Friday 19 February 2021

End of a Century

 
Myth Explored, Explained, Exploded, 1993
 

This survey of Damien Hirst's early works from his own archive proved to be really fascinating. His earliest works, found-object collages owing a debt to Schwitters, are a real revelation which gives clues as to how his oeuvre would develop. This exhibition (seen between lockdowns), is like a greatest hits show that charts the developments of the themes and ideas that would lead him to being the most successful British artists of his generation. Surprisingly most of the works here failed to sell at early exhibitions of his work, and are not for sale here either. There is much death here. The spectre of the Grim Reaper pervades nearly all works whether it be the carcasses of animals (sure to enrage animal rights activists), the notorious picture of Hirst with the severed head of a corpse in a mortuary, or death implied, in the endless vitrines of life-sustaining pills and medicines. Much of this early work retains its shock value. The freezer full of severed, skinned cows' heads seems both gruesome and gratuitous, A Hundred Years, situated at the end of the exhibition, is the masterpiece in which maggots hatch then feast on a decapitated cow's head only to die as flies littering the floor of the vitrines' chambers having flown into an Insect-o-cutor suspended above. A Hundred Years holds a macabre fascination which haunts the viewer long after they have left the exhibition. Although Hirst is not really a painter in the grand tradition of art and his hero Francis Bacon, the presence of the early Butterfly, Spin and Spot paintings, is really welcome, and provides a much needed addition of the human touch, and injection of colour in this exhibition. They alleviate the presence of the numerous cold, sterile, clinical vitrines of medical equipment. In a year that has seen the COVID-19 virus claim countless lives worldwide though, certain Hirst vitrine works here seem prescient. Waster, created in 1997, another large vitrine full of what looks like used PPE and disposable medical equipment, certainly with the luxury of hindsight, seems to comment on the crisis of this years' pandemic, the importance of the role of key workers in the NHS, and their battle with the government to get vital PPE to enable them to successfully protect themselves from the virus and do their jobs. Like or loathe Hirst and his art this is a really important exhibition. He has played the art world at its own game, creating a mythology around both himself and his work, iconic commodities that collectors and the art market adore.

 

 
Problems
 
 
Clear Solutions to 20th Century Problems
 
AAT Media Supplement
 
Untitled I
 
Naked
 
Two Similar Swimming Forms in Endless Motion (Broken), 1993
 

Hymn, 1999-2005
 
Butcher's Shop, 1994
 
Our Love, 1999
 
Our Love, 1999 (detail)
 
Untitled, 1996
 
Untitled, (detail) 1996
 
What Goes Up Must Come Down, 1994
 
Flower Arranging, 1995
 
 
Beautiful, childish, expressive, tasteless, not art, over simplistic, throw away, kids’ stuff, lacking in integrity, rotating, nothing but visual candy, celebrating, sensational, inarguably beautiful painting (for over the sofa), 1996
 
Beautiful, Sunlight on Flowers, Lily, Tulip, Sunflower, Roses and Daffodils and to Sell This of Course, Gardens of Love in a Whirlwind Painting, 1995
 
Up, Up and Away, 1997
 
Waster, 1997

Waster, (detail), 1997
 
Head Out, 1993
 
Prototype for Infinity, 1998
 
Prototype for Infinity, (detail), 1998
 
Untitled (Double Canvas), 1988
 
A Hundred Years, 1990
 
A Hundred Years, 1990 (detail)

7 Pans, 1984
 
Spot Painting, 1986
 
Chicken, 1993
 
Boxes, 1988
 
Monkey Toothbrush, 1986
 
Self Portrait 3, 1987 
 


 
 
 
End of a Century
until 7th March 2021
Newport Street Gallery
Newport Street
London
 
(Please note that viewing hours for this exhibition have ended temporarily in light of the ongoing Tier 4 level lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic).
 

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