process of ultra-commodification and celebrity that began with Andy Warhol.

Accomplishments

From the outset of his career, Hirst devised a fool-proof strategy for grabbing the attention of the public and critics. Rotting corpses appalled and attracted museum visitors, who saw it as a kind of dare. Critics were equally appalled, not so much by the art as by the sky-high prices (often prearranged) paid for it. This kept Hirst at the center of the art world and augmented the value of his work, which continues to command some of the highest prices on the market.
Bloody bodies (martyrs and the death of Christ) and mothers and children (the Madonna and Child) are iconic themes in Western religious painting. Hirst, who was raised Catholic, cites this as an important dimension of his aesthetic sensibility.
Controversial as it is, Hirst's approach is firmly rooted in historical and contemporary sources. In its focus on death, it hearkens back to the memento mori (reminders of mortality) images in European still life. In using biological materials, he joins other contemporary artists of the late-20^th century, among them Robert Rauschenberg, with his taxidermied animals, Carolee Schneemann, who covered herself in raw meat, and Joseph Beuys, who constructed Fat Chair and other sculptures made of fat. Where Hirst differs from his historical and contemporary predecessors is in his display of entire corpses as visual spectacles.
Hirst is a great showman. One needn't be an art specialist to appreciate the thrill of seeing a dead shark up close. Not just for art world insiders, these strike a chord with many first-time visitors to museums, introducing them to the challenges of contemporary art in an engaging and immediate way.
Love him or hate him, Hirst was a visionary in anticipating the needs of the contemporary art market. One could argue, as some have, that this in itself is a form of art.

Biography of Damien Hirst

Hirst specializes in taking on life and death, in what is underneath the surface. As one of the world’s most famous artists, his visions are on public display.

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Progression of Art

Artwork Images

1991

With Dead Head

The artist, with a huge grin on his face, poses next to a severed head in a morgue. Hirst selected the photograph and enlarged it in 1991 for one of his early solo shows, though it had been taken several years earlier. He said of the photograph, "I wanted to show my friends, but I couldn't take all my friends there, to the morgue in Leeds. I'm absolutely terrified. I'm grinning, but I'm expecting the eyes to open and for it to go: 'Grrrrraaaaagh!'"

This early piece, indicative of his preoccupation with the relationship between life and death, is gruesome, satirical, and disturbing, evoking the conflicting feelings of repulsion and fascination many feel when confronted with the physical realities of death. In this way, Hirst's work returns us to the tradition of 17^th-century Cabinets of Curiosities (specimens from the natural world, including parts of cadavers, arranged for public display), and acknowledges the eternal appeal of disturbing, even repulsive biological subjects.

Black and white photograph on paper - Tate / National Galleries of Scotland

Artwork Images

1991

In and Out of Love (White Paintings and Live Butterflies)

Hirst's first solo exhibition, held in London in 1991, built upon his established reputation for using live animals in his work. The artist glued pupa onto white canvases, where they hatched into butterflies, fed on bowls of fruit, mated, and subsequently died. When asked what the work was about, he responded, "love and realism, dreams, ideals, symbols, life and death", and also "the way ... the symbol exists apart from the real thing. Or the butterflies still being beautiful even when dead." He admitted it was, "a crazy thing to do when in the end it's all art." The previous year, Hirst had displayed a significantly gorier work entitled A Thousand Years (1990), a glass case with maggots feeding off a bloody cow's head, which attracted the attention of Charles Saatchi, who would become his most important financial backer. While A Thousand Years had solidified his reputation, Hirst and his investor perhaps intuited that the public was not yet ready for such a work.

Hirst revisited the theme of butterflies in an installation at the Tate Modern in 2012. Two windowless rooms were filled with live butterflies, brought in daily by the butterfly expert from London's Natural History Museum and swept up by the museum staff when they perished. While some viewers were distressed that the butterflies were not in their natural habitat (animal rights activists were not amused), others appreciated the opportunity to contemplate the fragility of life. As one viewer commented, "There's a terrific poignancy about them because their lifecycle is so short and they are vulnerable and delicate."

Installation - Tate Modern, London

1991

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

This is the work that established Hirst as a major presence in the art world. A little like the art world version of Jaws, this installation featuring a 14-foot tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde that capitalizes on the viewer's visceral response, a spine-tingling thrill one experiences in the presence of a good horror movie, knowing one is safely removed from the danger. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was among the works showcased in the Sensation exhibition of the early 1990s, the great succes de scandale" of the late-20^th century and a game-changer in the art world. Charles Saatchi funded both the work and the exhibition, which were roundly condemned by art world conservatives from London to New York, and embraced by audiences eager for something new. On the meaning of the work, Hirst commented that the vitrines "first came from a fear of everything in life being so fragile" and explained that he wanted "to make a sculpture where the fragility was encased... [and] exists in its own space." Jeff Koons's Total Equilibrium Tanks (1985), a basketball suspended in a glass case, is an obvious precedent for Hirst's work. Dismissed by some critics as a "pickled shark," this has nevertheless come to be considered an icon of British art in the 1990s. Due to deterioration of the original specimen, the shark was replaced in 2006.

Tiger shark, formaldehyde solution, glass, steel - Metropolitan Museum of Art

Artwork Images

1991

Abalone Acetone Powder

Since 1988, Hirst has been generating so-called "spot paintings", also known as The Pharmaceutical Paintings. This series are his most recognizable and iconic works, aside from his animal sculptures. No one knows how many there are, but estimates are in the thousands. While the artist painted the earliest ones, later spot paintings continue to be produced by assistants under his direction, sparking questions about value.

The cheerful impact of these canvases might at first seem at odds with Hirst's preoccupation with mortality. In fact, they are very much in keeping with it. Each of Hirst's dot compositions mimics the molecular structure of an addictive, potentially lethal substance that cannot be accessed without a doctor's consent. These paintings thus constitute a witty, withering comment on a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry that dispenses drugs like candy.

They are also a nod to earlier colorists Hirst admires, among them Gerhard Richter and Mark Rothko. Hirst says, "I was always a colorist ... I just move color around on its own. So that's what the spot paintings came from - to create that structure to do those colors, and do nothing. I suddenly got what I wanted. It was just a way of pinning down the joy of color."

Paint on Canvas - Damien Hirst and Science Ltd

Artwork Images

1992

Pharmacy

First on display at the Cohen gallery in 1992 and now permanently on view the Tate Modern, this installation is a detailed replica of a pharmacy. The work is related to the spot paintings, named after pharmaceuticals, but the impact is strikingly different. According to the artist, this work was inspired by walking into a pharmacy and marveling at its ability "to provoke an idea of confidence." The faux pharmacy, as the artist is fully aware, thwarts the expected experience of confidence in this familiar space, and creates a kind of free-floating anxiety. With all the trappings and none of the personnel, the space seems potentially sinister. An additional dimension of the original installation in 1992 enhanced this effect. Holes bored into the walls allowed insects to enter and feed off honeycomb placed around the room. They then flew toward the light and were zapped by the insectocuter. Their performance was a metaphor for the inevitability of death - the end at which we all arrive at some point, and the ultimate futility of modern medicine's efforts to prevent it.

Glass, faced particleboard, painted MDF, beech, ramin, wooden dowels, aluminum, pharmaceutical packaging, desks, office chairs, foot stools, apothecary bottles, colored water, insect-o-cutor, medical text books, stationery, bowls, resin, honey, and honeycomb - Tate Modern, London

Artwork Images

1993

Mother and Child (Divided)

This floor-based sculpture is comprised of four glass tanks, each of which contains one bisected half of a cow and calf. The white wood frames on each tank evoke the pure, clean lines of classic Minimalist sculpture. Their contents, however, are neither clean nor minimalist. Each animal is suspended above the base of the tank, its front legs dangling limply, deepening the sense of lifelessness. The tongue of the calf lolls out of its mouth. The tanks are installed in pairs, the calf in front of the mother, with space between each pair allowing a visitor to walk directly along the inside of each animal as if through a hallway, observing the pale and intricate internal organs and skeletal structure on either side. The effect is, to say the least, disconcerting, turning a sacred theme in art - that of the mother and child - into a ghastly, graphic, literal dissection. Presented at the Venice Biennale, this was Hirst's international debut. The influence of Francis Bacon, Hirst's friend and major supporter, is apparent in the choice of subject and unflinching attention to gory detail.

In focusing on the physical consequences of death, the piece hearkens back to another time-honored theme in western art, that of the memento mori, a class of images devoted to reminding viewers of the inevitability of death and the immortality of the soul. Hirst's work has both these qualities. While certainly a reminder of death, the bodies are suspended in a substance that makes them weightless. When seen from the side, the dissection is invisible and the mother and child seem to ascend side-by-side in profile. As in all of Hirst's installations, the effect of the sculpture is dependent upon the viewer's presence in the space and ability to walk around it.

Cow, calf, formaldehyde solution, glass, steel, perspex, and acrylic paint - Tate Britain

Artwork Images

2006

Aubade, Crown of Glory

Since the very beginning of his career, winged insects have played a prominent role in Hirst's work. For the past decade, he has focused heavily on butterflies, both as symbols and literal materials. This canvas, equivalent to a large stained glass window (roughly 8 by 10 feet) in size and dimensions, is comprised of thousands of brilliantly hued butterflies. The form literally reaches heavenward, evoking religious iconography.

Butterflies, traditionally a symbol of the resurrection of Christ, assume a broader significance in Hirst's work, where they are emblematic of ascendance, a theme also found in the animal installations, where bodies seem suspended in midair. Hirst's preserved corpses heighten our awareness of the fleeting nature of life and the possibility of something beyond it. By placing beauty front and center, the work departs from the overtly gruesome presentation of Hirst's more controversial early works, but retains many of its basic methods and themes.

Butterflies and household gloss on canvas - Gagosian Gallery

Artwork Images

2007

For the Love of God

This sculpture consists of an 18^th-century human skull recreated in platinum and encrusted with 8,000 diamonds. According to the New York Times, it was inspired by an exasperated comment from Hirst's mother about his work: "for the love of God, what are you going to do next?" The skull, a symbol of mortality, fits within a long tradition of such reminders. Like virtually all of Hirst's other major works, it ignited intense controversy. The astronomical cost of the materials involved (?15 million) and asking price of ?50 million were considered outrageous. The press eventually revealed that Hirst was among the anonymous bidders for the object, sparking outcry that the piece was nothing more than a publicity stunt. Whether or not this was the artist's original intention, the work brought to light important questions about the astronomically inflated prices of art on the contemporary market. Strange as it may sound, a work that had cost only a few thousand dollars would not be as successful or as interesting as this one. Hirst's brilliance as an artist is inseparable from the publicity surrounding his work; this is literally part of the art.

Platinum, diamond, human teeth - Private Collection

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The books and articles below constitute a bibliography of the sources used in the writing of this page. These also suggest some accessible resources for further research, especially ones that can be found and purchased via the internet.

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Content compiled and written by Jen Glennon

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Ruth Epstein

"Damien Hirst Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Jen Glennon
Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Ruth Epstein
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First published on 29 Feb 2016. Updated and modified regularly
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Damien Hirst

Summary of Damien Hirst

Accomplishments

Biography of Damien Hirst

Progression of Art

With Dead Head

In and Out of Love (White Paintings and Live Butterflies)

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

Abalone Acetone Powder

Pharmacy

Mother and Child (Divided)

Aubade, Crown of Glory

For the Love of God

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Damien Hirst

Related Artists

Related Movements & Topics