Avant-garde artist, born in Bristol, SW England, UK. He studied art at Goldsmith's College, London, produced several paintings and mixed-medium sculptures, then became known for his works which made use of parts or all of dead animals, preserved in formalin, such as Mother and Child Divided - four tanks contained the severed halves of a cow and calf. Considerable controversy surrounded the show he organized in London for young artists in 1994, at which one of his works, Away from the Flock, consisting of a dead lamb suspended within a tank, became the focus of attention when another artist poured ink into the tank. At the centre of debate over the nature and role of art, he became an established figure after being awarded the Turner Prize in 1995. Later works include Amazing Revelations (2003), a collage of thousands of butterfly wings, part of his exhibition Romance in the Age of Uncertainty, and a bronze statue entitled Exquisite Pain (2006), depicting the Christian martyr St Bartholomew flayed alive, on display at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.
Damien Hirst (born June 7, 1965) is an English artist and the leading artist of the group that has been dubbed "Young British Artists" (or YBAs).
Death is a central theme in his work.
He is also known for "spin paintings", made on a spinning circular surface, and "spot paintings", which are rows of randomly-coloured circles;
During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the liaison ended.
Life
Damien Hirst was born in Bristol, and grew up in Leeds. His father was a motor mechanic/car salesman, who left the family when Hirst was 12. However, Hirst sees her as someone who would not tolerate rebellion: she cut up his punk bondage trousers and heated one of his Sex Pistols vinyl records on the cooker to turn it into a fruit bowl.
His art teacher "pleaded" for Hirst to be allowed to enter the sixth form, where he took two A-levels, achieving an "E" grade in art. He worked for two years on London building sites, then studied Fine Art at Goldsmith's College, University of London (1986–89), although again he was refused a place the first time he applied. While a student, Hirst had a placement at a mortuary, an experience that influenced his later themes and materials.
Hirst has admitted serious drug and alcohol problems during a ten year period from the early 1990s: "I started taking cocaine and drink ...
In 2002 Hirst gave up smoking and drinking, although the short-term result was that his wife Maia "had to move out because I was so horrible." This had a profound effect on Hirst, who said, "It was the first time I felt mortal."
He is married to a Californian, Maia Norman, and has two sons, Connor, born in 1995 and Cassius, born in 2000. Maia surfs, but Hirst doesn't.
Career
Breakthrough 1988–1991
In July 1988 in his second year at Goldsmiths College, Hirst was the main organiser of an independent student exhibition, Freeze, in a disused London Port Authority administrative block in London's Docklands.
After graduating Hirst was included in New Contemporaries show and in a group show at Kettles Yard Gallery in Cambridge.
In 1990, in liaison with Hirst, his friend Carl Freedman, along with Billee Sellman, curated two influential "warehouse" shows, Modern Medicine and Gambler, in a Bermondsey former factory they designated "Building One". Saatchi arrived at the second show in a green Rolls Royce and, according to Freedman, stood open-mouthed with astonishment in front of (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal" installation, A Thousand Years, consisting of a large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head.
Hirst first gained general public notoriety that same year when one of his works was featured as a send-up in a British tabloid newspaper.
In 1991 his first solo exhibition, In and Out of Love, was held at the Woodstock Street Gallery in London; The Serpentine Gallery presented the first survey of the new generation of artists with the exhibition Broken English, in part curated by Hirst.
At this time Hirst met the up and coming art dealer Jay Jopling who has continued to represent him.
"Saatchi years" 1991–2003
Saatchi had offered to fund whatever artwork Hirst wanted to make, and the result was showcased in 1992 in the first Young British Artists exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in North London. Hirst's work was titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and was a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine. As a result of the show, Hirst was nominated for that year's Turner Prize, but it was awarded to Grenville Davey.
In 1993, Hirst's first major international presentation was in the Venice Biennale with the work, Mother and Child Divided, a cow and a calf cut into sections and exhibited in a series of separate vitrines.
In 1994, Hirst curated the show, Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away, at the Serpentine Gallery in London, where he exhibited Away from the Flock (a sheep in a tank). In May, a disgruntled artist poured black ink into it, and was subsequently prosecuted, at Hirst's wish.
In 1995, Hirst won the Turner Prize.
In 1996, No Sense of Absolute Corruption, his first solo show in the Gagosian Gallery in New York was staged. In London the short film, Hanging Around, was shown—written and directed by Hirst and starring Eddie Izzard.
In 1997 the Sensation exhibition opened at the Royal Academy in London. A Thousand Years and other works by Hirst were included, but the main controversy occurred over other artists' works.
in 1998, his critically-acclaimed autobiography/art book, I Want To Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, was published.
Hirst also painted a simple colour pattern for the Beagle 2 probe.
In 1999, he turned down the British Council's invitation to be Britain's representative at the Venice Biennale because "it didn't feel right".
In 2000, Hirst's sculpture Hymn (which Saatchi had bought for a reported £1m) was given pole position at the show Ant Noises (an anagram of "sensation") in the Saatchi Gallery. Hirst was then sued himself for breach of copyright over this sculpture, which was a 20ft six ton enlargement of his son Connor's 14" Young Scientist Anatomy Set designed by Norman Emms, 10,000 of which are sold a year by Hull-based toy manufacturer Humbrol for £14.99 each. Hirst paid an undisclosed sum to two charities, Children Nationwide and the Toy Trust in an out-of-court settlement. Hirst sold three more copies of his sculpture for similar amounts to the first.
In September 2000, in New York, Larry Gagosian held the Hirst show, Damien Hirst: Models, Methods, Approaches, Assumptions, Results and Findings.
On September 10, 2002, on the eve of the first anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, Hirst said in an interview with BBC News Online:
The thing about 9/11 is that it's kind of like an artwork in its own right ...In April 2003, the Saatchi Gallery opened at new premises in County Hall, London, with a show that included a Hirst retrospective. Hirst disassociated himself from the retrospective to the extent of not including it in his CV. The show also scuppered a prospective Hirst retrospective at Tate Modern.
In September 2003 he had an exhibition Romance in the Age of Uncertainty at Jay Jopling's White Cube gallery in London, which made him a reported £11m, bringing his wealth to over £35m. In Hirst's version the collecting box is shown broken open and is empty.
Charity was exhibited in the centre of Hoxton Square, in front of the White Cube.
At this time Hirst bought back 12 works from Saatchi (a third of Saatchi's holdings of Hirst's early works), via Jay Jopling, for a total fee reported to exceed £8m. Hirst had sold these pieces to Saatchi in the early 1990s for a considerably smaller sum, his first installations costing less than £10,000.
Post-Saatchi, 2004–
On May 24, 2004, a fire in the Momart storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including 17 of Hirst's, although the sculpture Charity survived, as it was outside in the builder's yard.
In July 2004 Hirst commented about Saatchi, "I respect Charles.
In late 2004, Hirst designed a cover for the Band Aid 20 charity single featuring the "Grim Reaper" with an African child perched on his knee.
In December 2004, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was sold by Saatchi to American collector Steve Cohen, for $12 million (£6.5 million), in a deal negotiated by Hirst's New York agent, Gagosian. This is the most expensive work by a living artist ever sold, with the exception of some early work by Jasper Johns.
In March 2005, Hirst exhibited 30 paintings at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. They were closely based on photos, mostly by assistants (who were rotated between paintings) but with a final finish by Hirst.
In February 2006, Hirst opened a major show in Mexico, at the Hilario Galguera Gallery, called The Death of God, Towards a Better Understanding of Life without God aboard The Ship Of Fools. The exhibition attracted considerable media coverage as Hirst's first show in Latin America.
Work philosophy
Although Hirst participated physically in the making of early works, he has always needed assistants (Carl Freedman helped with the first vitrines), and now the volume of work produced necessitates a "factory" setup, akin to Andy Warhol's or a Renaissance studio. This has led to questions about authenticity, as was highlighted in 1997, when a spin painting that Hirst said was a "forgery" appeared at sale, although he had previously said that he often had nothing to do with the creation of these pieces.
Hirst said that he only painted five spot paintings himself because, "I couldn't be fucking arsed doing it"; Hirst told her to, "'make one of your own.' And she said, 'No, I want one of yours.' But the only difference, between one painted by her and one of mine, is the money.'" By February 1999, two assistants had painted 300 spot paintings.
Hirst sees the real creative act as being the conception, not the execution, and that, as the progenitor of the idea, he is therefore the artist:
"Art goes on in your head," he says. "If you said something interesting, that might be a title for a work of art and I'd write it down.Hirst is also known to volunteer repair work on his projects after a client has made a purchase.
Critical response
For
Hirst has been praised in recognition of his celebrity and the way this has galvanised interest in the arts, raising the profile of British art and helping to (re)create the image of "Cool Britannia". Andres Serrano is also known for shocking work and understands that contemporary fame does not necessarily equate to lasting fame, but backs Hirst: "Damien is very clever ... Because Damien Hirst has been built up as a very important figure, there are plenty of sceptics ready to put the knife in." Despite Hirst's insults to him, Saatchi remains a staunch supporter, labelling Hirst a genius and stating:
| Every artist other than Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Damien Hirst will be a footnote. |
Against
There has been equally vehement opposition to Hirst's work. The Evening Standard art critic, Brian Sewell, said simply, "I don't think of it as art ...
| The fact that Hirst's work does mirror society is not its strength but its weakness - and the reason it is guaranteed to decline artistically (and financially) as current social modes become outmoded. What Hirst has insightfully observed of his spin-paintings in Life and Death and Damien Hirst is the only comment that needs to be made of his entire oeuvre: "They're bright and they're zany - but there's fuck all there at the end of the day." |
In 2003, under the title A Dead Shark Isn't Art, the (now defunct) Stuckism International gallery exhibited a shark which had first been put on public display two years before Hirst's by Eddie Saunders in his Shoreditch shop, JD Electrical Supplies. The Stuckists asked if Saunders was "an undiscovered artist of genius, who got there first" and "Did Hirst ever see this shark on display or was he ever told about it before he decided to display his own shark? Was this actually the original of the Hirst shark?"
Restaurant ventures
Hirst had a short-lived partnership with chef Marco Pierre White in the restaurant Quo Vadis.
Hirst's best known restaurant involvement was Pharmacy, located in Notting Hill, London, which closed in September 2003. Although one of the owners, Hirst had only leased his art work to the restaurant, so he was able to retrieve and sell it at a Sotheby's auction, earning over £11 million.
Hirst opened and currently helps to run a seafood restaurant, 11 The Quay, in the seaside town of Ilfracombe in the UK.
Artworks
His works include:
In and Out of Love (1991), an installation of potted plants, caterpillars and monochrome canvases painted with sugar solution and glue. Amonium Biborate (1993) Away from the Flock (1994), composed of a dead sheep in a glass tank of formaldehyde. Arachidic Acid (1994) an early example of Hirst's spot paintings. This painting, which is a part of a group of others which were made in Mexico, are believed to be "the beginning of Hirst's Mexican period". Hirst, Damien and Burn, Gordon (2001). Faber ^ The Guardian October 6, 2001 Retrieved March 19, 2006 ^ "Hirst Pays up in Toy Row" on BBC site Retrieved March 19, 2006 ^ "Charles Saatchi Could Have Bought Four Davids for the Price of Tracey Emin's Bed" The Daily Telegraph, January 7, 2006 Retrieved March 20, 2006 ^ Transcript of Hirst's 9/11 comments Retrieved March 26, 2006 ^ "Hirst apologies for 11 Sept Comments" BBC website Retrieved March 26, 2006 ^ "Hirst Buys His Art back from Saatchi", The Guardian, November 27, 2003 Retrieved March 20, 2006 ^ "Holy Cow! Hirst Turns to Religion" The Daily Telegraph, September 9, 2003 Retrieved March 20, 2006 ^ "Damien Bares His Soul" The Daily Telegraph September 10, 2003 Retrieved March 20, 2006 ^ Larry Gagosian website ^ Hugo Swire web site Retrieved February 18, 2006 ^ Science Photo Library press release, March 15, 2005 Retrieved March 20, 2006 ^ "Avoiding the sharks" Guardian Unlimited, February 14, 1999 Retrieved March 20, 2006 ^ For Hirst, Channel 4 Retrieved March 19, 2006 ^ The Independent on Sunday March 12, 2005 Retrieved March 19, 2006 ^ Art Newspaper interview on Saatchi Gallery site Retrieved March 19, 2006 ^ Against Hirst, Channel 4 Retrieved March 19, 2006 ^ Stuckist anti-Britart manifesto, August 4, 1999 Retrieved March 20, 2006 ^ The Times, April 10, 2003 quoted on stuckism.com Retrieved April 5, 2006 ^ "A Dead Shark Isn't Art" on the Stuckism International web site Retrieved March 20, 2006 ^ Laplaca on artnet.com
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