PUT ON THE SPOT
A gallery staff member stands next to ‘ Spot Painting’, 1986, during a preview of Damien Hirst’s solo exhibition titled ‘ End of a Century’ at Newport Street Gallery in London, which will feature more than 50 artworks which span Hirst’s formative years.
HIS WORK rarely fails to cause a stir. Now Damien Hirst, who was brought up in Leeds, is planning an exhibition which looks at 40 years of provocative artistry.
He is staging a solo exhibition of early works at Newport Street Gallery, London, tomorrow until March 7.
Titled End of a Century, the exhibition will feature more than 50 artworks spanning Hirst’s formative years as a student in the 1980s to becoming one of Britain’s leading contemporary artists during the 1990s.
Rarely exhibited together, the works will include some of Hirst’s most iconic series, including Natural History, Spot Paintings, Spin Paintings and Medicine Cabinets.
Throughout his career, Hirst has reflected on the complex relationships between beauty, religion, science, life and death. He has said: “Art’s about life and it can’t really be about anything else. There isn’t anything else.”
Works which have not been exhibited before include Art’s About Life, the Art World is About Money ( 1998), which depicts an auction house scene framed within a glass and steel case, Up, Up and Away ( 1997), in which three ducks are suspended in formaldehyde, Waster ( 1997), a vitrine filled with medical waste and Prototype for Infinity ( 1998), a large- scale pill cabinet. Also on show will be some of Hirst’s first collages of found objects created during the mid- 1980s.
Hirst was born in 1965 in Bristol and grew up in Leeds.
His work features in major collections including the British Museum.