Damien Hirst : For the Love of God

Damien Hirst - For the Love of God
3 Jun - 7 Jul 2007
White Cube Mason's Yard


Today the 6 of us (Rick, Emily, Julie, Nick, Saifur and myself) had the day out from work to go see Damien Hirst's new work. The major solo exhibition of new work entitled 'Beyond Belief' by the British Young superstar artist, span across the White Cube at Hoxton Sq and the spanking new White Cube at Mason's Yard. We had booked tickets 3 weeks earlier to visit the West End gallery, where three long floors were exhibiting DH's work. A quick check today, all online tickets are no longer available.

(entry ticket)

The star of the show was "a life-size cast of a human skull in platinum, covered entirely by 8.601 VVS to flawless pavé-set diamonds, weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats. It is without precedent in the history of art. On one level, he work is a traditional 'Memento Mori', an object that addresses the transcience of human existence. 'The skull is out of this world, celestial almost' writes the distinguished art hisotrian Rudi Fuchs. 'It proclaims victory over decay. At the same time,' Fuchs continues, 'it represents death as something infinitely more relentless. Compared to the tearful sadness of a vanitas scene, the diamond skull is glory itself'." (from press release)

(front view, image from White Cube website)

(side view, image from White Cube website)

I went to see it with an open mind ... and on the top floor, in a dark velvety room, the skull was in a clear case, with spotlights directed above. There were probably about 10 people allowed in each time for about 5 minutes so we all shuffled around the podium case to get a good look.

We had joked on the journey to central London – about how around this skull (which ideally, would not be in a case) is floating within a marked out area, and should anyone try to do a runner with it, that DH had already got a collection of laserbeam-sliced hands somewhere in his garage.

On some personal level the skull did not rock my world but on another it was pretty awesome looking at the glitter close up (dare we question the origin of the stones?). The running thought of diamonds being expensive carbons, the saying that a diamond is forever, and how you can now compress your departed loved one as a diamond to wear with you (eek some people really need to let go and go out more, lol) sort of makes sense ...

Being in London when the YBAs had the milestone Sensations exhibition at the Royal Academy in the 90s and over the years keeping a tab on Damien Hirst and a few other YBAs, I have deep respect for the guy (not necessarily for all his work) but undoubtedly he is a visionary artist who is obsessed with death birth life religion, with a scientific slant as well as a shrewd businessman (or has shrewd advisors).

Here I am not really going to comment just touching on what's there of his other work:

On the ground floor, my eyes were drawn to a dove in half-flight suspended in a huge display case (yeah similar to the Hallmark dove). All around hyper realist oil paintings documenting the birth of his son at the hospital. My impression: wrinkly we came wrinkly we leave.

Basement floor - the muscle man from Grey's anatomy book is a life-size silver sculpture - holding a huge pair of scissors greeted you as you walked in. Huge panels of biopsy imagery of cancer cells, with broken glass, scalpel blades and bloody pools of red layers of paint.

In the same space there were the pickled set pieces : the cross-sectioned tiger shark (didn't one of my old college mates who did Art Conservation at Camberwell note that it was already decaying rapidly way back then? I also seem to remember the shark was a whole shark from the Sensations exhibition), the black sheep, and a couple of cows cut in half but standing faced away from each other. The periodic table was on one wall. Glass cabinets displayed fishes in formaldehyde, fishes with bones intact ... you get the picture.

In a smaller room at the back a symmetrical arrangement of delicate butterfly wings on white gloss paint ... flanked by a couple smaller 'free-style' butterflies that was clumsily slapped onto the paint - perhaps to offset each other. In the middle of that room, a suspended heart with wings and a dagger through it. J noted it was a tattoo in 3d, we thought Billy would like it very much.

We had a Japanese long lunch – folded silk napkins into every party trick we could all muster as a group. As it was my old haunt, I took them up to the NPG for a coffee/tea with a nice view over Trafalgar Square. A day well-spent!