Damien Hirst
(1965 - ) |
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His infamous tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde shown at the Saatchi Gallery Art Work
| Name: |
Damien Hirst |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Bristol, England |
| Nationality: |
English |
| Birth: |
1965 |
| Death: |
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| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
His infamous tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde shown at the Saatchi Gallery |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
Conceptual art, installation art, painting |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
Conceptual Art
Installation Artist |
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Biography
Hirst is an English artist and the most prominent member of the group known as "Young British Artists" (or YBAs), who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reputed to be the richest living artist to date. Death is a central theme in Hirst's works. He became famous for a series in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep and a cow) are preserved sometimes having been dissected in formaldehyde. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a 14-foot (4.3 m) tiger shark immersed in formaldehyde in a vitrine became the iconic work of British art in the 1990s, and the symbol of Britart worldwide. Its sale in 2004 made him the world's second most expensive living artist after Jasper Johns whom he surpassed in 2008. In June 2007, Hirst overtook Jasper Johns when his Lullaby Spring sold for 9.65 million pounds at Sotheby's in London. On 30 August 2007, Hirst outdid his previous sale of Lullaby Spring with For the Love of God which sold for 50 million pounds to an unknown investment group. He is also known for "spin paintings," made on a spinning circular surface, and "spot paintings," which are rows of randomly-colored circles.
In September 2008, he took an unprecedented move for a living artist by selling a complete show, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby's by auction and by-passing his long-standing galleries. The auction exceeded all predictions, raising 111 million pounds ($198 million), breaking the record for a one-artist auction as well as Hirst's own record with 10.3 million pounds for The Golden Calf, an animal with 18-carat gold horns and hooves, preserved in formaldehyde.
In July 1988 in his second year at Goldsmiths College, Hirst was the main organizer of an independent student exhibition, Freeze, in a disused London Port Authority administrative block in London's Docklands. He gained sponsorship from the London Docklands Development Corporation. The show was visited by Charles Saatchi, Norman Rosenthal and (Sir) Nicholas Serota, thanks to the influence of his Goldsmiths' lecturer Michael Craig-Martin. Hirst's own contribution to the show consisted of a cluster of cardboard boxes painted with household paint. After graduating, Hirst was included in New Contemporaries show and in a group show at Kettles Yard Gallery in Cambridge. Seeking a gallery dealer, he first approached Karsten Schubert, but was turned down.
In 1990 Hirst, along with his friend Carl Freedman and Billee Sellman, curated two enterprising "warehouse" shows, Modern Medicine and Gambler, in a Bermondsey former Peek Freans biscuit factory they designated "Building One". Saatchi arrived at the second show in a green Rolls Royce and, according to Freedman, stood open-mouthed with astonishment in front of (and then bought) Hirst's first major "animal" installation, A Thousand Years, consisting of a large glass case containing maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head. They also staged Michael Landy's Market. At this time, Hirst said, "I can't wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say 'f off'. But after a while you can get away with things."
In 1991 his first solo exhibition, organized by Tamara Chodzko - Dial, In and Out of Love, was held in an unused shop on Woodstock Street in central London; he also had solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Emmanuel Perrotin Gallery in Paris. The Serpentine Gallery presented the first survey of the new generation of artists with the exhibition Broken English, in part curated by Hirst. At this time Hirst met the up-and-coming art dealer, Jay Jopling, who then represented him.
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Samples of Work
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