A major retrospective of history’s most highly paid artist is currently taking place in Doha, Qatar. Damien Hirst, who belongs to the Young British Artists collective, shot to international stardom when Charles Saatchi bought his iconic tiger shark in formaldehyde, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.
Foto:A de A. Leviathan.
Hirst’s recurring theme is death. His passion for life makes him unable to think about death - he confronts it in the only way he can. “Death is an unacceptable idea - the only way to deal with it is with indifference, or with entertainment.”
Foto:A de A. Black Sun. Sol negro de moscas.
This first work of his, which led to his sudden fame, has its origin in an experience he had in which he was walking through a morgue, where a friend of his who was working there let him attend his anatomy course that he was teaching. The shark, together with his dissected cows and lambs in formaldehyde, are part of a series he calls “Natural History”.
Foto Alejandra de Argos.
I see Hirst as representing the times we live in. His pictorial technique is not quite at the same level of his ideas, which can be seen in his sculptures and which carry a conceptual baggage that is completely in harmony with his thoughts, obsessions and explorations: art, love, life and death. We look at contemporary art because we need to understand what is happening around us, the common denominators being acceleration and lack of time. And art is the great reflector of this in society. Damien Hirst is an explosive cocktail of conceptualism, th art market, sensationalism, irreverance and humor. A fine artist whose works have become icons of contemporary art.
Foto:A de Argos. Loving in a World of Desire.
The History of Pain, in which a beachball is suspended over a number of sharp knives, describes the possibility of collapse and catastrophe. A metaphor for life. We are the beachball, God is the air that supports us and the knives symbolize death...
One of Hirst's most widely-recognized works is his Spot Painting series. This consists of a series of polka dots of the same size but different colour, to which he has assigned the names of narcotic or pharmaceutical substances. Yayoi Kusama’s Spot Paintings spring to mind, although I find Hirst’s work somewhat more harmonious.
The first ones to be produced were painted by Hirst himself, after which thousands of them were produced without his personal intervention. Personally, I find this second phase of production mechanical and want of interest.
Another well-known series of his are the Spin Paintings, made with paints thrown over a potter’s wheel, which remind me of my childhood spent in playgrounds… These works are given such titles as Beautiful, childish, expressive or Beautiful, amore, gasp, eyes going into…
Foto: Alejandra de Argos. Spin Painting.
I personally prefer the works created with dried butterflies. The series of works on butterflies encapsulates all the essence of Hirst: art and beauty, life and death. The death of the worm and its subsequent transformation into a butterfly, the age-old symbol of the soul. Religion, soul, morality and spirituality are all present in his work. One is reminded of the Cathedral’s rose windows and stained glass, named after the psalms.
Foto:A de A. Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven
The Medicine Cabinets are another representation of Damien Hirst’s philosophical preoccupations. This is an artist who has found himself deep in drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and who sees art as a cure. The Cabinets are indeed full of medicines, whose sole purpose is to cure.
“You can only cure people, but in the end they will die anyway”...
And his cabinets in iron containing surgical equipment remind us also of the fragility of the human body. Personally, I find these works as cold as the material they are made of.
Foto:A de A. Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (1991)
This window with fish in formaldehyde is one of his first works, in which the rigorous scientific order being represented works in contrast to a sense of life's temporality and impermanence.
Foto:A de A. Cigarette Cabinet.
Francis Bacon has always exerted a strong influence on Damien Hirst’s art. In The Pursuit of Oblivion, Damien re-envisions Bacon’s Painting (1946) in three dimensions, transforming it into something completely different.
ALRIWAG DOHA, in front of the Museum of Islamic Art. Damien Hirst RELICS Exhibition. From October 10, 2013 to January 22, 2014.
