Hirst, Damien (1965- ) - 2002 Burning Wheel (Tate Gallery, London)
Color etching; 91.0 x 71.0 cm.
The controversial painter, sculptor and installation artist Damien Hirst is one of the world's most commercially successful contemporary artists. A leading member of the postmodernist generation known as Young British artists, he first came to prominence in the 1990s for his series of dead animals preserved and floating in formaldehyde. Influenced by Francis Bacon, his most famous works of avant-garde art include A Thousand Years (1989), a glass case with maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head; The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), a tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde and For The Love of God, a platinum cast of an 18th century human skull covered in £15,000,000 worth of diamonds. Hirst is also known for his 'spin paintings,' manufactured on a rotating circular surface, and 'spot paintings,' consisting of rows of randomly-colored dots or circles.
Hirst has been praised by many for galvanizing interest in the British arts and in helping to create the image of a 'Cool Britannia'. Moreover, a large number of art professionals and experts have been quick to acknowledge his prowess in marketing works of art. Even so, his critics are no less vocal. A Daily Mail headline stated "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilizing forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all." Artist Charles Thomson of the The Stuckist Art Group wrote of Hirst's works: "They're bright and they're zany - but that's all there is at the end of the day." And in a 2008 TV documentary The Mona Lisa Curse, the respected modern art critic Robert Hughes attacked Hirst's work as 'tacky' and 'absurd' . However, despite the sceptics, Hirst continues to be a best-seller and, despite a bust-up with his erstwhile patron Charles Saatchi, the latter remains a staunch supporter of Hirst's artistic talent, commenting: "general art books dated 2105 will be as brutal about editing the late 20th century as they are about almost all other centuries. Every artist other than Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Damien Hirst will be a footnote."
Hirst, Damien (1965- ) - 2002 Burning Wheel (Tate Gallery, London)
Color etching; 91.0 x 71.0 cm.
The controversial painter, sculptor and installation artist Damien Hirst is one of the world's most commercially successful contemporary artists. A leading member of the postmodernist generation known as Young British artists, he first came to prominence in the 1990s for his series of dead animals preserved and floating in formaldehyde. Influenced by Francis Bacon, his most famous works of avant-garde art include A Thousand Years (1989), a glass case with maggots and flies feeding off a rotting cow's head; The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), a tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde and For The Love of God, a platinum cast of an 18th century human skull covered in £15,000,000 worth of diamonds. Hirst is also known for his 'spin paintings,' manufactured on a rotating circular surface, and 'spot paintings,' consisting of rows of randomly-colored dots or circles.
Hirst has been praised by many for galvanizing interest in the British arts and in helping to create the image of a 'Cool Britannia'. Moreover, a large number of art professionals and experts have been quick to acknowledge his prowess in marketing works of art. Even so, his critics are no less vocal. A Daily Mail headline stated "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilizing forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all." Artist Charles Thomson of the The Stuckist Art Group wrote of Hirst's works: "They're bright and they're zany - but that's all there is at the end of the day." And in a 2008 TV documentary The Mona Lisa Curse, the respected modern art critic Robert Hughes attacked Hirst's work as 'tacky' and 'absurd' . However, despite the sceptics, Hirst continues to be a best-seller and, despite a bust-up with his erstwhile patron Charles Saatchi, the latter remains a staunch supporter of Hirst's artistic talent, commenting: "general art books dated 2105 will be as brutal about editing the late 20th century as they are about almost all other centuries. Every artist other than Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Damien Hirst will be a footnote."