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Lot Essay
The first Spot etchings Hirst made, Methamphetamine and Tetrahydrocannabinol, are impressive for their large scale and the saturated, velvety colours obtained through the aquatint process. Each of the two prints contains 162 spots, each in a different colour. Each spot measures two inches in diameter.
The printing process was extremely labour-intensive. It took three printers about three hours to ink the copper plate. The inking had to be finished within a time limit of three hours, due to the drying time of the inks. To achieve an even tint, the aquatint was applied by spraying it on to the plate. The size of the plates stretched the use of the printing press to its limits.
The beauty of the work is simple, and this, according to Hirst, is the way is has to be: “I said before that I wish I’d never said anything about The Pharmaceutical Paintings, and I still wish I hadn’t. They are what they are, perfectly dumb paintings, which feel absolutely right.” As the artist acknowledged, the different colours of the Spot paintings [or etchings] also lead to the following impression: “If you look closely at one of these paintings [or prints] a strange thing happens; because of the lack of repeated colours there is no harmony. We are used to picking out chords of the same colour and balancing them with different chords of other colours to create meaning. This can’t happen. So in every painting there is a subliminal sense of unease; the colours project so much joy it’s hard to feel it, but it’s there. The horror underlying everything. The horror than can overwhelm everything at any moment.” There is an uncanniness underlying the beauty of the colour figuration – the eye is longing in vain to find harmony in the image.
Like the products of the pharmaceutical industry, which they mimic to some extent, Hirst’s Spot prints have since come in all shapes and sizes. The connection between the name of the chemical constellation and the figuration of the coloured dots is random. The beauty of the dots is in strong contrast with the nature of the chemical substance: ‘Methamphetamine’ has been described as a drug more dangerous than crack. It was first developed in Japan in 1919 and used by troops in war to stay awake over long periods. ‘Tetrahydrocannabinol’ is the active chemical in cannabis and one of the oldest known hallucinogenic drugs. Cannabis contains approximately 60 different psychoactive chemicals called cannabinoids, of which the most important one is ‘Tetrahydrocannabinol’.
The names of the spot prints point towards another reality: behind the beauty of the appearance lies illness, addiction, intoxication and, finally, death. The discrepancy between the beauty of the prints and the malicious chemical substances that give them their name, hints at the fragility of life itself.
Publication excerpt from an essay by Charles Booth-Clibborn, in Contemporary Art in Print: The publications of Charles Booth-Clibborn and his imprint The Paragon Press, 2001-2006, pp. 314-315.
The printing process was extremely labour-intensive. It took three printers about three hours to ink the copper plate. The inking had to be finished within a time limit of three hours, due to the drying time of the inks. To achieve an even tint, the aquatint was applied by spraying it on to the plate. The size of the plates stretched the use of the printing press to its limits.
The beauty of the work is simple, and this, according to Hirst, is the way is has to be: “I said before that I wish I’d never said anything about The Pharmaceutical Paintings, and I still wish I hadn’t. They are what they are, perfectly dumb paintings, which feel absolutely right.” As the artist acknowledged, the different colours of the Spot paintings [or etchings] also lead to the following impression: “If you look closely at one of these paintings [or prints] a strange thing happens; because of the lack of repeated colours there is no harmony. We are used to picking out chords of the same colour and balancing them with different chords of other colours to create meaning. This can’t happen. So in every painting there is a subliminal sense of unease; the colours project so much joy it’s hard to feel it, but it’s there. The horror underlying everything. The horror than can overwhelm everything at any moment.” There is an uncanniness underlying the beauty of the colour figuration – the eye is longing in vain to find harmony in the image.
Like the products of the pharmaceutical industry, which they mimic to some extent, Hirst’s Spot prints have since come in all shapes and sizes. The connection between the name of the chemical constellation and the figuration of the coloured dots is random. The beauty of the dots is in strong contrast with the nature of the chemical substance: ‘Methamphetamine’ has been described as a drug more dangerous than crack. It was first developed in Japan in 1919 and used by troops in war to stay awake over long periods. ‘Tetrahydrocannabinol’ is the active chemical in cannabis and one of the oldest known hallucinogenic drugs. Cannabis contains approximately 60 different psychoactive chemicals called cannabinoids, of which the most important one is ‘Tetrahydrocannabinol’.
The names of the spot prints point towards another reality: behind the beauty of the appearance lies illness, addiction, intoxication and, finally, death. The discrepancy between the beauty of the prints and the malicious chemical substances that give them their name, hints at the fragility of life itself.
Publication excerpt from an essay by Charles Booth-Clibborn, in Contemporary Art in Print: The publications of Charles Booth-Clibborn and his imprint The Paragon Press, 2001-2006, pp. 314-315.