Last night I was fortunate enough to attend to the Private
View of Damien Hirst’s retrospective at
London’s Tate Modern. Now I am well aware that this artist is not everyone’s
‘cup-of-tea’ but as for me, well I felt like it was the adult version of
Christmas…. Despite all of the controversy surrounding Damien Hirst this is a truly
fascinating exhibition, there are some stunningly beautiful artworks on
display, and an element of playfulness and fun as you walk through the rooms.
After propping up the bar for a glass of wine, Prano
Bailey-Bond & I embarked upon the first room where we met up with our
good friend & assistant curator of the exhibition Loren Hansi Momodu. This first room contains a selection of
Hirst’s very first exhibition artworks. These works were on display at the
warehouse exhibition ‘Freeze’ in 1988 whilst he was a student at Goldsmiths.
There is a vast ‘Spot Painting’, which is propped up against a wall, a set of
gloss painted pots & pans hanging in a row, and an amazing construction of
brightly painted boxes which fit snugly into the corner of the room. This
installation (aptly named ‘Boxes’) was apparently sold for £500, but as Hirst
was unable to make them to the client’s requirements he smashed them up. Rumour
has it that he never re-paid the £500 to the client…
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| Detail - First spot painting (1988) |
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| 'Boxes' (1988) |
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The ‘Freeze’ exhibition in 1988 may not have brought Hirst
the recognition as an artist that he was hoping for, but when you look at the
work on display in this first room there is a feeling of a ‘beginning.’ His
bold colours & conceptual style is apparent, albeit in a rather ‘studenty’
way. Hirst apparently worked tirelessly building, creating & promoting this
first warehouse show with a massive focus on getting the right people through
the door, his aim was to make people stop – even in these fledgling years he
must have realised that being an artist is not just about the art itself, it is
also about getting people to talk about you.
His fellow YBA’s apparently came out with more results than
Hirst himself, but nevertheless he continued… Refining the ‘Spot Paintings’ by
using a compass. This is what we see in the next room – a series of spot
paintings where if you look closely there is a tiny hole in the centre of the
spot – these are the works we know Hirst painted himself. There have since
been around 1400 'Spot paintings’, all painted by assistants – but then it’s
not exactly the Sistine Chapel… Michelangelo’s assistants would have had a
tougher challenge ahead of them without doubt. In this 2nd room
there are also the early medicine cabinets, with their age-defiant packaging
these artworks do not seem at all dated – a mean feat when you consider the
branding & re-branding of virtually every product available to us these
days.
The medicine cabinets were developed as a commentary on his mother’s
faith in modern medicine, but her lack of faith in modern art. Apparently
there is a pattern in the positioning of the drugs in that they correspond to
different conditions & then extend to partial organs or parts of the body.
We also see ‘A Thousand Years’ (1990) which was purchased by
Charles Saatchi. This is a glass case containing a putrid life cycle. A severed
cows head on one side, which lies below an insect-a-cutor, and a minimal white
box breeding maggots & flies on the other. The holes cut in the dividing
plexiglass screen release the stench of death to the flies and tempt them
across to their bounty, or fate. Not something I would want (or could fit) in
my living room, but a witty and shocking microcosm of a world – the sort of
thing that you would need to be brave, morbid & not afraid of getting your
hands dirty in order to create.
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| 'A Thousand Years' (1990) detail |
There are also the fish cabinets ‘Isolated elements swimming
in the same direction for the purpose of understanding’ left & right, the sheep in formaldehyde: ‘Away from the
flock’ (1994), & ‘Stimulants (and the way they affect the mind and body) (1991)
in this room.
The next real treat for me was the famous shark. Now then, we
have just been gazing at an oozing bloody cows head crawling with flies lying
on the wooden floor of the Tate Modern, it leaves me thinking that if the title
to the shark, ‘The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone
living’ (1991), was not precisely true then the entire gallery would have emptied - with
all of the visitors puking & fainting as they run for the nearest exit. So
it makes sense. It appears that it is impossible for us to see this shark as
either dead, or frightening – of which we know it is both – in this form, and
with us being alive we can only see this as an object, your mind does not allow
you to see this as anything else. This is something I want to see again.
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| 'The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living' (1991) |
Then we see more pharmaceutical cabinets containing pills
& tablets, a feat of repetition and beautiful in its simplicity &
presentation. ‘Lullaby’ apparently represents the link between the songs we
sing to send children to sleep & the effect that a sleeping pill has on an
adult – a grown up ‘Lullaby’. These cabinets are beautiful, the colours are
soft and I find them aesthetically fascinating.
Now we were lucky enough to by-pass the huge queue for the
butterfly room, although we whizzed passed ‘The acquired inability to escape’
as a result. To be honest this installation of a chair, a table & some
cigarettes pushes the boundaries a bit too much for me – it borders on taking
the p**s. Unfortunately I don’t get this, nice steel cabinet though – he could
re-use that. We also whizz past a repetition of cigarette butts called 'Dead ends die out', to be honest I have never seen cigarette butts look so beautiful.
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| 'Dead ends dry out, examined' (1993) |
And then we get closer to the butterfly room. We are in a
room with brightly coloured panels which have dead butterflies fixed to them.
On the table sit full ashtrays. This contrast of beauty and horror is the re-occurring
theme, which thread together Hirst’s work.
For his first ever solo show in 1991 Hirst transformed a
2-story commercial building into the installation ‘In and out of love’. This
has been re-created at Tate Modern. Once we exit the panelled walls we find
ourselves in a humid room full of live butterflies. The pupae are attached to
large white canvasses on the wall and as the butterflies are born they leave an
empty cocoon & a line of liquid, which runs down the canvas. Then the
insects feast on sugar and rotting fruit, getting drunk in the process, until
they meet their end. I almost wanted these 2 rooms to be the other way around
as you enter a room with an uncomfortable feeling of the creation of life, and
then you walk into a room where death is used for beauty.
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| 'In and out of love' (re-created) |
I could hear people asking each other what the difference is
between this and a butterfly farm, well there is none and I expect that
butterflies in a farm would be better taken care of – but the pupae dribble on
a canvas, that is something you wouldn’t see at a farm, is that art? It has to
be said that it is a brave move, the raggedy insects will receive external
support & I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tate have a battle on their hands
to keep this room open. But it is beautiful, bright & gentle and displays
simple contradictions – but more than anything it is a great way to get people
talking, creating controversy and making headlines – something of which Hirst
is the master…
As we exit the butterflies we find ourselves in the
‘Pharmacy’. This installation was created in 1992; again the clinical ordering
within the cabinets is a repetitive dream. The packaging has not dated, despite
it being 20 years old. There are drugs and pills available for anything &
everything, but regardless of this we are all going to die anyway ‘you can only
look after people for so long’.
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| 'In the Pharmacy' |
The ‘Spin Paintings’ are up next, they are enormous rotating
panels, covered in bright gloss paint -
in the centre of the room is a beach ball hovering over a jet of air 'Loving in a world of desire' (1996) - a bigger, better & more refined version
of the Ping-Pong ball & hairdryer installation 'What goes up must come down' (1988). This room is colourful
& playful, there is an element of the funfair in here and it seems hard to
take yourself too seriously in these surroundings…
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| Susila with a spin painting |
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| 'Loving in a world of desire' 1996 (with spin painting in background) |
The next room contains ‘Mother & child divided’. This
work to me is not pretty, the animals themselves are beautiful, but when you
stand between the two halves of the installation it appears that there is an
unborn calf in the cows womb. The inner flesh is brown & looks like fabric,
it is both amazing and unpleasant at the same time. Another controversy but by
now we have all had time to make our minds up.
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| 'Mother and child divided' (copy 2007) detail |
The super large ashtray 'Crematorium' is next, brimming with cigarette butts another reminder that death is inevitable – although I believe Hirst has given
up smoking now, I wonder if smoking is one of the CV requirements of his
helpers...?
We had to speed up then as we were dawdling, so had a brief
encounter with another shark, saw ‘Lapdancer’ (some cabinets containing
surgical instruments) & made a bee-line for the room containing the most
majestic artworks. Created using butterfly wings and dead butterflies these
incredible mandala style artworks are like fragile stained-glass windows – the
geometry and maths that have been used to create these works is apparent and
should not be overlooked. They are bright and elegant, a natural beauty
encouraged into form by a person with a vision – a lot of butterflies died to
make these works.
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| 'I am become death, shatterer of words' (2006) |
In the old days people collected dead butterflies, and they
were boxed and displayed. Here these dead insects are re-born in a way that
would have encouraged even the toughest atheist into belief in God's big house.
I could spend hours looking at these, first up-close observing the perfection of nature within a
butterflies wing, then stepping back and seeing the orchestrated perfection
forced and created by man. It is also contradictory that Hirst nods to Buddhism
through the mandala like forms in these works although the works are created by death.
Unfortunately we didn’t have time to see the diamond
encrusted skull (although I do have a print of this at home – cheers Cartrain!)
and I have to say that I feel as though I have seen this before thanks to the
press. I will need to go back to see this
in the flesh…. As we were herded passed ‘Black Sheep’ & ‘Black Sun’, we
were stopped in our tracks by ‘The Incomplete Truth’, I have never seen this
before – it was a complete surprise and I loved it! The dove is suspended in
flight in a tank of formaldehyde. The dove, a symbol of peace, a messenger of
hope, whatever…. For me it was a stunning end to the show, a beautiful image, a
gentle form taking off before your eyes.
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| 'The Incomplete truth' (2007) |
This exhibition encapsulates opposites & contradictions
– some simplistic and obvious (but then Hirst got there first), and sometimes
these contradictions dive a little deeper but I think Hirst wants you to
believe what you want from his work. I have grown up with art by Hirst and
whether you want to acknowledge it or not his work has inspired 1000's of designers
& artists across the globe. Hirst may not be able able to draw - an idiots gauge
as to whether you are good at ‘art’ - but he is outstanding at creating a storm
and a fuss.. He is clearly an excellent businessman, has incredible determination,
and has a superb ability to surround himself with the right people. I suspect
that he can be arrogant and that he sometimes borders on the nouveau riche - and it cannot be possible to
achieve what Hirst has achieved by being ‘nice’. He has bulldozed his way
through the art world & left things of beauty & shock in his wake, earning himself the label of the worlds richest living artist. One thing you
cannot deny him is – The boy from Leeds done good!
Mr Hirst - I salute you.
Susila.
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| You can't get much more Hirst than that! |
PS – on my journey to work this morning I stepped over a
cigarette butt on the pavement. Seeing it lying there instantly brought my mind
to Damien Hirst’s work. So yet again I find myself in an instance where art overrides
life - in the same way as whenever I see a UK bobby-on-the-beat I think of
Banksy….
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