.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
‘Hirst is essentially a romantic artist, amazed by the sweep of life, from its grandest themes to its grittiest detail ... His work is essentially life-affirming, even at its most chilling moments’
(R. Shone, ‘Damien Hirst: A Power to Amaze’, in Damien Hirst: Pictures from the Saatchi Gallery, London 2002, p. 85).
‘The death of an insect … still has this really optimistic beauty of a wonderful thing’
(D. Hirst, quoted in M. D’Argenzio, ‘A Different Kind of Love: Damien Hirst Interviewed’, in Damien Hirst: The Agony and the Ecstasy, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004, p. 83).
‘The way the real butterfly can destroy the ideal (birthday-card) kind of love; the symbol exists apart from the real thing’
(D. Hirst, I want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London 2005, p. 118).
Originally acquired by the Saatchi Collection from Marco Pierre White, and reproduced on T-shirts for the gallery when it opened its second space at County Hall, Untitled is the first heart-shaped butterfly painting the artist ever produced. It was Charles Saatchi who commissioned the now legendary sculpture The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and built the world’s first great collection of Damien Hirst works, incorporating masterpieces such as A Thousand Years, Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same direction for the purpose of Understanding alongside some of the earliest medicine cabinets, spot paintings and the first great outdoor sculpture, Hymn.
Executed in 1996, Untitled was made soon after Hirst began his now-iconic series of butterfly paintings. With its delicate winged creatures flayed against a flawless candy-coloured backdrop, the work is both disarming and entrancing: a scene of carnage transformed into a vision of hope and beauty. Tiny iridescent forms are ensnared upon its immaculate pink surface, shimmering in a glowing heart-shaped tomb. Within the pantheon of Hirst’s oeuvre, the butterfly paintings are among the artist’s most arresting meditations on mortality, extending the concerns of his formaldehyde vitrines, medicine cabinets and dark, encrusted fly paintings. The sentimental fantasy of the work’s exterior belies the hard-hitting reality of its existential commentary: indeed, Hirst himself has commented on ‘[t]he way the real butterfly can destroy the ideal (birthday-card) kind of love; the symbol exists apart from the real thing’ (D. Hirst, I want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London 2005, p. 118). Functioning as powerful memento mori, Untitled testifies to Hirst’s belief in art’s ability to capture the entropic, and to transform it into a profound affirmation of life.
Butterflies have been an important medium for Hirst since the earliest stages of his career: carefully bred in his Brixton bedroom, they first appeared in his now legendary installation In and Out of Love in 1991. For the exhibition, the artist transformed the interior of a London gallery space into an exotic habitat, with monochromatic paintings hung throughout. As the artist explains, ‘I had white painting with shelves on and the paintings had live pupae for butterflies glued on them. The pupae hatched fromthe paintings and flew around, so it was like an environment for butterflies … Then downstairs I had another table which had ashtrays on it and canvases with dead butterflies stuck in the paint. There were four boxes with holes in … which were supposed to look like boxes that the butterflies came from there and died in the paint’ (D. Hirst, quoted in M. D’Argenzio, ‘A Different Kind of Love: Damien Hirst Interviewed’, in Damien Hirst: The Agony and the Ecstasy, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004, pp. 74-77). The Butterfly paintings evolved directly from this landmark work, and are underpinned by a darkly comedic thread typical of the artist. Recalling the installation, Hirst describes how ‘I [wanted] it to look like an artist’s studio where he had had coloured canvases wet and the butterflies had landed in them. I remember painting something white once and flies landing on it, thinking “Fuck!” but then thinking it was funny. This idea of an artist trying to make a monochromeand being fucked up by flies landing in the paint or something like that … The death of an insect that still has this really optimistic beauty of a wonderful thing’ (D. Hirst, quoted in M. D’Argenzio, ‘A Different Kind of Love: Damien Hirst Interviewed’, in Damien Hirst: The Agony and the Ecstasy, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004, p. 83).
Hirst’s art has long explored the human fascination with immortality, and the desire to prolong life is perversely reflected in his Butterfly paintings. On the one hand, the butterfly’s death is all too apparent, its wings painted down onto the canvas; on the other, these insects remain as beautiful and bewitching as when they were alive. ‘Caressed by the inert and omnivorous body of painting’, writes Mario Codognato, ‘the butterflies, like the animals in formaldehyde, maintain their vital and pulsating aspect, even in the stasis of death, prolonging and transferring their final movement in the stasis of representation, and celebrating, simultaneously, their grandeur and their impotence’ (M. Codognato, ‘Warning Labels’, in Damien Hirst: The Agony and the Ecstasy, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004, p. 41). In this way, the butterflies become radiant and ultimately uplifting metaphors for the mortal condition of humanity. As Richard Shone has written, ‘[Hirst’s] work is essentially life-affirming, even at its most chilling moments’ (R. Shone, ‘Damien Hirst: A Power to Amaze’, in Damien Hirst: Pictures from the Saatchi Gallery, London 2002, p. 85).
(R. Shone, ‘Damien Hirst: A Power to Amaze’, in Damien Hirst: Pictures from the Saatchi Gallery, London 2002, p. 85).
‘The death of an insect … still has this really optimistic beauty of a wonderful thing’
(D. Hirst, quoted in M. D’Argenzio, ‘A Different Kind of Love: Damien Hirst Interviewed’, in Damien Hirst: The Agony and the Ecstasy, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004, p. 83).
‘The way the real butterfly can destroy the ideal (birthday-card) kind of love; the symbol exists apart from the real thing’
(D. Hirst, I want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London 2005, p. 118).
Originally acquired by the Saatchi Collection from Marco Pierre White, and reproduced on T-shirts for the gallery when it opened its second space at County Hall, Untitled is the first heart-shaped butterfly painting the artist ever produced. It was Charles Saatchi who commissioned the now legendary sculpture The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and built the world’s first great collection of Damien Hirst works, incorporating masterpieces such as A Thousand Years, Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same direction for the purpose of Understanding alongside some of the earliest medicine cabinets, spot paintings and the first great outdoor sculpture, Hymn.
Executed in 1996, Untitled was made soon after Hirst began his now-iconic series of butterfly paintings. With its delicate winged creatures flayed against a flawless candy-coloured backdrop, the work is both disarming and entrancing: a scene of carnage transformed into a vision of hope and beauty. Tiny iridescent forms are ensnared upon its immaculate pink surface, shimmering in a glowing heart-shaped tomb. Within the pantheon of Hirst’s oeuvre, the butterfly paintings are among the artist’s most arresting meditations on mortality, extending the concerns of his formaldehyde vitrines, medicine cabinets and dark, encrusted fly paintings. The sentimental fantasy of the work’s exterior belies the hard-hitting reality of its existential commentary: indeed, Hirst himself has commented on ‘[t]he way the real butterfly can destroy the ideal (birthday-card) kind of love; the symbol exists apart from the real thing’ (D. Hirst, I want to Spend the Rest of My Life Everywhere, with Everyone, One to One, Always, Forever, Now, London 2005, p. 118). Functioning as powerful memento mori, Untitled testifies to Hirst’s belief in art’s ability to capture the entropic, and to transform it into a profound affirmation of life.
Butterflies have been an important medium for Hirst since the earliest stages of his career: carefully bred in his Brixton bedroom, they first appeared in his now legendary installation In and Out of Love in 1991. For the exhibition, the artist transformed the interior of a London gallery space into an exotic habitat, with monochromatic paintings hung throughout. As the artist explains, ‘I had white painting with shelves on and the paintings had live pupae for butterflies glued on them. The pupae hatched fromthe paintings and flew around, so it was like an environment for butterflies … Then downstairs I had another table which had ashtrays on it and canvases with dead butterflies stuck in the paint. There were four boxes with holes in … which were supposed to look like boxes that the butterflies came from there and died in the paint’ (D. Hirst, quoted in M. D’Argenzio, ‘A Different Kind of Love: Damien Hirst Interviewed’, in Damien Hirst: The Agony and the Ecstasy, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004, pp. 74-77). The Butterfly paintings evolved directly from this landmark work, and are underpinned by a darkly comedic thread typical of the artist. Recalling the installation, Hirst describes how ‘I [wanted] it to look like an artist’s studio where he had had coloured canvases wet and the butterflies had landed in them. I remember painting something white once and flies landing on it, thinking “Fuck!” but then thinking it was funny. This idea of an artist trying to make a monochromeand being fucked up by flies landing in the paint or something like that … The death of an insect that still has this really optimistic beauty of a wonderful thing’ (D. Hirst, quoted in M. D’Argenzio, ‘A Different Kind of Love: Damien Hirst Interviewed’, in Damien Hirst: The Agony and the Ecstasy, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004, p. 83).
Hirst’s art has long explored the human fascination with immortality, and the desire to prolong life is perversely reflected in his Butterfly paintings. On the one hand, the butterfly’s death is all too apparent, its wings painted down onto the canvas; on the other, these insects remain as beautiful and bewitching as when they were alive. ‘Caressed by the inert and omnivorous body of painting’, writes Mario Codognato, ‘the butterflies, like the animals in formaldehyde, maintain their vital and pulsating aspect, even in the stasis of death, prolonging and transferring their final movement in the stasis of representation, and celebrating, simultaneously, their grandeur and their impotence’ (M. Codognato, ‘Warning Labels’, in Damien Hirst: The Agony and the Ecstasy, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2004, p. 41). In this way, the butterflies become radiant and ultimately uplifting metaphors for the mortal condition of humanity. As Richard Shone has written, ‘[Hirst’s] work is essentially life-affirming, even at its most chilling moments’ (R. Shone, ‘Damien Hirst: A Power to Amaze’, in Damien Hirst: Pictures from the Saatchi Gallery, London 2002, p. 85).