Who is Damien Hirst?
Damien Hirst (born 1965) is a contemporary artist from Bristol, England.
He is a leading figure among the Young British Artists (YBAs), a group of young contemporary artists active in the United Kingdom in the 1990s.
In 1986, he entered the Faculty of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and in 1988, he and his fellow students independently held the exhibition "Freeze" in an abandoned building, which attracted attention as a new movement in the British art world.
He is said to be the most profitable artist in the U.K., with total assets of 40 billion yen (US$384 million) in 2020, according to the Sunday Times.
His "Cherry Blossoms" exhibition in Tokyo in 2022 attracted approximately 40,000 people, indicating his high profile.
Biography of Damien Hirst
Upbringing and Education
Born in Bristol, Damien Hirst was born and raised in Leeds. His mother married his stepfather when he was two years old, but they divorced again ten years later. His stepfather was an auto mechanic.
Hearst himself was living a rough life at this time and was arrested twice for theft. The only subject in which the delinquent Hearst excelled was art, including drawing.
He later said that he was "shocked" when he saw an exhibition by Frances Davidson at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1983.
He then spent two years working on construction sites before studying fine art at Goldsmiths College from 1986-89. At the college, he was greatly influenced by the British conceptual artist Michael Craig Martin.
In addition, while still a student, he worked part time in the morgue, which is said to have greatly influenced his later views on life and death.
Organizing Freeze
In 1988, he held Freeze, an independent exhibition co-curated with his classmates. The exhibition, held in the ruins of London's harbor, was visited by prominent London gallerists Charles Saatchi and Norman Rosenthal, among others.
This was followed in 1990 by an exhibition entitled "Modern Medicine," held in a former cookie factory. When Charles Saatchi saw "A Thousand Years," one of Hirst's masterpieces presented there, he was astonished and immediately decided to purchase it on the spot. In this work, the head of a dismembered cow and a number of flies swarming around it are housed in a glass case, and a contraption that kills the flies when they stop reproduces the cycle of life and death in a narrow glass case: the cow's head is infested with maggots, the flies grow up and fly away, lay eggs, and die by the device. The cycle of life and death is reproduced in a narrow glass case.
Five of Damien Hirst's most famous works
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" (1991)
Tiger shark, glass, iron, 5% formaldehyde solution
This work consists of a tiger shark immersed in formaldehyde in a glass container.
It was reportedly commissioned and created by Charles Saatchi in 1991 and sold for $8 million in 2004. The work has been the subject of much controversy, but when it was restored to its original state and the shark itself was replaced due to decomposition, it raised the question of whether or not it can be considered the same work of art in the end. It is a very interesting work as a subject for discussion.
According to the definition of conceptual art, the idea itself can be considered a work of art, even if the substance itself has been changed.
A Thousand Years
A Thousand Years" is a rectangular glass container bisected by a glass plate with several round holes in the middle.
A severed head of a cow rests on one half, and an insect electrocution light hangs above it.
The other half is a large white cube with a single dot on every side.
The maggots released into the cage-like container eat the cow's head and metamorphose into flies, which inevitably end their lives with the electrocution light.
After hours of observing the fly, it appears to be free, but in fact its freedom is completely constrained by the staggering motion that inevitably ends. This reduction of freedom is similar to musician John Cage's concept of "Chance Operation.
Spot Painting" series (1986~)
Agaricin" (1992)
This series, one of Hirst's most famous masterpieces, is characterized by colorful circles painted at equal intervals on a white background. The circles represent pills, and each work in this series is titled with the name of a drug, such as "Agaricin" (agaricic acid). Hirst often uses drugs as a motif, which represents the human desire to resist death.
Mother and Child, Divided (1993)
Glass, stainless steel, acrylic resin, acrylic, cow, calf, formaldehyde solution
A cow and calf, cut in two, are immersed in formalin. This is one of Hirst's most famous formalin-preserved animals. Passing between the severed cows, viewers can see the internal organs of the cows. It was exhibited at the Venice Biennale and won the Turner Prize in 1995.
Pharmacy" (1997)
An installation work that opened in a restaurant in Notting Hill, England, decorated to look like a pharmacy. The human body is represented by systematically arranging the parts of the body that are affected by the medicine. The first version of this work closed in 2003, but a second version opened in 2016 in the Newport Street Gallery, which Hirst manages.
For the Love of God" (2007).
A platinum sculpture in the shape of an 18th century human skull, paved with 8,601 pure diamonds. The theme is "Memento Mori" (Think of Death). The production cost was approximately 3.3 billion yen and was priced at 50 million pounds (approximately 12 billion yen).
The Influence of Damien Hirst
Influence on the contemporary art world
Damien Hirst's works, especially his earliest formalin-preserved works, have often dealt with the life and death of living creatures, and have repeatedly provoked protests from animal rights groups and the general public. His "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" and "For the Love of God" have been criticized as imitations of other British artists.
It is true that his style is controversial and that he actually fetches high prices at auctions. Whether he will go down in art history or not, only history will know, but it is certain that his work is shaking up the definition of "art" and "contemporary art.
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