Retrospective Demiena Hirst in Kiev

ARTinvestment.RU – 25.04.2009,10:54

Damien HURST
thousands of years. 1990
Source: artpages.org.ua


Damien HURST
the lost sheep. 1994
Source: artchive.com


Damien HURST
Explaining death. 2007
Source: supertouchart.com

Damien Hurst : «Art - is always inventive, and we all desperately seek to invent a better future and make the lessons of the past. What I see in Ukraine because it is a normal audience, izgolodavshuyusya for all types of arts and culture, and it inspires me ».

Viktor Pinchuk : «Indeed, Requiem - is not only a conclusion but a beginning. Not only the outcome, but also hope. After a night - a day. Following the turn the page - the new. I am sure that Demien Hurst still only brings his creative force to the level which make it the top. And this Requiem opens a new chapter. New born, another Hurst ».

Today PinchukArtCentre opens exhibition in Kiev «Requiem» - the largest retrospective of art Demiena Hurst (Damien Hirst), which included over one hundred works created since the beginning of 1990 to the present day. The exhibition will be held the world premiere of a new cycle of paintings Skull paintings, created in 2006-2008. The exhibition will run until September 20, 2009.

The exhibition includes works that have become world famous, and to present a range of creative experiences Hirst. Among them are such early religious sculpture as «A thousand years» (A Thousand Years, 1990), and «the lost sheep» (Away from the Flock, 1994), and the relatively recent work of 2007 - «The gate of the kingdom of heaven» (Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven) - a monumental triptych of butterflies, and «Explaining death» (Death Explained) - cut in half shark in an aquarium with formaldehyde.

Eckhard Schneider : «All that we still know about Damien Hirst as an artist, based on the understanding that he opened his gift still in early youth, successfully combined seemingly incompatible artistic strategy and created an ideal operating system for creative production. This meant a compromise between different conceptually and emotionally brutal parts of reality that allowed the studio to exist, able to embody the idea of the artist to the smallest detail - to the last screw. Within this system, the artist left in the role of the inventor of the concept and ideas, as well as an architect who can translate even the most emotional of them hands of others. As a result, the artist is always able to control the potential conflict between the emotional and filling a formal perfection, even in critically urgent work. Hurst, like the Faust of Goethe, relies on the opportunity to learn and life, and creativity. But for this fall to pay a big price - a cynical abdication, which, however, combined with interest and empathy, as in the work of Hirst has always coexisted high emotionality and indifferent exclusion.

... In discussions with the art critic David Sylvester, Francis Bacon once thought about why the artists again and again turning to the same old story, but all has been said and done the old masters.

According to Bacon, the reason is that the instincts that guide the great masters to their tops, are passed from generation to generation. Therefore, all that remains - this is expressed more clearly, more clearly and brutal. Hurst - clearly believes Bacon one of the main starting points of their new paintings, triptychs especially - is trying to bias the calculated clear, clear and brutally show beyond the perception of intersections of lines of death ».

Michael Bracewell : «As it proved with impeccable clarity collected in" Requiem "by Demiena Hirst, the visual impact of works by this artist is felt immediately and penetrates inside. In each work the viewer is confronted with the physical representations (or her carefully polished embodiment) of beliefs, ideas, conditions and guidelines, which are the bedrock of human existence. Mortality, faith, medicine, religion, welfare, aesthetics are the main themes of Hurst. Endless relationship of basic needs of their internal communications with the individual and society are alive in the works that are as aphoristic elegance, and graphics swiftly, and outright entertainment.

... "Requiem" traces the creation Hirst from the beginning of 1990-ies of the last century until today, so the viewer immediately aware of the biblical scale of the artist designs. In his vision, at least in their studies of the unknowable eternal sleep, surrounded by my short life, Hurst is one of the most religious artists of our time, because only in the relationship of religion and science, rational and irrational, you can see that the extent of thinking, by which Hurst correlates immutable ironic realism with space, depth and majesty ».

All the multifaceted creativity Demiena Hirst - installation, sculpture, paintings and drawings - this is an attempt to destroy the boundaries between art, science and pop culture. The energy and inventiveness, it has a strong, visually exciting works by Hirst made Demiena leading artists of his generation.

Hurst examines fragility of the foundations of human existence - love, death, loyalty, treachery - through the unexpected and unconventional means. The artist best known for his works under the title «Natural History» (Natural History) - carcasses of animals in aquaria with formaldehyde, among which the cult «The physical impossibility of death in the minds of living» (The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, 1991 ) and the «Mother and child are separated» (Mother and Child Divided, 1993). His creations, he puts in another fundamental questions about the meaning of life and the fragility of existence on the biological level.

For Hirst glass display case is both a window, through which the viewer visually lured inside, and an obstacle to its minimalist design frames, holds and feeds the object. In many works of the 1990's, such as «the acquired inability to escape» (The Acquired Inability to Escape, 1991) and «asthmatic escaped» (The Asthmatic Escaped, 1992), hint at the existence of rights is passed through a conventional items, relics: clothing, cigarettes , ashtrays, tables and chairs. This hint is becoming a reality in the work of «Methods vision» (Ways of Seeing, 2000) to put in a glass container figure lab, bent over a microscope. A more famous work «Praise» (Hymn, 2000), polychrome bronze sculpture, shows the anatomical structure of muscles and viscera of human monumental scale.

Hurst is also known for his paintings. Series «Pictures butterflies» (Butterfly Paintings) presents vivid canvases with real butterflies, vkleennymi in the paint, and in «astonishing revelations» (Amazing Revelations, 2003), the artist laid out thousands of butterfly wings in the form of a religious ornament - mandala. Paintings series «Rotation» (Spin) implemented by means of rotating the canvas, and paints, which ÌØÅÔÓÑ evenly on top and under the influence of centrifugal force spreads on the surface of the canvas. Work cycle «point» (Spot) characterized by the same-sized circles, built in strict geometrical order. Recently, the artist explored photorealism paintings in the series «fact» (Fact).

Damien Hurst was born in 1965 in Bristol, United Kingdom. He now lives and works in London and Devone. A member of many group exhibitions, including Into Me/Out of Me, PS1 Contemporary Art Center (2006), New York; In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Tate Britain; 50 th Venice Biennale (2003) and Century City (2001), Tate Modern. Solo exhibitions were held in the Astrup Fearnley Museet fur Moderne Kunst (2005, Oslo), Museum of Fine Arts (2005, Boston) and the Archaeological Museum (2004, Naples), etc. In 1994, Hurst joined the DAAD in Berlin, and in 1995 awarded Turner (Turner Prize).

Source: pinchukartcentre.org