Damien: The Omen

Damien Hirst, 'Expanded From Small Red Wheel', Assembled Painted Wood, Found Materials & Objects,  1985-86

It’s very easy to be cynical about Damien Hirst.  Let’s face it – he gives us plenty of reason.  When the Y.B.A.s claimed their place in the cultural limelight, in the late 1980s and 1990s, it was facilitated, in no short measure, by Hirst’s marketing instincts and talent for P.R.  In the years since, he’s become synonymous with the kind of A-list, Art-celebrity that normally implies the production (by others) of increasingly bombastic Art statements.  It’s easy to assume that his main function is to fulfill the voracious demands of a global market, whilst yielding diminishing creative returns.

Hirst’s leveraging of the Art market has - I suppose, shone some kind of searchlight on the ludicrous obscenity of the whole situation.  But it’s not been without making himself fabulously wealthy in the process.  Let’s not forget that this is the guy who actually distorted the global diamond market whilst creating history's most expensive memento mori, and the ultimate luxury art-object, in 2007’s ‘For The Love Of God’.

Damien Hirst, 'For The Love Of God', Platinum, Diamonds & Human Teeth, 2007

There are definitely lessons (both positive and negative), to be learned from Hirst’s example.  He’s surely no more or less pernicious a figure than other huckster-showmen, like Warhol or Koons.  And it may actually be true that most of the big names from Art History were really just those most adept at putting themselves in the spotlight, following the money, and playing the angles.  I guess I’m just a bit too suspicious (or naively idealistic) to completely buy all that ironic detachment and bland amorality, from figures so blatantly benefitting from the status quo.  It is, of course – a reason why I’m sure I'll never be rich or famous myself.

Damien Hirst, 'Mother & Child Divided' (Detail),  Preserved Dead Calf (Sectioned) in Vitrine, 1993

That said, I do believe in giving credit where it’s due.  None of us are perfect.  A  holier-than-thou attitude can be its own kind of pose - and plenty of meaningful artistic statements were still authored by some pretty compromised individuals.  I would personally include the preserved results of Hirst’s early chainsaw-butchery activities in that category.  He’s not the first to have incorporated carnage into his process.  But of all his work, they perhaps feel the least like someone else’s re-packaged idea, and emit a genuine resonance beyond mere shock value [1.].

Damien Hirst, 'Lancet', Assembled, Wood, Found Materials & Objects,  1983 -85

Anyway, I was interested to read a recent Guardian article [2.], in which Hirst detailed the early creative breakthrough that set him on the path towards everything that followed.  Such insights into an Artist’s origins are generally of interest to me, and often prove revealing.  Amusingly, this one reinforces (quite literally) Hirst’s status as an opportunist thief.  However, it also demonstrates considerable empathy, and that the impulse that triggered his actions, and the resulting body of work - were essentially altruistic.  There may be a tinge of implied prurience about his account, but also no little self-awareness and reflection on ‘the human condition’.  The Robert Rauschenberg connection also interests me - as does Hirst’s recognition that he will always be more of a collagist than a painter (something I can definitely identify with).  Perhaps most importantly (and highly derivative of more than one other artist 's work - though it is) I really rather like the ‘found’ assemblage piece reproduced with the article [Top].





[1.]:  On encountering Hirst's 'Mother And Child Divided' (a piece which literally allows you to pass through the bodies of sectioned livestock) - my overriding reaction was, "this is an unique Art experience, unlike any other I've had".

[2.]:  Damien Hirst,  'Damien Hirst On His Greatest Career Move - Breaking Into His Neighbour's Home', The Guardian, Thursday 1 February 2018.  The article is itself an extract from a podcast, 'The Start', which can be heard here.