PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED EUROPEAN COLLECTION Damien Hirst Au-195m 2008 enamel paint and household gloss on canvas 76 x 92 in. (193.0 x 233.7 cm) Signed and dated “Damien Hirst 2008” on the reverse.
Provenance White Cube, London Exhibited Kiev, PinchukArtCentre, Damien Hirst Requiem, April 25 – September 20, 2009 Literature E. Schneider, Damien Hirst Requiem, London:Kiev 2009, p. 140 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay I think it is that direct communication, in true painting, that direct communication with your feelings is much closer than anything else you can get. DAMIEN HIRST (Damien Hirst 2004 taken from an interview with M. d’Argenzio, Damien Hirst Naples, 2004, p. 104) As we see in Au-195m, 2008, Damien Hirst has continually questioned our uncompromising faith in modern medicine. From his early medicine cabinets, which revealed Western society’s overwhelming dependence upon various brands and labels for medicinal satisfaction, to his glorification of pharmaceutical organization in 2000’s The Void, Hirst has made the skewering and investigation of the medicine industry a trademark subject in his work. Frequently utilizing visual seduction as a means of enticing the viewer, Hirst’s pieces unveil their subversive roots as their facades fade away. Underneath, we observe his conflicted inspirations: battles of pharmaceutical corporations, mirrors of our own addiction to anti-depressants and pain killers, and, of course, the drive for staving off the inevitable and striving for immortality. The present lot’s theoretical basis comes from Hirst’s brilliant marriage of two of humanity’s vain pursuits: our hunger for gold and our desperation for life. Tracing its roots to his original “Freeze” exhibition in 1988, Hirst takes issue with society’s near-religious faith in modern medicine as a panacea, and he has employed his various forms of artistic industry to address his concern. Au-195m, 2008 is a recent incarnation of one of Hirst’s most prolific series: the spot paintings. Each spot painting, beneath an aesthetically pleasing exterior, betrays the molecular make-up of its title, which is, in turn, a chemical either ingested or employed in modern medicine. Hirst takes as his inspiration humanity’s fascination with pure saturation of hue: “These paintings summarize and coagulate the symbology of colours—a synthesis of chromatology in the history of humanity and its universality—from religion to psychoanalysis, from alchemy to industrial marketing”(M. Codognato. “Warning Labels”, Damien Hirst Naples, p. 41). However, as if to hint at the greater arena of interest, Hirst only ever employs a single hue once on his canvas. Even in a spot painting consisting of hundreds of elemental dots, each color is unique. In doing so, Hirst begets a vision of incompletion, as he denies us our usually comforting practice of finding chromatic harmony in visual art. From a purely formal perspective, the present lot represents Hirst’s painterly reaction to an artistic conundrum; as a modern artist, Hirst has attested that he bears the anxiety of influence from his forbearers. Stylistically, he sees no easy answers for the question of originality or progression in painting itself, seeing Jackson Pollock’s work as the logical end of painterly innovation. Yet Hirst still paints from an inward desire to create: “The urge to be a painter is still there even if the process of painting is meaningless, old fashioned”(Damien Hirst 1997 from “On Dumb Painting”, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 2005, p. 246). Consequently, he has reduced his stylistic means and magnified the meaning of his content; his spot paintings are metaphors and scientific expressions. Au-195m takes its title from the elemental code for a specific isotope for gold. While stable gold has the atomic number of 79 (the number of protons in its nucleus) with a total atomic mass of 197 (the total number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus), Hirst’s subject is a rare form of naturally occurring gold, one that we do not normally find in our watches and earrings. Yet Hirst’s colorful canvas still possesses the viscera
PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED EUROPEAN COLLECTION Damien Hirst Au-195m 2008 enamel paint and household gloss on canvas 76 x 92 in. (193.0 x 233.7 cm) Signed and dated “Damien Hirst 2008” on the reverse.
Provenance White Cube, London Exhibited Kiev, PinchukArtCentre, Damien Hirst Requiem, April 25 – September 20, 2009 Literature E. Schneider, Damien Hirst Requiem, London:Kiev 2009, p. 140 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay I think it is that direct communication, in true painting, that direct communication with your feelings is much closer than anything else you can get. DAMIEN HIRST (Damien Hirst 2004 taken from an interview with M. d’Argenzio, Damien Hirst Naples, 2004, p. 104) As we see in Au-195m, 2008, Damien Hirst has continually questioned our uncompromising faith in modern medicine. From his early medicine cabinets, which revealed Western society’s overwhelming dependence upon various brands and labels for medicinal satisfaction, to his glorification of pharmaceutical organization in 2000’s The Void, Hirst has made the skewering and investigation of the medicine industry a trademark subject in his work. Frequently utilizing visual seduction as a means of enticing the viewer, Hirst’s pieces unveil their subversive roots as their facades fade away. Underneath, we observe his conflicted inspirations: battles of pharmaceutical corporations, mirrors of our own addiction to anti-depressants and pain killers, and, of course, the drive for staving off the inevitable and striving for immortality. The present lot’s theoretical basis comes from Hirst’s brilliant marriage of two of humanity’s vain pursuits: our hunger for gold and our desperation for life. Tracing its roots to his original “Freeze” exhibition in 1988, Hirst takes issue with society’s near-religious faith in modern medicine as a panacea, and he has employed his various forms of artistic industry to address his concern. Au-195m, 2008 is a recent incarnation of one of Hirst’s most prolific series: the spot paintings. Each spot painting, beneath an aesthetically pleasing exterior, betrays the molecular make-up of its title, which is, in turn, a chemical either ingested or employed in modern medicine. Hirst takes as his inspiration humanity’s fascination with pure saturation of hue: “These paintings summarize and coagulate the symbology of colours—a synthesis of chromatology in the history of humanity and its universality—from religion to psychoanalysis, from alchemy to industrial marketing”(M. Codognato. “Warning Labels”, Damien Hirst Naples, p. 41). However, as if to hint at the greater arena of interest, Hirst only ever employs a single hue once on his canvas. Even in a spot painting consisting of hundreds of elemental dots, each color is unique. In doing so, Hirst begets a vision of incompletion, as he denies us our usually comforting practice of finding chromatic harmony in visual art. From a purely formal perspective, the present lot represents Hirst’s painterly reaction to an artistic conundrum; as a modern artist, Hirst has attested that he bears the anxiety of influence from his forbearers. Stylistically, he sees no easy answers for the question of originality or progression in painting itself, seeing Jackson Pollock’s work as the logical end of painterly innovation. Yet Hirst still paints from an inward desire to create: “The urge to be a painter is still there even if the process of painting is meaningless, old fashioned”(Damien Hirst 1997 from “On Dumb Painting”, I Want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London, 2005, p. 246). Consequently, he has reduced his stylistic means and magnified the meaning of his content; his spot paintings are metaphors and scientific expressions. Au-195m takes its title from the elemental code for a specific isotope for gold. While stable gold has the atomic number of 79 (the number of protons in its nucleus) with a total atomic mass of 197 (the total number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus), Hirst’s subject is a rare form of naturally occurring gold, one that we do not normally find in our watches and earrings. Yet Hirst’s colorful canvas still possesses the viscera
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