Damien Hirst

From Freepedia

Damien Hirst (born 7th June 1965 in Bristol) is a British artist and probably the most famous of the group that has been dubbed "Young British Artists" (or YBAs). He is best known for his Natural History series in which dead animals (such as a shark, a sheep or a cow) are preserved in formaldehyde.

Hirst has two sons, born in 1995 and in 2000; since the birth of his older son, Connor, he has spent most of his time at a farm in Devon.

Contents

Youth and early career

Hirst grew up in Leeds, studying at first at the College of Art there, although the first time he applied he was refused a place. He was to subsequently study fine arts at Goldsmith's College, University of London from 1986 to 1989 although again Goldsmiths like the leeds College of Art refused Hirst a place the first time he interviewed. In 1988 he gained attention for curating the student exhibition, Freeze, in a warehouse in East London. He curated the exhibition 'Modern Medicine' at Building One in 1990. Hirst first gained general public notoriety that same year when one of his works was featured as a prank in a British tabloid newspaper. His first solo exhibition, In and Out of Love, was held at the Woodstock Street Gallery in London in 1991.

Works

His works include:

  • The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), composed of a tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde. This piece was nominated for a Turner Prize.
  • Pharmacy (1992)
  • Amonium Biborate (1993)
  • Away from the Flock (1994), composed of a sheep in a glass tank of formaldehyde.
  • Arachidic Acid (1994) an early example of Hirst's spot paintings.
  • Hymn (1996), a gigantic anatomical model of the human body.
  • Mother and Child Divided, composed of a cow and a calf sliced in half in a glass tank of formaldehyde.
  • Two Fucking and Two Watching, which includes a rotting cow and bull. This work was banned from exhibition in New York by public health officials.
  • God, composed of a cabinet containing pharmaceutical products
  • The Virgin Mother, a massive sculpture depicting a pregnant female human, with layers removed from one side to expose the fetus, muscle and tissue layers, and skull underneath. This work is presently on display (as of September 11, 2005) in a courtyard next to the Lever House in New York City.

Career

Hirst was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1992 but lost to Grenville Davey. He won in 1995.

Hirst curated the 'Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away' exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in 1994.

In May 1994 the piece 'Away from the Flock' was vandalised while on exhibit in London by a disgruntled artist who poured black ink into the work. The sculpture was restored at a cost of £1000.

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 in 1998.

Hirst is a friend of Alex James of the band Blur, for whom he directed the video for the song Country House. In 1998, with James and the actor Keith Allen, Hirst formed the band Fat Les, a one-hit wonder with their football-themed song Vindaloo.

Hirst also painted a simple colour pattern for the Beagle 2 probe. This pattern was to be used to calibrate the probe's cameras after it had landed on Mars.

In 2000 Hirst paid an undisclosed sum to charity in an out-of-court settlement after being accused that 'Hymn' (1996) plagiarised Hull-based toy manufacturer Humbrol's 'Anatomy Man', designed by Norman Emms.

In 2003 Hirst's giant statue 'Charity' was sold for a reported £1m, the first time an individual work by a living British artist had reached this price.

In 2003 Hirst had a public rift with the collector Charles Saatchi over the display of his works as part of a fee paying exhibition. Hirst bought back a number of works from Saatchi for a total fee reported to exceed £8m. Hirst had sold these pieces to Saatchi in the early 1990s for a few hundreds of pounds.

On 24 May, 2004, a fire in a storage warehouse destroyed many works from the Saatchi collection, including, it is believed, some of Hirst's.

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. Not to the liking of the record executives, it was replaced by reindeer in the snow standing next to a child.

In December 2004 the Saatchi Collection confirmed a rumour that it had sold The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living to an American collector, for $12 million (£6.5 million), in a deal negotiated by Hirst's New York agent Larry Gagosian. It is understood that the collector, believed to be Steve Cohen - a Greenwich hedge fund manager, will donate the work to MoMA New York.

Critical response

Critical responses to Hirst's influence remain disputed. His output in a short period of five years has produced some of the icons of contemporary art; the formaldehyde vitrine icon has been much imitated and parodied in film and advertising. However Hirst himself admits that he has had serious drug and alcohol problems for much of the last ten years and much of the work done since 1995 has been argued to be repetitive and reductive. The majority of Hirst's works are made with assistants and other technical supports which some argue makes his authorship questionable. This was highlighted in 1997 when a spin painting appeared at sale that Hirst said was a 'forgery' although he had previously said that he often had nothing to do with the creation of these pieces. Hirst did manage to fashion an image of the celebrity artist uncommon in Britain, thus leading the way for artists such as Tracey Emin. It is argued though this focus on celebrity has contributed to the trivialisation of contemporary culture. His association with the collector Charles Saatchi and the dealer Jay Jopling has confirmed them with a central position of influence in the international contemporary art scene. Hirst certainly had a key role in launching the 'Cool Britannia' brand and for a time giving the visual arts a heightened profile in British public life.

Restaurant ventures

Hirst opened and currently helps run a seafood restaurant, 11 The Quay, in the seaside town of Ilfracombe in the UK. Hirst's previous restaurant, Pharmacy, located in Notting Hill, London, closed in September 2003. Cleverly Hirst had only leased his art work to the restaurant and the various art works by Hirst that were displayed there were sold by him at auction (Sotheby's) earning the artist over £11 million [1]. Prior to Pharmacy Hirst had a shortlived partnership with chef Marco Pierre White in the restaurant Quo Vadis.

See also

External links

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