New Simultaneous Exhibition For February Announced
Damien Hirst and Larry Gagosian have announced a simultaneous exhibition celebrating his spot paintings to be held at all of the Gagosian Galleries in February 2012.
Over three hundred works from this iconic series consisting of multi-coloured spots, will be shown throughout the global network of high profile Gagosian Galleries. There are eleven Gagosian Galleries dotted around most of the major art capitals including, New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva and Hong Kong.
The shows will exhibit multiple examples of works from this series, entitled “Damien Hirst: The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011.” All will have been manufactured in his studios by his assistants who have carte blanche over which colours to use. Hirst has always maintained that he leaves it to his studio workers as they are far better at crafting his work than he is. Of course Hirst will sign each piece individually and has final approval over the work to be released for public consumption. It is not known how many spot pictures are on the market but sources have estimated over 1000.The works are all valued between £100,000 – several million. Hirst is currently working on a massive spot painting containing over 1m dots. This is going to take 10 years to complete. It is thought to be only half finished and not ready for this exhibition.
Damien Hirst was born in Bristol in 1965. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London from 1986 to 1989 and is considered by many to be the leading figure of the group known as “Young British Artists”. The YBAs are characterized by their entrepreneurial spirit, independence and their ability to manipulate the media.Hirst dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. His early career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, however over the last few years Hirst has distanced himself from this association. Hirst’s work explores the uncertainty at the core of human experience; love, life, death, loyalty and betrayal. His work has been exhibited widely,in Britain, the USA, Australia, and Europe. Work is included in many public and private collections.
He was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995
Tate Modern have announced the first substantial survey of the work of Damien Hirst which will run from 5 April – 9 September 2012. This is hardly a retrospective, given Hirst’s age. It will instead cover in-depth two decades of the artist’s output. The exhibition will highlight works including many of his most iconic pieces such as, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living 1991 (the shark) and his Spot and Spin paintings. The exhibition is sponsored by the Qatar Museums Authority and takes place during the period of the Olympics. I leave it up to you to leave your opinion at the bottom in the comments section.